Who Owns Lamborghini? Audi, Volkswagen and Every Past Owner

Ask who owns Lamborghini and you will hear two names, Audi and Volkswagen, and both are right. The longer story is odder than the answer. Ferruccio Lamborghini sold 51% of his car company in 1972 for $600,000, and the business then went through a bankruptcy, a court-appointed administration and several more owners before Audi bought it in 1998.

Who Owns Lamborghini Today?

Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A., the company that builds the cars in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy, is owned by Audi AG. Audi is wholly owned by Volkswagen AG, which sits at the top of the Volkswagen Group.

The ownership chain at a glance

1. Volkswagen’s shareholders. The largest by voting rights include Porsche SE (the holding company of the Porsche and Piëch families), the State of Lower Saxony and Qatar Holding.
2. Volkswagen AG, headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany.
3. Audi AG, headquartered in Ingolstadt, Germany.
4. Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A., headquartered in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Italy.

Audi’s own 2008 Facts and Figures, cited in Wikipedia’s History of Lamborghini, described Lamborghini as wholly owned by Audi AG since 1998.

Last checked

Last checked: September 19, 2026. Audi AG remains Lamborghini’s owner. Volkswagen has started a review of about 600 of its roughly 2,000 business units, and press reports say a Lamborghini stock listing has been discussed. Neither Volkswagen nor Audi has announced a sale or listing.

Does Audi or Volkswagen Own Lamborghini?

Why both answers are correct

Ownership here works like floors in a building. Audi AG owns Lamborghini, and Volkswagen AG owns Audi. A company owned by another company is called a subsidiary, so Lamborghini is a subsidiary of Audi, and Audi is a subsidiary of Volkswagen.

A page that says “Audi” and a page that says “Volkswagen” are describing different floors. Volkswagen is the ultimate parent. Audi is the company that took control of Lamborghini in 1998 and holds it inside the group.

Does Volkswagen own 100% of Lamborghini?

Yes, indirectly. Volkswagen AG owns all of Audi AG, and Audi owns Lamborghini, so no outside shareholder sits between them.

Audi was not always fully owned. Volkswagen already held nearly all of it, and small outside shareholders held the rest until 2020. That year Volkswagen used a squeeze-out, a German legal process that lets a company holding nearly all of a firm’s shares buy out the remainder for cash. Audi’s shareholders approved it on July 31, 2020, and it took effect on November 16, 2020, when it was entered in the commercial register, according to Volkswagen’s 2020 annual report.

Some ownership pages say Volkswagen took over Lamborghini in 2020. What changed that year was Audi’s ownership, not Lamborghini’s.

Ownership vs. control: who runs Lamborghini day to day?

The last row matters. In December 2020, after months of speculation that Lamborghini might be sold or spun off, Volkswagen’s supervisory board said Lamborghini and Ducati would remain part of the group, according to the group’s own press release.

Is Lamborghini basically Audi?

Not in the legal sense, and only partly in the engineering sense. The Urus SUV is built on a Volkswagen platform and shares its engine with the Porsche Cayenne, according to Wikipedia’s History of Lamborghini. The Revuelto and Temerario carry engines built for those cars: a 6.5-litre V12 and a 4.0-litre V8.

Whether shared parts make a Lamborghini “basically” an Audi is a matter of opinion. The record supports something narrower. Lamborghini shares platforms and technology with its sister brands, and it keeps its own factory, designers and headquarters in Italy.

Who Owned Lamborghini Before Volkswagen?

Lamborghini has had six ownership stages since 1963, and most ended in a sale forced by money trouble.

Ownership timeline at a glance

Prices and dates come from Wikipedia’s History of Lamborghini, which cites contemporary reporting including The New York Times and Volkswagen’s own publications. Older deal values are approximate. Sources also describe the Mimrans’ timing and the 1994–1995 buyers in slightly different ways. The sequence above follows the most detailed account.

Who founded Lamborghini, and why did he sell? (1963–1974)

Ferruccio Lamborghini, an industrialist who had built a tractor business, incorporated Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini S.p.A. on October 30, 1963. He wanted a refined grand touring car to rival Ferrari, and the first prototype, the 350GTV, appeared at the Turin Motor Show that month. The Miura, shown in 1966, helped make the rear mid-engine layout the standard for supercars.

Trouble arrived through his other business. In 1971 his tractor company lost orders from a South African importer and from Bolivia’s new military government after a coup, and its unionised workforce could not be laid off. He sold the tractor holding to SAME in 1972. That same year he sold 51% of the car company to Swiss businessman Georges-Henri Rossetti for $600,000, then the remaining 49% to René Leimer, a friend of Rossetti’s, in 1974. The 1973 oil crisis was hitting sales of fuel-hungry sports cars in the meantime.

He retired to an estate near Lake Trasimeno in Umbria. The reasons for selling were financial, and the sources do not suggest anything more personal.

Rossetti, Leimer and the 1978 bankruptcy (1974–1980)

Rossetti rarely involved himself in the company’s affairs. Then the Cheetah, a military-vehicle prototype shown in 1977, performed poorly and lost the contract it was built for. Lamborghini entered bankruptcy in 1978 and Italian courts took control.

The Mimran brothers (1980–1987)

In 1980 the Swiss brothers Jean-Claude and Patrick Mimran, both known as food entrepreneurs, were appointed to administer the company in receivership. They went on to buy it, reportedly for $3 million. Patrick became CEO, invested heavily, rebuilt the Sant’Agata facilities and hired new engineers.

The Jalpa and the LM002 off-roader came out on his watch, and the Countach finally reached the US market in 1982. The Mimrans were the only owners up to that point who made money from the company.

Chrysler (1987–1994)

Chrysler bought Lamborghini on April 24, 1987, in a deal driven by chairman Lee Iacocca. It paid $25.2 million and added a $50 million cash injection. The Diablo launched in January 1990, and for a while the company turned a profit.

Then US sales of the $239,000 car slowed. Lamborghini built 673 cars in 1991 and only 166 the next year, and Chrysler decided the output was too small to justify its investment. Chrysler owned the company for almost seven years and does not own it today. It sold in 1994.

MegaTech, V’Power and MyCom (1994–1998)

By February 1994, after $40 million changed hands, Lamborghini had left American ownership for MegaTech. The Bermuda-registered company was owned by the Indonesian conglomerate SEDTCO, headed by businessmen Setiawan Djody and Tommy Suharto, the youngest son of Indonesia’s then president.

In 1995 the ownership was reshuffled. Tommy Suharto’s V’Power Corporation held 60% and the Malaysian company MyCom Bhd held the other 40%. Vittorio di Capua, a Fiat veteran, became CEO in November 1996. In 1997 the company sold 209 cars, thirteen more than it needed to turn a profit.

Audi buys Lamborghini (1998)

The 1997 Asian financial crisis set up the next sale. Volkswagen chairman Ferdinand Piëch spent 1998 buying Bentley, Bugatti and Lamborghini, and Audi acquired Lamborghini that September for around $110 million.

Audi first placed the company inside a holding company, a firm whose job is to own other firms. It was called Lamborghini Holding S.p.A. and was chaired by Audi president Franz-Josef Paefgen. Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. became its car-making subsidiary.

Why Volkswagen Bought Lamborghini and What Changed

Audi paid about $110 million in 1998 to give a struggling Italian brand engineering support, and the brand has been stable under German ownership since.

Why Audi wanted it in 1998

An Audi spokesman told the Wall Street Journal at the time that Lamborghini could sharpen Audi’s sporty image, while Lamborghini would gain Audi’s technical expertise. That account appears in Wikipedia’s History of Lamborghini. It is a stated motive, not proof of what happened next.

What changed under German ownership

The first all-new Lamborghini under Audi was the Murciélago, the company’s first new model in more than a decade. The Gallardo followed in 2003. By the time it went out of production in 2013, 14,022 had been built, almost half of all Lamborghinis ever made.

Later models show how tightly the brand is tied to the group:

• The Urus (2017) uses a Volkswagen platform and a Porsche Cayenne engine.
• The Sián FKP 37 (2019), Lamborghini’s first hybrid, carries the initials of Ferdinand Piëch in its name, with “37” for the last two digits of his birth year.
• The Revuelto (2023) is the first plug-in hybrid Lamborghini.

The sales numbers moved a long way. Lamborghini sold 209 cars in 1997. It hit a record 2,430 in 2008, fell to 1,302 in 2010 after the financial crisis, and delivered 10,747 in 2025. That is roughly fifty times the 1997 figure. Audi’s ownership is one factor. Model launches and demand in the US and Asia also matter, and the sources do not separate their effects.

Not everyone is happy about it. Motor1 wrote in 2026 that some enthusiasts still complain the brand lost its soul under Volkswagen, then asked whether the brand would even be discussed today without the German group behind it. That is opinion, and the ownership record neither confirms nor refutes it.

Lamborghini today: the 2025 results

The company said currency swings and US tariffs weighed on operating income, along with one-off costs tied to its electrification strategy. Its March 2026 results release says a better product mix and cost control absorbed most of the impact.

Could Lamborghini Ownership Change?

Talk of selling or listing Lamborghini has come and gone for years without a decision. The 2026 round is louder than most because Volkswagen is restructuring, but as of September 19, 2026 nothing has been announced.

What was reported about an IPO or sale

• 2019: Bloomberg reported, citing sources, that Volkswagen was preparing to fold Lamborghini into a separate legal entity and was weighing a sale or stock listing, as relayed by Automotive News.
• December 2020: Volkswagen’s supervisory board said Lamborghini and Ducati will remain part of the group.
• May 2021: Autocar reported a roughly $9.2 billion offer from Quantum Group and Centricus Asset Management. Volkswagen answered that Lamborghini was not for sale, as reported by The Detroit Bureau.
• 2022: After Porsche’s stock market debut, a Bloomberg Intelligence analyst said a Lamborghini listing could come within 18 months. Bloomberg also reported that Audi said there were no concrete plans. No listing followed.
• 2026: Volkswagen’s supervisory board approved a plan to cut its holdings by about a third, and roughly 600 of about 2,000 business units are under review, AutoGuide reported, citing Bloomberg. Audi CEO Gernot Döllner confirmed that Ducati’s future is being discussed and said no decisions have been made. He told Il Sole 24 Ore none would come within two or three years. Several outlets also relayed a July 2026 Financial Times report that advisers had again raised a Lamborghini listing or a Ducati sale. Volkswagen has announced no decision on Lamborghini.

The review is producing real deals elsewhere. Volkswagen agreed to sell a 51% stake in its Everllence marine engine business, and Porsche’s exit from Bugatti Rimac was completed on September 9, 2026. That shows the pressure to shed assets is genuine. It does not show that Lamborghini is next.

A stock market listing is different from a sale. An IPO would put a slice of Lamborghini’s shares in public hands, and whoever kept the majority would still be the owner.

How to spot outdated ownership claims

Ownership pages go stale quickly. Four checks catch most problems:

• Forecasts. A page that treats a Lamborghini IPO as imminent may be repeating the 2022 analyst view. That window passed with no listing.
• Dates. Chrysler owned the company from April 1987 to February 1994, Audi bought it in September 1998 and Volkswagen’s squeeze-out of Audi was registered in November 2020.
• Figures. 2025 results should match the company’s own numbers: 10,747 cars, €3.20 billion and €768 million.
• Other brands. A page that lists Porsche as a Bugatti shareholder is out of date as of September 9, 2026.

A real ownership change shows up in an official release from Volkswagen or Audi, a supervisory board decision or a public share offering document. Rumours and analyst valuations do not count.

Is the Lamborghini Family Still Rich?

No reliable public figure exists, and the family has not owned the car company for over fifty years.

What is actually known

Ferruccio sold his last stake in 1974, so the car company’s later growth did not enrich him. He pursued winemaking on his Umbrian estate and died on February 20, 1993. His son Tonino, born in 1947, runs a separate lifestyle business under the family name, and press profiles describe watches, clothing, accessories and real estate. Profiles also credit him with founding a museum devoted to his father.

None of that makes the family owners of the car maker. The 1998 sale to Audi came from Mycom Setdco and V’Power, not from the Lamborghinis.

Why net worth figures disagree

Web estimates for Tonino Lamborghini run from about $250 million to about €1 billion, with $350 million, $400 million and $500 million in between. Estimates for Ferruccio at the time of his death run from about $100 million to $500 million. One page gives 1973 as the year he died, when the year was 1993.

The pages reviewed for this article rely on other net worth sites or give no source. None points to a company filing. The evidence supports the claim that the family runs a real business under its name. It does not support a precise wealth figure, and anyone printing a single number is guessing.

Lamborghini Name Mix-Ups: Cars, Tractors and Family Brands

The Lamborghini name sits on several unrelated businesses, and only one of them is owned by Audi.

Which “Lamborghini” is which?

Is Bugatti owned by Lamborghini?

No. Volkswagen bought both brands in its 1998 shopping spree, and neither has owned the other. Bugatti now sits in Bugatti Rimac, a company Rimac Group controls with 55%. Porsche’s former 45% stake was bought by a consortium led by HOF Capital, and the deal was completed on September 9, 2026, according to Bugatti’s newsroom.

How to Check Who Owns a Car Brand Yourself

Most ownership questions can be settled from company documents, without trusting any single article.

Step-by-step: verify ownership in five minutes

1. Start at the top. Open the latest annual report of the group that supposedly owns the brand. Volkswagen and Audi both publish annual reports, and German groups normally list their subsidiaries in them.
2. Confirm the middle layer. Check that the intermediate company, here Audi AG, lists the brand among its own subsidiaries.
3. Read the brand’s own press releases. Lamborghini’s March 2026 results were published through Audi’s media site, which shows where the reporting line runs.
4. Look for the legal record. Italian company records are held in the Italian business register (Registro delle Imprese), where the filed details of Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. can be requested.
5. Check the date. Compare any price or year against contemporary news, such as The New York Times coverage of Chrysler’s 1987 purchase.

Red flags in ownership articles

• Figures with no date attached.
• Sources that are only other blogs.
• Net worth numbers with no method, or with basic errors such as a wrong death year.
• Pages that use “Audi” and “Volkswagen” interchangeably without explaining why.
• Long stretches on unrelated brands, business models or technology.

Summary: Lamborghini Ownership in Brief

Key takeaways

• Audi AG owns Lamborghini. Volkswagen AG owns Audi, so Volkswagen is the ultimate parent.
• Volkswagen took Audi to 100% in November 2020. That did not change who owns Lamborghini.
• Audi bought Lamborghini in September 1998 for about $110 million, after Chrysler and a series of Asian-linked owners.
• Lamborghini delivered a record 10,747 cars and posted €3.20 billion in revenue in 2025.
• Sale and listing talk exists in 2026 reporting, but no decision has been announced.

So who owns Lamborghini? Audi, and through Audi, Volkswagen. The founder’s family owns none of the car company, and it has not for over fifty years.

FAQs

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Disclaimer

This article is general information based on public sources as of September 19, 2026. Ownership can change, and older deal prices are approximate. Nothing here is financial or investment advice. For legal, financial or trading decisions, confirm current details in official company filings.

Alex Miller

Alex Miller is an automotive writer and industry researcher specializing in the companies, brands, and corporate groups that shape the global automotive market. His coverage focuses on automotive ownership, parent companies, mergers and acquisitions, brand histories, executive leadership, and the business decisions behind major vehicle manufacturers.

Alex’s work spans mainstream, luxury, performance, and emerging automotive brands. He researches how automakers are structured, which companies control individual brands, how ownership has changed over time, and what those relationships mean for consumers and the wider industry. His coverage includes brands such as Jaguar, Ferrari, BMW, Volvo, Mazda, Lamborghini, Lexus, Acura, Audi, Genesis, Infiniti, Porsche, and Volkswagen.

For ownership and corporate-structure stories, Alex prioritizes primary and authoritative sources, including company filings, investor-relations publications, official corporate announcements, regulatory records, and established automotive and financial publications. This approach helps separate a brand’s public identity from its actual corporate ownership and control.

Alex combines detailed industry research with straightforward explanations designed for both automotive enthusiasts and general readers. Beyond ownership stories, his interests include automotive history, luxury and performance vehicles, electric-vehicle development, mobility companies, motorsports, and the evolving relationship between global automakers and their parent groups.