Help me get this straight about Ferrari and Lamborghini

All car makers source the best parts they can find for the price and requirements they have. You'll find all kinds of various parts on all of them. For example, the 458 has magnetic shocks made in America. I'm sure you'll find parts from Germany, UK, and perhaps Japan. I think most of the 458's infotainment system was designed and built in Germany.

Of the three makers you mention, more of the car is built and assembled in the Ferrari factory than the other two. McLaren does not build its own engines or gearboxes. If I remember correctly, the Mac's CF tub comes from Germany. Lambo uses an Audi facility to build it's engines and sources it's gearboxes. Ferrari builds it's own engine under their roof and sources their gearboxes. However, even in the Ferrari engine you could find parts made in different countries. You go where you can get the best.

But, I really don't think any of this matters. It's the engineering and design behind it and final product that matter. Audi is now in full control of Lambo's engineering and design. You can look at this as a good thing or a bad thing. Ferrari is completely in control of it's engineering and design (not Fiat). McLaren is completely in control of it's engineering and design, but outsources its engine design engineering.

Short answer: no car in the world uses 100% of it's own countries parts. Would you poo-poo the McLaren F1 because the engine was made in Germany by BMW yet it's a British car?

 

And who makes the parts to make the parts....

China is one of the world's leaders in plastic production (along with the US and Germany).

China is the world's largest producer of aluminum.

(China also leads the world in the production of steel.)

And who leads the world in the production of leather? China.

Who produces the rubber for our tires? Not China, but close. The world's largest producers of rubber are Thailand, India, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia.

Has America lost its edge in production? Not completely. The US is actually the world's largest producer of fortune cookies. (China doesn't produce any...yet.)

We don't drive Italian cars, or American cars, or English cars. We drive Asian cars.

 

Bahrain Mumtalakat: 40.86%
Peter Lim: 22.86%
TAG Group: 18.14%
Ron Dennis: 18.14%

 

BTW, I´ve read somewhere that the engine of the Gallardo was build in a VW factory in Austria and that the final assembly of the car was made in Lithuania or Slovakia or something like that. At Sant´Agata they only stamped the bodywork. Is that true?

 

I would say that Ferrari and McLaren are completely in control of what they build....especially now that Maserati is with Alfa (although still all of them under the FIAT umbrella)

Lamborghini is less independent as it's under Audi management and the Audi management decides what should be built and what shouldn't.
Lamborghini also uses the parts bin of the Audi and VAG group a lot more than Ferrari and McLaren. People might totally disagree with me on this or might not care but as beautiful and special as the Aventador is....when you sit in the car and look at the centre dash you KNOW it's part of Audi. Most of the controls there are exactly the same as most Audi.

Ferrari used to be terrible with lots of parts on the 348 and possibly the 355 coming from very basic Fiat but they changed all that many years ago.

 

No they didnt, Ferrari still use parts on there cars that are also used on Fiats

 

Nothing apparent like switches and things like that am I wrong? There is nothing I can see in my car that I have ever seen in a Fiat

 

i dont care if a 458 is made by the keebler elves, i want one!

 

Hvac, infotainment systems on Lambo are all Audi. Lambo uses an old version of Audi actually. Not sure why. At least they work (but just behind a generation on nav).

All this cuts down on cost when parts are shared. The parent company benefit from higher spec components such as engine, transmission, brakes.

I hate rebadging. At least r8 and gallardo look nothing alike.

 

The lambo may look like an Audi inside but at least it is user friendly and works. Got to say I find the systems in the 458 really outdated and temperamental. Same with rolls and bmw, the collaboration works. Thing is though in the ghost it does not look like a bmw, in the lambo it's very Audi. At least the Ferrari looks and feels different, special even - sadly though just not as user friendly.

 

The heart and soul of any Ferrari or any car for that matter is its engine block and cylinder heads. All of this is made in Maranello by Ferrari for their own cars. I laugh when people try to suggest Ferrari engines are outsourced or made by Fiat. Ferrari is making engines for Fiat and for Maseratti.

The Gallardo is just assembled at Lambo's factory. The Aventador's engine is developed and mostly engineered by Lambo themselves as I understand it.

 

As I've been told by a few people in the know. Nothing is uniquely Italian about the Gallardo except it was drawn on paper by an Italian. Nothing from the car comes from Italty. Its just badged at Lambo's factory.

 

No manufacturer makes all it's stuff, but there is a difference in the way various builder approach the way they build cars (and bikes).

For example, when I toured the Ducati factory, I was surprised to learn that Ducati doesn't make anything. It simply assembles parts made by other companies. Of course, all these components are made to their specifications, so a Ducati is quite different than a bike assembled from off the shelf parts; i.e. a Ducati is uniquely Ducati even though they don't cast the block in-house.

Ferrari may outsource pistons from one country and connecting rods from another, and transmission gears from a third. As far as I know, the outsourced parts are mostly specific to Ferrari as opposed to off the shelf parts. By the way, I wish it weren't so when it comes to things like thermostats. But they essentially build the entire car and engine and much of the work, including block casting, is done in-house, so I would say Ferrari is leading the pack when it comes to how much they build.

I see that as quite different when compared to a car builder who, for example, buys a design from a race developed Nissan engine, hires a company to build and supply the entire engine, and then simply bolts it into their chassis. That's neither bad nor good, but it is different from Ferrari.

I see nothing wrong with taking the entire front suspension from a high production car and mounting it to a super car chassis, perhaps with different springs and dampers. But it's not the same as building it from scratch, at least in my mind.

As far as I'm concerned, I like the warm fuzzy feeling I get knowing my Ferrari is pretty much designed and built by Ferrari guys at the Ferrari factory even if the guy torquing down the cylinder head might be a Macedonian. I can at least hope he is a Juventus fan, like all sensible Italians.