17,000- 15,000 BCE: Cave people in Lascaux, France simply can’t resist doodling some cow pix on the walls.
1876: Nikolaus Otto builds the first 4-stroke internal combustion engine
1886: Carl Benz develops and patents the first motor car, but misses a golden opportunity to name his new venture “Carl’s Otto-cycle Wagenwerken”
1908: Henry Ford begins mass production of the Model T. But Ford only offers “any color as long as it’s black”, never “white with black cow spots” and World War 1 follows in less than a decade.
1919: Surrealism develops in Europe in the aftermath of WW1 but produces no cow-themed cars, and war breaks out again in 1939.
1946: Following WW2, British Army Officer Major Ivan Hirst is credited with rescuing the Volkswagen factory in Wolfsburg, Germany. The VW “Beetle” DOES spawn cow-themed customization and becomes the biggest-selling car of all time.
1948: In Italy, Ferruccio Lamborghini begins production of agricultural/farm machinery, but fails to take the opportunity to name the company “Cowborghini” which would have been kinda more logical, really.
1953: In the US, head of General Motors, Charles Erwin Wilson is famously misquoted as saying “What’s good for General Motors is good for America!” But critically, “Cowdillac” isn’t an official GM brand : GM’s market share falls from an all-time peak of over 50% in 1961 to under 20% today.
1960-ish: The newly-affluent Ferruccio Lamborghini burns out yet another clutch in his Ferrari, and his own factory engineers find it to be the same part as is fitted in Lamborghini tractors. But Ferrari dismisses Lamborghini’s complaints. Either piqued by Ferrari and/or attracted to their market, Lamborghini decides to build sports cars, and does so from 1963.
1966: Lamborghini “Miura” (not Moo-ura) launched – the first “supercar”
1971: Lamborghini Countach launched at Geneva Motor Show and begins production in 1974. But “Countach” is pronounced “Koontak” not “Cowntash” and Lamborghini files for bankruptcy in 1978.
1978: Henry Ford II famously fires Ford President Lee Iacocca, possibly for having a silly name. But Iacocca never changes his name to Iacoccow.
1979: As new head of Chrysler, Iacocca also fails to change the company name to “Cowsler”: Chrysler buys Lamborghini 1987, sells it in 1994, and files for bankruptcy 2009.
1998: Volkswagen Audi Group acquires Lamborghini. But the enlarged group never produces any cow-themed vehicle, nor even offers pink brake calipers: VAG is soon severely punished in the 2015 “Dieselgate” scandal.
2019: In the UK the Cowborghini project is at last conceived, and work begins in February 2020: Lamborghini announces all-time record profits in March 2020.
2020: Cowborghini is delivered June 2020 and tours UK and mainland Europe July-October 2020 : world stock markets rise by unprecedented 13% in November 2020.
