Two names indelibly linked to the history Italian automotive industry for their important contributions, Ferruccio Lamborghini (bottom) and Giovanni Michelotti (top), have been induced into the European Automotive Hall of Fame during a ceremony in Geneva.

Two famous names indelibly linked to the rich history Italian automotive industry for their very important contributions, Ferruccio Lamborghini and Giovanni Michelotti, have been induced into the European Automotive Hall of Fame during a ceremony that took place at the 79th Geneva Motor Show.

Each year in Geneva, new members are inducted into the European Automotive Hall of Fame and this year four more key figures from history were added to the roll of honour: as well as Lamborghini and Michelotti, Werner Breitschwerd and Hubb Van Doorne were also inducted. The Hall of Fame honours lifetimes of technical, managerial and entrepreneurial achievements. It is the annual event that pays tribute to the giants of the European automotive industry. Members are selected by a panel of distinguished judges.

Started in 2001 the European Automotive Hall of Fame is a non-commercial, not-for-profit initiative of Automotive News Europe in association with the Geneva Motor Show. The Hall of Fame belongs to the whole European auto industry. It is funded through annual sponsorships from Europe’s major automotive companies as well as a significant annual contribution from Automotive News Europe.

New members are inducted into the Hall of Fame at a gala dinner during the Geneva Motor Show. The annual dinner brings together more than 200 senior automotive industry executives. The Hall is in the Palexpo, home of the Geneva Motor Show. Plaques honouring the new inductees are mounted on a special Hall of Fame wall each year.

Ferruccio Lamborghini is a creator of innovative supercars. Born in Italy in 1916, Lamborghini began assembling tractors in a small garage. By 1949, he opened Lamborghini Trattice and built tractors of his own design. Their success helped him open the business he is best remembered for, high-performance sports cars. At a new factory in Sant'Agata, he built probably the best grand touring cars of the 1970s. Lamborghini died in 1993.

Giovanni Michelotti was, arguably the first freelance car designer. During his 44-year career, he designed some 1,200 cars for brands that included Ferrari, DAF, Triumph, BMW and Renault Alpine. He started with coachbuilder Stabilimenti Farina in 1936 and founded his own design studio in Turin in 1949. With his fresh and elegant Italian style, Michelotti was a major influence on the shape of cars of the 1950s and 1960s, and to some extent on the models of this day and age.

Also induced in Geneva last week were Werner Breitschwerdt a member of the Daimler-Benz board of management from 1977 who is credited with evolving Mercedes-Benz from an exclusive status-oriented brand to the sophisticated premium brand it is today and Huub Van Doorne who was the driving force in the Dutch truck and car industry’s heyday in the 1930s but he is best known for patenting continuously variable transmissions (CVTs).