Courtesy Lamborghini A Lamborghini concept SUV from a few years back.
OK, it wasn't actually a long episode. It was really rather short - speculation heated up just a few weeks ago. But it did lead to a certain amount of Italian panic, now alleviated.
Bloomberg's Tommaso Ebhardt and Christoph Rauwald have the story.
"In exchange for Lamborghini's plan to hire as many as 500 people, [Prime Minister Matteo] Renzi's government will grant as much as 80 million euros ($87 million) in tax breaks and other benefits to expand production in Italy, they wrote, citing unnamed sourced with knowledge of the deal.
"[Parent company] Audi is seeking to broaden Lamborghini's lineup beyond two-seat supercars, which have limited appeal in emerging markets such as China, where road conditions can be poor."
Lamborghini is ultimately owned by the Volkswagen Group, and the plan for the Lambo SUV means that the new vehicle will be quite the Italo-German mashup, with bits of Eastern Europe thrown in. Ultimately, the supercar maker's SUV will share DNA with the Porsche Cayenne; Porsche is another of VW Group's high-performance luxury brands.
Who knows how much it will cost. But it will certainly be a lot, and likely feature fairly exotic styling, although given that Lambo unveiled a concept SUV a few years ago that didn't look completely insane, the future may portend a boring Lambo.
As Bloomberg noted, Lambo's objective is to sell another 3,000 vehicles annually, up from the current total of roughly 2,500, which is all supercars and dazzling sports cars.