A beautician has claimed that DNA taken from the drinking straw of a Lamborghini heiress proves she is the granddaughter of the sports car inventor.

Flavia Borzone, 35, a beautician from Nantes, instructed a private detective to retrieve a drinking straw from model, socialite and singer Elettra Lamborghini in order to obtain her DNA and prove they are sisters.

Ms Borzone says she is the illegitimate daughter of 76-year-old Tonino Lamborghini, whose father Ferruccio Lamborghini created the luxury car in northern Italy in 1963.

The company is now owned by the Volkswagen Group through its subsidiary, Audi.

Her claims emerged from a court case in Bologna on Monday.

Experts from the University of Ferrara said that the DNA sample proved a genetic match between Ms Borzone and Ms Lamborghini, showing they were sisters.

Lawyers for the beautician said the DNA link was “irrefutable”. The DNA material had been collected by a private detective from a straw that Ms Lamborghini had used when she drank an iced coffee, the court heard. One Italian newspaper called it “the straw of a thousand secrets”.

Ms Borzone says that she was born from a relationship between her mother, Rosalba Colosimo, and Mr Lamborghini, who she says met at a bus stop in Milan in 1980.

Mr Lamborghini was allegedly driving by when he noticed the young woman waiting for a bus and stopped to offer her a lift. The two struck up a relationship and Ms Borzone was born in 1988.

‘I want to know whose daughter I am’

“I don’t want to offend anyone, I just want to know whose daughter I am,” Ms Borzone told the court.

Convinced that she is the daughter of Mr Lamborghini, she went public with the claims on television programmes and gossip magazines.

Mr Lamborghini accused her, and her mother, of defamation and the case has now gone to court.

Ms Borzone says that in 2019 she drove from her home in Naples to the town of Funo, near Bologna in northern Italy, hoping to meet the man she claims is her father.

‘She had a niggle for a long time’

“She had had this niggle for a long time,” said her lawyer, Gian Maria Romanello. “She did not have the same physical features as her supposed father. When he and her mother argued, she would often hear her mother say: ‘She’s not even your daughter.’”

The beautician covertly recorded the conversation she had with Mr Lamborghini and it was presented in court, according to La Repubblica newspaper.

“In the conversation, Mr Lamborghini admitted to having had a relationship with Colossimo [Ms Borzone’s mother],” the lawyer told the court. “They met in 1980 in Milan. Rosalba was waiting for a bus, Tonino passed by in his car, he gave her a lift.”

Ms Borzone’s official first name is Clelia, which was a tribute to Mr Lamborghini’s mother, the court was told.

Mr Lamborghini has denied having any biological link to Ms Borzone.

His lawyers said the DNA material was taken from the straw used by his daughter without her consent. It was therefore “unlawful” and should not be admitted as evidence.

The trial was adjourned until March.