Magnifico! The Lamborghini 3500 GTZ Is the Coolest Lambo You Never Heard Of
[This story first appeared in the Spring 2011 issue of MotorTrend Classic] Ferruccio Lamborghini’s firm was barely two years old when the 3500 GTZ broke cover in 1965. That makes the rave reviews of his first model, the 350 GT—the car upon which the 3500 GTZ was based—all the more remarkable.
“The [350 GT] was a delightful experience from beginning to end,” Jerry Titus observed in his Sports Car Graphic road test. “Acceleration is impressive, [and] it seems like nothing flat is the time it takes to get to 150 mph. The overall stability is really excellent…Fabulous is the only word for the brakes. Enzo, Orsi, and David Brown better look to their laurels!”
Since those impressions were typical—another tester proclaimed the 350 GT would “give Ferrari a migraine”—why would anyone want to tinker with such success to make the 3500 GTZ?
The multifaceted answer starts with the 350 GT’s alluring mechanicals. In March 1964, when the model debuted, the car’s 280-horsepower, 3.5-liter V-12 featured four overhead cams, whereas Ferrari’s engines only had two. A five-speed transmission was standard; Ferraris and Astons typically used a four-speed with electronic overdrive. A rigid axle was located at the rear of those competitors; the Lamborghini boasted four-wheel independent suspension. And, as Titus observed, superb stopping power came compliments of four large disc brakes with servo assist.
Probably the best argument for the 3500 GTZ was the 350 GT’s controversial styling. Though the shape has aged quite well, Carrozzeria Touring had to use the Franco Scaglione-designed sharp-edged 350 GTV prototype as its starting point. “Lamborghini had shown his car at the Turin Show in 1963,” comments Carlo Felice Bianchi Anderloni, Touring’s former design head who oversaw the 350 GT’s styling. “It was important that our car not look completely different. You couldn’t pass from the 350 GTV to the Miura, for example.”
Further fanning the flames was the period’s prosperity, which coupled beautifully with the auto industry’s creative yeastiness. During World War II, numerous coachbuilders such as Anderloni’s father and key personnel found refuge from the ravages of war by focusing on what they wanted to design after the conflict ended. Once it did, that pent-up creativity and Italy’s highly skilled but inexpensive labor force let loose with an expressive explosion of custom coachwork that lasted well into the late 1960s.”It was like a giant, compressed spring,” says Filippo Sapino, former head of design at Ghia. “When the war ended, that spring released.”
Taking advantage of that fertile period were industrialists, heads of state, titled individuals, celebrities, and automotive manufacturers who flocked in droves to the numerous carrozzerie in Turin and Milan. One such custom coachwork patron was marquis Gerino Gerini, a well-connected Ferrari and Maserati Formula 1 and endurance racer of the 1950s. In the early 1960s, the nobleman was appointed commercial director of ASA, a Milan-based firm that built the diminutive four-cylinder 1000 GT under license from Ferrari. He was also a successful high-end car dealer—by the summer of 1965, his Lamborcar dealership had sold approximately 25 percent of the 350 GTs produced.
