Last Friday, the media in Singapore was given a preview of Lamborghini’s newest supercar, the Aventador, by official dealer EuroSport Auto. Gracing the occasion was Stephan Winkelmann, the COE and President of Lamborghini. The manufacturer is owned by Audi and is, indirectly, part of the Volkswagen conglomerate. Winkelmann’s presence underlies the excellent sales the Italian brand has here: It’s believed that Singapore took the lion’s share of orders for the limited edition Reventon roadster worldwide and there have been a staggering 70-plus orders for the Aventador itself.

What’s the Aventador about? Is it just another supercar?

Stephan Winkelmann: When we started to think about the Aventador back in around 2006, we had many ideas about what could be the new brand representative of the sixth generation of the vehicle. I went home, I said to myself: “I want something very easy.” So I gave a very short briefing to the team, just two words: “No competitors”.

“No competitors” means you have to be somebody who is leading the pack for at least 10 years because the normal life cycle of a such a super sports car is on average much longer than a normal production car. And so it came up to a mix of technological innovation, because if we speak about design, it’s always revolutionary. What is the technological innovation we need for the future? In these years, we were very much speaking about the power-to-weight ratio. For us, the power-to-weight ratio is the key to the future of the super sports car business.

How was the name chosen?

It’s a tradition to use the name of fighting bulls, and you have to have three things which are matching. You have to have a nice sounding name, it has to be the name of a bull which deserves to be named and then it has not to be used in a different aspect. So you have to block the name. Aventador is the name of a fighting bull that fought in 1993 and he was awarded the most courageous bull at that event, and so he’s a very good representative of Lamborghini.

There are lots of ways to look for names. There’s the Internet, and we have a very old encyclopedia which is all about los toros – the names and the history of each fighting bull … there are some names which are very well-sounding for somebody in Italy, but maybe in the Asian world it’s an insult, so we have to take care of this issue.

What does Singapore mean to Lamborghini?

For me, Melvin Goh (managing director of EuroSports Auto) is representing Lamborghini at its best. And to say what we are looking for and what we need as a partner is exactly what I imagine when I’m here in Singapore. Somebody who is living the life of his customers, and this is very tough. This is not about a 9 to 5 job. It’s about going out every night, taking care of the customers, no weekends, always being available as the first person, because it’s a one-to-one business. And this is exactly what we’re doing, so for me, Singapore and Lamborghini are represented at its best by Melvin Goh. And I can say this without any trace of willingness to please.

More than 70 units of the Aventador were ordered. How does this compare to other cities in the region?

This is a record. Maybe in Beijing we have similar sales, maybe a bit higher. Beijing has hinterland and it has double the citizens and a very fast economy. So this is something we were expecting, but even there it’s outstanding. But I think it’s No 2 or or No 3. But in terms of per capita, for sure it’s No 1 – not only in Asia.