This is the Lamborghini Centenario Tractor, it’s an original 1960s-era Lamborghini tractor that was rebuilt, and reimagined, by Italian artist Adler Capelli in a distinctly steampunk style.
The Centenario Tractor was built to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Ferruccio Lamborghini’s birth, in 2016. Just five were made and while exact pricing remains elusive, we’ve seen numbers from half a million to over two million USD apiece.
This is the Lamborghini Centenario Tractor, it’s an original 1960s-era Lamborghini tractor that was rebuilt, and reimagined, by Italian artist Adler Capelli in a distinctly steampunk style.
History Speedrun: The Lamborghini Centenario Trattori
Ferruccio Lamborghini was born on April the 28th, 1916, in Renazzo di Cento, a small settlement within the municipality of Cento in the province of Ferrara, in Italy’s famed Emilia-Romagna region. His engineering career famously didn’t begin with supercars but with tractors – in 1948, seeing post-war Italy’s urgent need for agricultural machinery first hand, he founded Lamborghini Trattori and began building tractors using engines and parts sourced from surplus military hardware left behind by the Allied forces. It was a stroke of genius.
This new business was a rapid success for Ferruccio, and by the late 1950s he was wealthy enough to indulge his lifelong passion for sports cars. His unhappiness with the reliability of his Ferraris, particularly by his own account, a troublesome clutch on his Ferrari 250 GT, led to an argument with Enzo Ferrari. This argument resulted in Ferruccio founding Automobili Lamborghini in 1963 to show Enzo how it was done. The rest, as they say, is history.
The profitable tractor business that had made it all possible continued independently, and Lamborghini Trattori remains in operation today under the SDF Group (SAME Deutz-Fahr), having become part of rival tractor manufacturer SAME in 1973.
When 2016 arrived, the centenary of Ferruccio’s birth, Automobili Lamborghini marked the occasion with the Centenario supercar, a limited edition vehicle producing 759 bhp from its naturally aspirated V12, of which just 20 coupes and 20 roadsters were built. As you might expect, they all sold out almost instantly.
There was also a separate, far more unusual tribute in the works – a series of five tractors that would honor not Lamborghini’s supercar legacy, but the agricultural roots that made it all possible.
Lamborghini Centenario Trattori: Specifications
These were the Lamborghini Centenario Trattori, created by Italian artist Adler Capelli in collaboration with the German Lamborghini specialist Klima-Lounge. Each of the five was built from parts sourced from original 1960s Lamborghini tractors, specifically the DLA 35 and the 2R DT models, and the results are part functional vehicle, part rolling sculpture, and part steampunk art installation.
Here we see Ferruccio Lamborghini in one of the Lamborghini Trattori factories, with lines of Lamborghini tractors awaiting delivery. Image courtesy of Lamborghini Trattori.
The first example was unveiled at the 2017 Geneva Auto Show. The motive power of each Centenario Trattori is the DLA 35’s 2.2 liter three-cylinder diesel engine, which produces 36.5 bhp and drives the rear wheels through a manual gearbox.
The running gear is two-wheel drive and fairly conventional in tractor terms, though each is fully rebuilt. What really transforms the machine is Capelli’s bodywork – hand-formed sheet metal that dramatically changes the tractor’s appearance, repositioning the driver and passenger (a second seat was added) down between the massive rear wheels rather than perched above them.
The original rear fenders were removed, and the body was reshaped to suggest the long, low profile of a Lamborghini GT while keeping the tractor proportions and details. Six individual side-exit exhaust pipes come out from under the upper body panels, two for each cylinder.
The Lamborghini Centenario Trattori has been significantly lowered, though exact information on how this was achieved seems to be non-existent. It’s clear that the rear axle has been dropped thanks to the fitment of portal axles to send drive to the rear wheels – the fabrication required to make this a reality must have been quite something to behold, as there are certainly no off-the-shelf kits for portal fitment to a DLA 35.
The front end has been similarly lowered with a completely bespoke series of new parts that appear to take some influence from mid-century “drop axles” used on American hot rods to achieve similar ends. The tractor remains fully functional with drive and steering systems all working as they should, and the power takeoff system out of the rear axle appears functional as well.
The tractors have a redesigned front cooling system, a revised instrument panel with period-correct gauges, black-finished steel disc wheels inscribed in honor of Ferruccio’s centenary, and even a cigarette ashtray above the electrical fuses – Ferruccio was a smoker.
Capelli made the decision to leave the bodywork entirely unpainted in raw metal, he wanted each tractor to develop a natural patina over time, aging in the way that the original Lamborghini tractors still working on Italian hillside farms have done over decades.
The Centenario Tractor was built to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Ferruccio Lamborghini’s birth, in 2016. Just five were made and while exact pricing remains elusive, we’ve seen numbers from half a million to over two million USD apiece.
The Klima-Lounge
The commissioning party behind the project was Klima-Lounge, a far more significant player in the Lamborghini world than its understated name might suggest. The company is run by Dietmar Götz and is based in Eberhardzell, in southern Germany.
What began as a climate-control and garage technology business evolved into one of the world’s foremost specialist collections and dealerships for classic Lamborghini automobiles and tractors.
The company holds the rights to the FLC brand (standing for Ferruccio Lamborghini Cento) which was the original logo used on Lamborghini tractors built between 1948 and 1971, and they use it for the restoration, certification, and sale of classic Lamborghini tractors and cars.
The company operates a private Lamborghini museum, and Götz has a close personal relationship with Fabio Lamborghini, a member of the Lamborghini family – Götz served as best man at his wedding in Sant’Agata Bolognese in 2015.
These were the Lamborghini Centenario Trattori, created by Italian artist Adler Capelli in collaboration with the German Lamborghini specialist Klima-Lounge.
Perhaps the most controversial part of the Lamborghini Centenario Trattori story is the price. The numbers vary wildly, from $538,000 USD all the way up to $2,055,000 USD, and there are no primary sources to rely on. What we do know is that just five were made.
The example you see here is a 2020 model based on a 1960s DLA35 tractor that has covered just 500 kms since completion. It’s now being offered for sale out of London, England, and you can visit the listing here if you’d like to read more or place a bid.
Images courtesy of Car & Classic
Articles that Ben Branch has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
