Lamborghini Museum and Factory Tour – how to and what to expect

So you happen to have a few days spare while in Italy. You start thinking how can I make a trip to the motoring mecca of Modena-Bologna happen. Bologna and surroundings is home to Ferrari (Maranello), Lamborghini (Sant’Agata Bolognese), and if you are into motor bikes, Ducati (Bologna).
To prepare you best for what to expect, how to visit the museum and attend the factory tour without being a Lamborghini owner, sportscarexchange.com has put this guide together.

Before you visit:

We would recommend you to book in advance for the Museum Guided Tour and Factory Tour.

Head to Lamborghini’s website where they now have a nice reservation form:

https://www.lamborghini.com/en-en/experience/museum

Lamborghini offers 3 types of visits:

As the factory is closed the first 3 weeks in August, you should avoid this period if you want to go on the Factory Tour.

The factory tour is for sure the option to go for when there. No pictures can be taken on the tour so all you have are memories – no selfies.

Arriving

Lamborghini is based in Sant’Agata Bolognese between Modena and Bologna.

Factory Tour

First, the guide asked us to lock up all cameras and phones in a safe. Yes, you will be spared from being interrupted by somebody else’s phone going off during the tour. It will also ensure everybody is paying attention. More likely, the main reason is they don’t want the competition to know in detail what they get up to!

The guide took us out of the museum and into the old part of the factory. At the museum section it looks very modern, but here we saw the original entrance that Mr Lamborghini would have gone through as well.

Notice that Lamborghini has two assembly lines:

One for the Aventador (the real car) and the Huracan (the “cheap” one). The guide referred to the Gallardo as the car that enabled them to make what they really wanted to do, the Aventador. Believe it or not, that was actually said on the floor, “cheap one”. Comparing to Porsche it is the 911 vs the Boxster story again.

The tour focused mainly on the Aventador as this is the most expensive, exclusive, and where the factory really comes into its own. If you are lucky you will also see a few Volkswagen crates like we did. Lamborghini is part of Volkswagen group so is to be expected, just makes you wonder what parts from the Golf ended up in the close to $400,000 Aventador.

First, they took us through Engine Assembly. Each engine is assembled by hand by an engineer. The actual engines were cast in another location than the factory.

Leather shop. Very impressive setup. Guide showed how the hides for the Aventadors’ seats are selected under UV light. The leather hides that can’t be used are not thrown away, believe it or not, they are sent to Gucci and Prada to make bags out of! Everything here is shaped and covered by hand, only for the Aventador though. The cheaper Huracan and the previous Gallardo get seats made by the manufacturer Recaro.

Vehicle assembly. The bodies come from another part of Northern Italy. They are being delivered just-in-time for when the car is about to be put together. It gets mated with the engine that we saw earlier. The seats made to order for the car are installed as well.

Vehicle preparation. At this station fluids are added and car is tested on a rolling road.

Final test drive. Guide will take you outside to a car park full of Lamborghinis which is vehicle testing.  While we waited at the museum of the tour to begin we saw many Aventadors being driven out of the factory. Yes, they actually take the brand new cars out for a long drive, not on a track, but on the public road! They have a licence to test them high speed on public roads to make sure they handle as they should before delivery.

Tour completes by going back into the museum area and emptying the lockers. We were now free to browse the museum.

Discovery Channel was granted access to the Aventador assembly line in How it is Made: Dream Cars series. There were some footage from the car assembly although most is from the body assembly that you will not see on the tour as it is not made at the factory.

What to see at the museum

If you have ever been to a car museum before you are normally used to seeing loads of cars. At Lamborghini less so. This is due to many factors, production numbers were very low. Further, the company has had a turbulent history of going through different owners and struggling financially until they met Volkswagen Group. The company sold concept cars to raise funds over the time. Cars are now with collectors or museums.

Lamborghini has tried to secure the most important cars in its history. It won’t match up to neither the Ferrari or Porsche museums. In a way that’s what makes it special. The cars are not for the museum, they are being enjoyed by somebody driving it – or locked up in a garage!

The star attraction is the Reveton.  Museum covers all that Lamborghini has participated in, Cars, Tractors, Power Boat engines, and Formula One.

Some of the other cars you will see at the museum.

	Miura Produced 1966-72. With an incredible top speed of 290 km/h / 180mph this was one of the fastest
	Reveton Strike a pose! It was rear of the year when this car came out. The famous price tag of 2 mill EUR.
	Gallardo Police Car Italian police got two cars and crashed them both!
	Diablo GTR The ultimate Diablo prepared for racing
	Lamborghini F1 Lamborgini delivered engines to teams in Formula One in the past
	Lamborghini “Estoque” Coupe Concept Gorgeous 4 seater coupe concept that was made to rival with the Aston Martin Rapide Coupe. Never put into production.
	Miura Concept (2006) Design studio how a future Muira could look. Management decided that retro was not the way to go.
	Murcielago SV Ultimate in handling from the old Murcielago. The SV can still kick a punch!

Lamborghini Factory Location

The address for the Lamborghini Museum and Factory Tour is located at:

Via Modena, 12
40019 Sant’Agata Bolognese (Bologna)
Italy