Lamborghini Looks to the Past as It Plans an EV Future

The throwback should make the new electric vehicle instantly recognizable as a Lamborghini, even without the explosive helter-skelter rumbling of a V12 gas engine, Lamborghini Chief Executive

Stephan Winkelmann

said in an interview—even though the specific designs and technology underpinning the vehicle are still on the drawing board.

The transition to EVs poses a different set of challenges for the makers of superluxury vehicles than more mass-market passenger cars. Uncertainty about whether their customers would accept their EVs is one reason why high-performance vehicle makers have been slower to develop all-electric vehicles.

Now, they are looking for ways to build a bridge for buyers between the old world of traditional automotive luxury and the new electric future. To do so, they are creating echoes of the past in their new designs, tapping into a heritage that their customers and fans understand. 

For Lamborghini, it means reviving the GT, a stylish touring car popular in the 1960s and 1970s. The company, which typically builds small lots of very expensive cars, wants to use the launch of its first electric vehicle as a way to grow by entering a new market, while still keeping volumes small to protect its exclusivity. 

Today, Lamborghini has three models—the Huracán and Aventador sports cars, and the Urus SUV. The Urus, launched in 2017, is the most recent addition and has helped Lamborghini boost sales and earnings despite its low-volume production. Last year, Lamborghini sold 8,303 vehicles worldwide, up from 7,250 the year before. Urus accounted for 5,240 of the total unit sales.

The rebooted GT would have to be different, Mr. Winkelmann said, and account for changes in tastes. It will also need to overcome some of the challenges of making fully electric sports cars, which are heavier than their combustion counterparts and hard to build low to the road. 

Lamborghini’s designers think the electric GT would still be a two-door with a back seat but feature a more comfortable, more spacious interior, and would ride higher off the road because of the weight of the battery, Mr. Winkelmann said. 

“We would enter a new segment and not jeopardize what we have today,” he said.

The car isn’t expected to become available before 2028, according to Lamborghini’s current road map, a few years before the 2035 deadline when a European Union ban on the sale of cars with internal combustion engines could go into effect if finally approved by EU member states. 

Other luxury car makers have selectively picked from their pasts in devising their first forays into EVs, aiming to develop new models that retain a strong identity, both in their designs and in the marketing surrounding the launches. 

When

Rolls-Royce,

owned by

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG

, unveiled its first EV in October, dubbed Spectre, it peppered its marketing with multiple references to the company’s storied past, including a quote from the company’s co-founder, Charles Stewart Rolls, who, the company said, predicted in 1900 that one day all cars would be electric.

“The electric car is perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration. They should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged,” he said at the time, according to Rolls-Royce. 

Despite the futuristic appearance of its interior, packed with digital technology, the Spectre bears trademark lines and design elements typical of any classic Rolls, from the iconic hood ornament—a sculpture in the form of a woman leaning forward with outstretched arms called the Spirit of Ecstasy—to the classic flat-nosed grill. 

Similarly,

Porsche AG

, the sports-car maker majority-owned by

Volkswagen,

populated the reveal of its Taycan electric car with stories about how family patriarch

Ferdinand Porsche

invented the first hybrid vehicle, the Lohner Porsche, which he presented at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. “Porsche’s History Begins Electric,” Porsche said in its press release introducing the Taycan in September 2019.  

The Taycan, too, bears Porsche’s classic “fly line” design, sporty lines that slope down from the rooftop toward the rear of the vehicle where the lines converge with Porsche’s trademark sculpted sides.  

Lamborghini has a turbulent history. After a successful decade following its founding in 1963, Ferruccio Lamborghini sold his company. The business then changed ownership several times. For a time, it was owned by Chrysler, whose chief,

Lee Iacocca,

pumped money into it, trying to broaden the Italian sports-car maker’s product portfolio and entering Formula One racing. Chrysler sold the company in 1987 to Indonesia’s Megatech Corp., whose owners include the youngest son of then-President Suharto. 

Lamborghini’s current chapter began in 1998, when Audi bought the company and rebuilt the brand into a maker of super luxury high-performance cars. 

A limited production of a new off-road version of the Huracán, called the Sterrato, of 1,499 vehicles is slated to begin in February. The Sterrato sports a V10 engine and top speed of 162 miles an hour, and in Europe costs around $270,000. 

One challenge of the electric transition for sports cars, Mr. Winkelmann said, was how the heavy batteries change the handling, making it harder to hug the road in tight curves at high speed—a hurdle new technologies might help to overcome. 

“With the new batteries, which are lighter, you can achieve something which is incredible. We think that this is going to work,” he said. 

Mr. Winkelmann stressed that an electric Lamborghini must still look and feel like a Lamborghini. 

“The only thing that would be different in the case of a full-electric car is the sound of the engine,” he said. “We are working on it.”

Write to William Boston at [email protected]

The throwback should make the new electric vehicle instantly recognizable as a Lamborghini, even without the explosive helter-skelter rumbling of a V12 gas engine, Lamborghini Chief Executive

Stephan Winkelmann

said in an interview—even though the specific designs and technology underpinning the vehicle are still on the drawing board.

The transition to EVs poses a different set of challenges for the makers of superluxury vehicles than more mass-market passenger cars. Uncertainty about whether their customers would accept their EVs is one reason why high-performance vehicle makers have been slower to develop all-electric vehicles.

Now, they are looking for ways to build a bridge for buyers between the old world of traditional automotive luxury and the new electric future. To do so, they are creating echoes of the past in their new designs, tapping into a heritage that their customers and fans understand. 

For Lamborghini, it means reviving the GT, a stylish touring car popular in the 1960s and 1970s. The company, which typically builds small lots of very expensive cars, wants to use the launch of its first electric vehicle as a way to grow by entering a new market, while still keeping volumes small to protect its exclusivity. 

Today, Lamborghini has three models—the Huracán and Aventador sports cars, and the Urus SUV. The Urus, launched in 2017, is the most recent addition and has helped Lamborghini boost sales and earnings despite its low-volume production. Last year, Lamborghini sold 8,303 vehicles worldwide, up from 7,250 the year before. Urus accounted for 5,240 of the total unit sales.

The rebooted GT would have to be different, Mr. Winkelmann said, and account for changes in tastes. It will also need to overcome some of the challenges of making fully electric sports cars, which are heavier than their combustion counterparts and hard to build low to the road. 

Lamborghini’s designers think the electric GT would still be a two-door with a back seat but feature a more comfortable, more spacious interior, and would ride higher off the road because of the weight of the battery, Mr. Winkelmann said. 

“We would enter a new segment and not jeopardize what we have today,” he said.

The car isn’t expected to become available before 2028, according to Lamborghini’s current road map, a few years before the 2035 deadline when a European Union ban on the sale of cars with internal combustion engines could go into effect if finally approved by EU member states. 

Other luxury car makers have selectively picked from their pasts in devising their first forays into EVs, aiming to develop new models that retain a strong identity, both in their designs and in the marketing surrounding the launches. 

When

Rolls-Royce,

owned by

Bayerische Motoren Werke AG

, unveiled its first EV in October, dubbed Spectre, it peppered its marketing with multiple references to the company’s storied past, including a quote from the company’s co-founder, Charles Stewart Rolls, who, the company said, predicted in 1900 that one day all cars would be electric.

“The electric car is perfectly noiseless and clean. There is no smell or vibration. They should become very useful when fixed charging stations can be arranged,” he said at the time, according to Rolls-Royce. 

Despite the futuristic appearance of its interior, packed with digital technology, the Spectre bears trademark lines and design elements typical of any classic Rolls, from the iconic hood ornament—a sculpture in the form of a woman leaning forward with outstretched arms called the Spirit of Ecstasy—to the classic flat-nosed grill. 

Similarly,

Porsche AG

, the sports-car maker majority-owned by

Volkswagen,

populated the reveal of its Taycan electric car with stories about how family patriarch

Ferdinand Porsche

invented the first hybrid vehicle, the Lohner Porsche, which he presented at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris. “Porsche’s History Begins Electric,” Porsche said in its press release introducing the Taycan in September 2019.  

The Taycan, too, bears Porsche’s classic “fly line” design, sporty lines that slope down from the rooftop toward the rear of the vehicle where the lines converge with Porsche’s trademark sculpted sides.  

Lamborghini has a turbulent history. After a successful decade following its founding in 1963, Ferruccio Lamborghini sold his company. The business then changed ownership several times. For a time, it was owned by Chrysler, whose chief,

Lee Iacocca,

pumped money into it, trying to broaden the Italian sports-car maker’s product portfolio and entering Formula One racing. Chrysler sold the company in 1987 to Indonesia’s Megatech Corp., whose owners include the youngest son of then-President Suharto. 

Lamborghini’s current chapter began in 1998, when Audi bought the company and rebuilt the brand into a maker of super luxury high-performance cars. 

A limited production of a new off-road version of the Huracán, called the Sterrato, of 1,499 vehicles is slated to begin in February. The Sterrato sports a V10 engine and top speed of 162 miles an hour, and in Europe costs around $270,000. 

One challenge of the electric transition for sports cars, Mr. Winkelmann said, was how the heavy batteries change the handling, making it harder to hug the road in tight curves at high speed—a hurdle new technologies might help to overcome. 

“With the new batteries, which are lighter, you can achieve something which is incredible. We think that this is going to work,” he said. 

Mr. Winkelmann stressed that an electric Lamborghini must still look and feel like a Lamborghini. 

“The only thing that would be different in the case of a full-electric car is the sound of the engine,” he said. “We are working on it.”

Write to William Boston at [email protected]