Head of Lamborghini Polo Storico and global after-sales director
INTERVIEW JAMES ELLIOTT PORTRAIT CHARLIE MAGEE
I FIRST DROVE a car when I was ten. I drove a Citroën 2CV on a private road at my uncle’s house. He lived in the middle of nowhere in the countryside in Tuscany. I remember it so vividly, even today.
But then I was always passionate about cars, which is something I inherited from my father. He was a doctor and was crazy about cars and motorcycles his whole life. When younger he had an Alfa Giulia Spider and used to regale me with tales of the freedom of driving it in the 1960s. He also had a pretty little Lancia Fulvia coupé, and Porsches and BMWs, though I think BMW was his favourite because he had several when I was growing up in Sienna, Tuscany.
I was always fascinated by engines and rebuilt Vespa engines in the 1980s when it was popular to take them apart and upgrade them. One time when I was 14 we finished an engine and when we went to start it, nothing happened. It was only when we retraced our steps and took it apart that we realised that I had put the piston in the wrong way around. That little setback didn’t stop me going on to study mechanical engineering at college!
My first job was with an Italian company making buses and coaches and I worked there for two years in after-sales. I started at the very bottom checking warranties and investigating technical issues on the buses.
After a couple of years I moved to BMW as a technical engineer in Italy. I had responsibility for what was going on in the field, and did a couple of years there, then a couple more responsible for the parts and accessories business, but still in the field. Then I moved to BMW’s HQ in Italy to run after-sales for the MINI brand, and stayed there for six years before moving to Lamborghini in 2006.
My first job was still on the technical side, as head of service, but in 2010 I was promoted to head of after-sales and in 2014 I moved to the USA to run the Lamborghini business in the Americas, which accounts for about 35% of all production. In 2021, after Covid basically, I came back to Sant’Agata as after-sales director and also to be in charge of Polo Storico. It has been a really exciting time to be part of the company as it transformed to be three-model based and has experienced a seismic change in terms of culture and customer base.
Polo Storico merges all the creativity and craftsmanship of the past – when rules and regulations were less prescriptive – with today’s mo
