It’s difficult to overstate the importance of the Lamborghini Miura, it’s the car that’s widely regarded as the godfather of the mid-engined, two-seater, high-performance sports car – a formula that even 40+ years later is still the fundamental layout of almost all supercars.
Originally conceived as a Skunkworks project amongst Lamborghini’s top engineers, the Miura almost never saw production. Its revolutionary chassis was shown at the Turin Salon in 1965 and the overwhelmingly positive reception led Ferruccio Lamborghini to green light its production, despite his own preference for larger, more luxurious grand tourers.
By 1966 the Bertone designed body had been fitted and the car was shown at the Geneva Motor Show, the reception of the completed prototype was rapturous with many show goers placing orders then and there.
The Lamborghini Miura P400 SV you see here is the third generation of the model, it benefitted with many “bug fixes” and is often referred to as the ultimate iteration of the model. It was fitted with a 370bhp, 3929cc DOHC V12, a five-speed manual transmission, front and rear independent suspension with upper and lower A-arms, coil springs, anti-roll bars and four-wheel Girling disc brakes.
The performance resulting from this specification list was a revelation in the late ’60s and early ’70s, it was the fastest production car in the world and it both founded and cemented Lamborghini’s global reputation as a performance car company.
Funnily enough, this car was bought new by Rod Stewart in 1971 off the showroom floor of Lamborghini Concessionaires Ltd. of Alie Street, London. He owned the car for a number of years before it was sold on, the car’s full history from new is on file and it recently underwent a concours restoration at the hands of noted marque specialist Colin Clarke Engineering and it’s now being offered for sale at the upcoming Paris Auction due to be held on the 5th of February 2014 by RM Auctions.
Click here to read the full listing.
Photo Credits: Tim Scott ©2013 Courtesy of RM Auctions
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
