Big wheel

Jeremy Clarkson, the outspoken former host of the hit BBC show Top Gear, once observed that a Lamborghini is for "people who want to move about in a big pantomime, massive West End musical full of colour and noise, and to hell with how fast you can go around the corner".

He made the comment in 2009 when he reviewed the Gallardo Spyder on his show, and it sounded right to me, although I have never been behind the wheel of a Lamborghini. But a journalist needs to hear from both sides, so I also found the perspective of Stephan Winkelmann valuable. He ran Lamborghini for 11 years before moving on to head the Quattro division at Audi two years ago. He is now the president of Bugatti Automobiles.

"[A Lamborghini] is a combination of performance and design, but where performance is much more refined than it has been in the past. It's more about power-to-weight than just pure power. More than just top speed and acceleration," he told Top Gear in 2016.

"The handling is also much more important. Not just the handling of a light and Mickey Mouse car, but with a weight that is going to be more and more important -- a weight that in the years to come will be much more difficult to reduce."

It is clear that Mr Winkelmann did not agree with Mr Clarkson's opinion on Lamborghini's cornering performance, but both of them seem to agree that the car is not short on "wow" factors including arresting colours and a dashing look.

Having digested some contradictory views in the course of my research, I was looking forward to hearing Matteo Ortenzi's take on what makes a Lamborghini a Lamborghini.

"From us, you have to expect the unexpected," the recently appointed CEO of Asia Pacific for Automobili Lamborghini told me when we met. "We never do things just because somebody else was doing it. We only do things if we really believe that it is the right step to do."

For example, the current trend in sports cars is for a four-litre engine, partly because it carries a lower tax rate in China where the market for hot wheels is booming. But Lamborghini does not believe four litres is enough for what it wants to offer drivers, so it has stuck to its bigger guns.

The Coupé and Roadster versions of one of its supercars currently in production, the Aventador and the Aventador Superveloce, are fitted with a 6.5-litre V12 engine.

"We are like this," says Mr Ortenzi. "There was another discussion which was about the weight of the car, which is completely different (from other companies), and we need a different technology choice, so we did it ourselves.

"This is the biggest asset we have and that is to always ask ourselves what is the best thing we can do and not to follow something that is happening."

This yearning to be different has led to internal fights within the company sometimes, but "that is good" because "you are always challenging yourselves", he continues.

"We are never satisfied just because, okay, we did it. We have to do it in the best way possible and then we will be satisfied."

This attitude is among the reasons that have kept the Italian executive with the company since he first joined its financial department in 2004. Prior to that, he was with rival Ferrari for a short period of time.

"I joined Ferrari because a position was open and it was related to what I was studying at the time which was automotive management," he recalls.

"But then the big opportunity came where I have to choose between these two companies and you have to understand, I was a car lover since I was a kid reading automotive newspapers."

There was some concern that ultimately he would be working for a large German company -- Volkswagen Group owns Lamborghini -- but also for a "crazy Italian company" that was "less structured" than it is today. In any case, the decision is one he will never regret.

"I have no regret because this is one of the things that was really working properly," he says. "The mix and combination of different cultures and the willingness to do things in a good but different way from the others are what makes us stand out."

BIG CHANGES

In his 14 years at Lamborghini, Mr Ortenzi has witnessed "big changes", starting with the physical size of the operation. He began work in a "very, very small" group of offices but the staff today inhabit a more spacious complex.

Ferruccio Lamborghini founded Automobili Lamborghini in 1963 when he bought a large plot of land in Sant'Agata Bolognese, about 25 kilometres from Bologna, and vowed to compete directly with Ferrari. The company's global headquarters, where very few outsiders can gain entrance, is still in the north of Italy despite being acquired by the German giant in 1998.

The first Lamborghini 350 GTV came out of Sant'Agata Bolognese in 1963, and every single one after that has been built in just one of two state-of-the-art factories at headquarters.

Even if you have the money to buy one -- anywhere from 22.5 million baht for a Huracan to 49 million for an Aventador in Thailand -- you will still have to wait for six to 12 months before the Lamborghini you ordered is delivered to you.

Altogether, about 1,800 people are now employed at the Lamborghini headquarters which also features a museum, while around 300 workers are solely dedicated to building the vehicles on one massive 24-station assembly line.

The House of the Raging Bull, as the company is know, also made headlines recently with its Aventador SVJ, which set the lap record for production cars at the Nürburgring Nordschleife with a lap time of 6:44.97 minutes in August.

The iconic Nürburgring circuit in Germany is nicknamed the Green Hell because of its complexity with 33 left-hand bends and 40 right-handers, which have led to 80 fatal accidents over the past 90 years.

Mr Ortenzi joined the company six years after the takeover by VW, and one year after the iconic Lamborghini Gallardo came out. The company stopped production of the Gallardo, its most successful model ever, in 2013 before it introduced the Huracán which made its world debut at the Geneva Motor Show in 2014. This was followed by the Huracán Spyder and the rear wheel-drive version that was released in 2015.

Now it is making new sensations such as the US$200,000 Lamborghini V10 Huracan, the company's top seller, and its sportier version, the V12 Aventador coupe, at $400,000. Its first SUV, the Urus, also made its debut earlier this year at $200,000.

These are all the cars that Mr Ortenzi has been involved with, in one capacity or another, throughout the years and as he watched them grow, he could not help but become attached to them.

"I bring with me the heritage and the knowledge of the things that we did at the headquarters and there were huge steps there," he says of his new position as the CEO for Asia Pacific.

Before moving to Asia, he was the company's project controller for six years, moving up to business control which also included cost and investment oversight for one year, before being promoted to head controller in 2012. After three years, he became chief project management officer before taking up his latest position in May, based in Singapore.

"I know the passion that we bring to our product. I know the process that brings us here (in the region) and I am quite happy now to follow up in the market the things that we were preparing at the headquarters," he adds.

Mr Ortenzi considers himself very lucky to be one of the first people to hear about the possible launch of the Urus because he was on the financial side at the time and was asked to present a business case for an SUV.

As he moved into project management, he got to follow up on the development process of the Urus, and now the car has rolled off the line and is ready for him to sell in Asia Pacific.

"It has been an amazing experience because I was very involved since the first day of the project, and now I am following the car until it reaches the last customer and the feedback that we are receiving so far is great," he notes. The Urus, he says with a touch of pride, is "the world's first super sport utility vehicle".

"The first feedback that we received from customers in Europe and most of the markets was very good while in Asia Pacific we are just receiving cars including the ones that are already there in Taiwan and Singapore, and the time will come for Japan and China."

The first Lamborghini Urus SUV was delivered to an owner in Mumbai last week after eight months of waiting. More are on their way to customers in other countries.

"We are collecting the feedback and things are quite positive," he says. "I am really happy because we did the right things in the right moment and now we just have to steer it properly."

PLANS FOR ASIA

Mr Ortenzi says Lamborghini has a consistent plan for Asia Pacific. That is to bring the best range it can and to focus on sports cars because of its past success, while the Urus will also start to find its own market.

"Our duty is to sustain our current product range and then move on to the Urus but this region is a bit peculiar because of different market conditions," says Mr Ortenzi.

"Therefore, the second challenge we have here is how to properly manage the introduction of these models and there are different ways for every single market."

From Japan to Asean and Australia, Mr Ortenzi must understand what customers of the brand want in each market in order to find the right balance and tailor the right marketing activities.

"There are younger customers here when compared to the ones in Europe or America and this is quite positive, because having a younger customer base means that we have more space and also a different way to approach the customers," he says. "Think about the trend of the millennials: it is stronger here than any other markets."

Lamborghini is now tapping into Instagram as part of its marketing on social media, as it is more popular among millennials than its parent company, Facebook. Instagram also fits in with one of the company's pillars which is luxury.

"We are for informal luxury and there is [no group more attuned to] informal luxury than millennials so this is quite fitting for us, and that is why we are fostering these messages from the brand," he says.

The company is also supporting various green initiatives to be more appealing to the younger customers group, such as stronger regulations on emissions.

"The company is updating our product step by step and for a smaller player like us this is a big effort. … The markets in this region are changing constantly, such as China's C5, C6A, C6B (emissions) regulations, and this is something that all manufacturers are struggling with," he says.

"We know that it will come but we will not compromise the emotion and performance of our product range because that will be a big mistake," says Mr Ortenzi, adding that the company is planning to roll out a hybrid product next year "for sure" but it has to do in "the right way and at the right time".

"A Lamborghini customer is not buying a car, he or she is buying the experience of driving the car along with the sound of the engine and its responsiveness. It would be a mistake just to follow trend and not to have the right technology at the right time, because for these things (driving experiences), we will never compromise."