As its home nation faces a stagnant economy and the exodus of 20- and 30-somethings to neighboring European countries, how does a hypercar manufacturer keep its hype alive for the next generations" College students from Beantown may be the answer; the concentration of young adults within the Boston area is probably inversely proportional to the number of cars that Lamborghini sells in Italy.
Lamborghini has just signed a three-year sponsorship deal with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology?for a sum it declines to reveal?through which the company is entitled to tap more than 50 students who study abroad each year in Italy. They’ll assist with research, development, and all-out genius. Toyota began partnering with the school last fall as part of a $1 billion effort to bolster self-driving cars and has opened a center on the MIT campus. But imagine working overseas with Lamborghini. Is that not the college semester of a car fanatic’s dreams" “We often see a win-win: the combination of their analytical skills with the research creativity that comes from MIT?s students and researchers,” said MIT-Italy faculty director Carlo Ratti about these sponsorship deals. “I would expect something similar also in the case of Lamborghini.”

The university likens the new program to a 2007 partnership between Boeing and the University of Washington in Seattle.  That one led to a completely new (and faster) method of forming carbon-fiber par...