This is a Lamborghini Miura, the car that in the mid-’60s changed Lamborghini from a curiosity — an Italian tractor company that also made a lovely grand tourer — into a global supercar powerhouse. In fact, this is the car that originated that term.
We’ve been debating the category ever since, trying to determine which cars deserve that honorific, and — in an era when pick-up trucks can sprint to 60 in 3.5 seconds – it’s not getting any easier. But there can be absolutely no doubt: the Miura is supercar incarnate.
Lamborghini made fewer than 800 Miuras in a variety of flavors, starting with the P400. P stands for “posteriore” — Italian for rear, a reference to this being Lamborghini’s first car with the engine at the back. (It is a bit of a misnomer as the engine’s in the middle, but let’s not fret the semantics.) The 400 refers to the displacement of the engine, a V12 that previously saw duty in the nose of the company’s 400 GT and Isolero.
Later came the racier 400S, then a roofless Roadster version, then a one-off, race-ready version called the Jota, before the final version you see here, the SV, or Super Veloce. Yeah, you don’t have to break out Google Translate to figure that one out: super fast.
How fast? Top speed on the Miura SV is 174 mph, pretty stout in a car with 50-year-old brake and suspension technology. The SV had more power, better handling, and wider tires than the base Miura. The fenders on the car were flared to accommodate and, to match the car’s racier persona, the Miura’s classic eyelashes around the headlights were snipped. The result is the rather more aggressive stance and stare of the SV you see here.
Only four SVs were made, primo provenance enough, but this one is the last assembled, rolled especially off of the Museo Lamborghini show floor and into my eager hands for the drive of a lifetime.
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