Lamborghini
It usually comes as a surprise to most people to learn that Lamborghini started out building tractors. The company was founded just after World War Two in order to build tractors out of surplus war material. This lead to the company becoming one of the largest tractor makers in the country. Like most people when they start to become successful Lamborghini went out and started buying expensive cars. One of his purchases was a Ferrari, which he wasn't particularly happy with. Although the car performed well it was definitely lacking when it came to comfort and refinement. Given the cost of a Ferrari this was something that Lamborghini thought was unacceptable.
According to legend Lamborghini went to see Enzo Ferrari and explain to him what was wrong with his cars and how he could fix them. Apparently Ferrari was less than impressed and threw Lamborghini out of his office. It was at this point that Lamborghini decided that he could build a better car himself and set out to do it. The first thing that he had to do was get an engine designed for his cars. Lamborghini believed that the biggest problem with Ferrari's cars was that they were using a modified racing engine. This made it both loud and rough and that was something that Lamborghini didn't like. Once he had an engine he went out and got the famous chassis designer Dallara to design the car for him.
The initial Lamborghini's proved popular, although they were only available in very limited number. However there was a problem, in order to keep prices competitive with Ferrari they had to sell the cars at a loss. Obviously this was not a long term option so a new plan had to be devised. Ultimately the decision was made to stop competing with Ferrari on price and focus just on quality. The result was that Lamborghini built some of the best sports cars and some of the most expensive grand touring cars on the market. Production remained small until the mid seventies and the Countach. The Lamborghini Countach was by far their best seller, it has sold more copies than all other Lamborghini's combined.
Lamborghini is something of an oddity for a company that builds high performance sports cars they have little interest in racing. Most sports car makers start out as race car builders and then move into building road cars in order to pay the bills. That wasn't the case with Lamborghini where the founder was actually opposed to the idea of building cars for racing. Over the years they have made a few attempts at racing their cars, mainly at the initiative of the employees of the company as management still considers racing to be something that they don't want to be involved in. despite the decision not to race their cars Lamborghini's are widely regarded as some of the fastest sports cars on the market.