Lamborghini 350 GT

Lamborghini 350 GT at a glance

The 350 GT is the starting point of the brand's V12 line, which continued with the Miura and the Countach. All models are listed in the Lamborghini catalogue.

From 350 GTV prototype to production

Ferruccio Lamborghini set out to build a grand tourer that could compete with Ferrari. The engine was entrusted to Giotto Bizzarrini, who designed a racing-style V12. After testing the first engine, Bizzarrini left the company in May 1963. The following month Lamborghini gave the task of turning the 350 GTV prototype into a production car to the young engineer Giampaolo Dallara, assisted by Paolo Stanzani and test driver Bob Wallace.

The 350 GTV was shown at the Turin motor show in October 1963, but it was not a working car: on the stand the suspension arms were tack-welded in place and there was no engine under the bonnet. The reaction was lukewarm, and Ferruccio postponed production. The car was redesigned, and the result, the 350 GT, appeared at Geneva in March 1964. It kept the profile of the prototype but replaced its rotating hidden headlights with fixed lamps.

Production started in May 1964. The first chassis, number 101, reached the factory on 9 March 1964, and the first customer car, number 104, was delivered on 31 July 1964. The original plan was to build ten cars a week, but fewer than 25 reached customers in 1964. In total 120 cars were made before the 400 GT took over in 1966.

Touring Superleggera body and chassis

The bodies were built by Carrozzeria Touring in Milan, using its patented Superleggera method: aluminium panels fixed to a framework of small tubes. Touring also joined the bodies to the chassis and delivered complete cars, including bumpers, to Lamborghini's factory. The first frames were made by Neri and Bonacini; later the chassis production moved to Marchesi.

The chassis uses 60 mm square-section steel tubes for the central floor, with front and rear cradles in 50 mm and 25 mm tubing. Suspension is fully independent, with unequal-length wishbones, coil-over dampers and anti-roll bars at both ends. Vacuum-assisted Girling disc brakes are fitted to all four wheels, and the original tyres were 205-section Pirelli Cinturato HS.

The car is 4,640 mm long, 1,730 mm wide and 1,220 mm high, with a wheelbase of 2,550 mm and front and rear tracks of 1,380 mm. It weighs 1,450 kg.

The Bizzarrini V12

Bizzarrini's original engine was a racing unit: a 3.5-litre V12 with four overhead camshafts, dry-sump lubrication and a compression ratio of 11:1 or more, rated at about 298 kW (400 hp) at 11,000 rpm. That was too much for a road car, so Dallara and Wallace detuned it. They changed it to a wet sump, lowered the compression ratio to 9.4:1 and replaced the 36 mm racing carburettors with Weber 40 DCOE side-draught carburettors. The first detuned engine ran on 3 October 1963 and produced 201 kW (270 hp).

The production V12 has a capacity of 3,464 cc and is made entirely of aluminium. Each engine ran for 24 hours on a dynamometer and then covered at least 500 km of road testing with Bob Wallace before delivery.

Power goes to the rear wheels through a five-speed ZF manual gearbox and a Salisbury limited-slip differential. The 350 GT accelerates from 0 to 100 km/h in 6.8 seconds and from 0 to 161 km/h in 16.3 seconds, with a top speed of 254 km/h.

The 350 GTS and 3500 GTZ

350 GTS. An open spider version was shown at the Turin motor show in November 1965. Touring built only two in 1965: chassis 0328 in black with an emerald green interior and chassis 0325 in gold with a brown interior.

3500 GTZ. Zagato built two coupés on a shortened 350 GT chassis, designed by Ercole Spada (chassis 0310 and 0320). Chassis 0310 was shown at the London Motor Show in 1965.

Many standard 350 GTs were later fitted with the 4.0-litre engine of the 400 GT.

Successor: the 400 GT

The 350 GT evolved directly into the 400 GT in 1966. The first step, the 400 GT Interim, was essentially a 350 GT with a larger 3,929 cc V12 of 239 kW (320 hp); only 23 were built, three of them with aluminium bodies. The 400 GT 2+2, presented at the Geneva motor show in 1966, had a steel body, a new roofline with larger side windows and a beltline 66 mm higher. Together with a slightly lower floor, this made room for two real rear seats — the 350 GT had space only for luggage or a rarely ordered third seat. It also received a gearbox designed by Lamborghini, with synchromesh on all gears. 224 were built until 1968; after Touring went bankrupt in 1967, Marazzi took over body production. The 400 GT was followed by the Islero.

Legacy

The 350 GT proved that Ferruccio Lamborghini's plan could work. A new company had built, within a few months, a refined V12 grand tourer with advanced engineering, and its success kept the company alive and established it as a competitor to Ferrari. Its basic layout — a front-mounted four-cam V12, independent suspension at both ends and a 2,550 mm wheelbase — carried over to the 400 GT and defined Lamborghini's front-engined grand tourers of the 1960s. Today Lamborghini's heritage department, Polo Storico, restores these early cars. For collectors, the 350 GT matters as the car that started it all: chassis 101 was the first Lamborghini to leave the line. The full story of the brand is told in our history of Lamborghini.

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