At Lamborghini, quick hairpin turns and mad dashes are usually left to customers behind the wheel of one of its high-performance vehicles. Yet, that was exactly what was required of CEO Stephan Winkelmann and his team in February when 85 of its hand-built vehicles were destroyed aboard the doomed Felicity Ace when the car-hauling ship caught fire and sank in the North Atlantic.

Most of the Lamborghinis aboard were Urus SUVs, which were relatively easy for the brand to replace, given enough time and customer patience. But 15 of the vehicles were $500,000 hand-crafted Aventador Ultimae editions — the end products of the final production run of that storied nameplate — headed to customers in the United States who had ordered the collectible special editions that now rest beneath an estimated 3,000 feet of ocean.

For Winkelmann, 58, who had just become Lamborghini’s CEO in December 2020, the decision was clear: The vehicles would have to be rebuilt, which meant going back to suppliers that had moved on to other projects and persuading them to help Lamborghini fulfill the Aventador Ultimae orders. It also meant refitting machines that were already being retooled for future projects at the brand’s factory in Sant’Agata Bolognese, Emilia-Romagna, Italy. The work wasn’t easy, but it was accomplished within a few months, and helped the brand increase its deliveries, revenue and margins during the first half of 2022.

“We put our heads together, and luckily, we are able to replace those cars, so there will be no loss for our customers in the U.S. due to the sunken ship. This is good news,” Winkelmann said a few weeks after the disaster. “And all the rest we are able to replace. The Aventador was tricky, but we made it.”