“Lamborghini – At the cutting edge of design”
Publisher: Dalton Watson Fine Book
Author: Gautam Sen in collaboration with Branko Radovinovic and Kaare Byberg
Size: two bound volumes measuring 23 x 32 x 9 cm with slipcase
Pages: 784 overall
Text: English
Photographs: 1,070 in color and b/w
Price: 255 euros
Can style count more than substance? In the automotive world this is often the case, but for manufacturers such as Lamborghini the two aspects go at least hand in hand: because, as noted in the presentation of the book “Lamborghini – At the cutting edge of design” written by the expert and enthusiast of the brand Gautam Sen with the collaboration of Branko Radovinovic and Kaare Byberg, in its history the brand of the Raging Bull has produced relatively few engines (some of which have lasted a very long time) but a great variety of styles for models that in many cases have become true design icons. In short, there was a lack of a work that tackled precisely this aspect, dissecting the origin and evolution of lines that were often daring and countcurrent, breaking with the mainstream and for this very reason destined to become epoch-making.
Just how ponderous the subject is is demonstrated by the structure of the work, which is divided into two elegant bound volumes for a total of almost 800 pages where the eras, the various style centers and designers are retraced in an orderly fashion and gradually all the models, from the prototype 350 GTV from ’63 to the Countach LPI 800-4 which somehow represents the ideal “closing the circle” of these first sixty years of the brand.
A roundup from which the Miura, Espada, Countach, Diablo, LM002 masterpieces emerge, constant inspiration for all the models that followed. The contributions of the protagonists are fundamental, five of the seven designers who have written, or rather, traced in pencil, the history of the brand: from Marcello Gandini to Luc Donckerwolke, Walter De Silva, Filippo Perini and the current head of Lamborghini design, Mitja Borkert .
Last but not least, in the generous supply of images and original materials, the reactions of the public and the press, which give the measure of the impact each model had on its era and how this led those cars to become legends.
