Valentino Balboni to produce Lamborghini performance parts

From apprentice mechanic to Lamborghini’s highest regarded test driver, Valentino Balboni goes full circle to supply aftermarket performance parts to the Raging Bull.

After 40 years as Lamborghini’s official test driver and six years following his retirement from the role, Valentino Balboni has launched his own aftermarket performance parts brand which will supply the Bologna-based car maker with high-quality and low-volume go-fast parts.

His brand, rather unceremoniously named VB after his own initials, will kick off with a hand-welded lightweight titanium exhaust system specifically for the Lamborghini Aventador LP-750 SV.

Balboni will publicly unveil the system at this month’s Concours d’Elegance at Monterey’s Pebble Beach in California.

With a claimed total weight of just 6.3kg, the VB system — said to have taken more than 350 hours to produce — is fabricated from Grade 2 titanium and bolts to the car’s existing mounting points using the VB billet-cut titanium mounts.

Despite Balboni’s own website citing the system to be a one-of-a-kind collector’s item, official word is that it will be limited to a production run of just 30 units.

We imagine most owners of the 6.5-litre 740hp V12 will want to get their hands on a product created by a man so closely associated with the Italian supercar maker.

Not only does the newly launched firm’s logo integrate the Italian flag of both the man and the machines, but the narrowing perspective of the tricoloured line represents Balboni’s favourite highway where he tested Lamboghinis until his 2008 retirement.

According to the firm’s website, the curves of the B are also said to reflect “two real curves, located in Sant’Agata Bolognese, where Valentino impressed every person sitting in the passenger’s seat with his peculiar way to master them at high speed.”

No word on price, of course, but as the old saying goes: if you have to ask…