T hekiller question? ‘Ask him about his trousers,’ my colleagues urge me, like school children. I’m in Spain at the launch of the new Huracan Tecnica, about to interview the CEO of Lamborghini, Stephan Winkelmann. My fellow journalists are giving me some advice.
There are two things you need to know to understand this story. First, on any car launch the Brits are the most wilful, defiant, disrespectful and immature bunch you’ll find.
Second, you need to understand Stephan Winkelmann is renowned throughout the auto industry for his fashion sense. Lean and bronzed with flowing hair reminiscent of an Italian archduke, Winkelmann is always impeccably dressed, whether it’s a dark blue suit with unusually large collars, or immaculate white jeans and a Lambo polo shirt. But always, in every case, Winkelmann wears the sharpest, tightest tailored trousers you’ve ever seen – tighter even than Nico Rosberg’s. The British journos – pale skinned, overweight and no doubt jealous that Winkelmann (now 57) is in such good shape – urge me to get to the bottom of them. So to speak.
So, I’m taken out onto a veranda overlooking the circuit to find Winkelmann sitting under a large umbrella shade. He is immediate-ly affable and warm. ‘I’m not here to talk about Lamborghini’s electric future,’ I tell him, as I sit down. ‘I’d like to talk about you.’ He lets out a little laugh and a self-effacing ‘okay’ as if to say, ‘If you insist!’
I briefly consider diving straight into his trousers from the outset but decide that would be too weird; so instead we talk about Winkel-mann’s journey to Lamborghini. Born in Berlin, Winkelmann’s parents moved to Rome when he was a child, he tells me, where his father was a UN diplomat. He grew up there, razzing through the traffic on motorcycles.
‘I was reckless when I was a kid,’ he remembers with a smile. ‘You know – riding without a helmet in short trousers, 200km/h. I broke my leg on a motorcycle. I still love them; I like cafe racers, you know? But I’m older and getting a little bit scared now!’
After a stint in the army he joined Mercedes and then worked his way through the ranks at Fiat, becoming CEO of Fiat Germany. Then, in 2004, Lamborghini – quintessentially Italian but German owned – came knocking.
‘It was a lucky circumstance,’ he says. ‘They were looking for a German who had an Italian way of thinking. I grew up in Italy and if I feel something then I’m more Italian than anything else. My friend once told me I was born in Germany but made in Italy!’
He didn’t im
