Overview

The Lamborghini Miura is a sports car built in Italy by Lamborghini between 1966 and 1973. A mid-engined layout had been used successfully in competition, including by the Ford GT40 and Ferrari 250 LM at Le Mans. De Tomaso had produced a road car with this layout, the Vallelunga, but otherwise cars designed for the road were almost uniformly front-engined, rear drive vehicles. The Miura was a trendsetter, the one that made the mid-engined layout de rigueur among two-seater high performance supercars. It is named after the Spanish ranch Miura, whose bulls have a proverbial attack instinct.

Styling

Inspired by the Ford GT40, the Miura astonished showgoers at the 1965 Turin Motor Show where only the chassis was shown, with multiple orders being placed despite the lack of an actual body. Later, Marcello Gandini from Bertone, who would later go on to design many of Lamborghini's cars, was chosen to design the body. Both body and chassis were launched five months later at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show. It was a sensation, with its flamboyant bodywork and unusual engine and clam-shell opening hoods on both the front and rear of the car. There was a small trunk located in the very rear of the tail behind the engine.

Details

Early Miuras were notorious for being a fire hazard. The problem was caused by Lamborghini's decision to use Weber 40 IDL 3C1 carburetors which were designed exclusively for racing applications and weren't suitable for road use. The problem occurred when the car sat idling (e.g. at a stoplight), the area above the throttles filled with fuel which often ignited when the car accelerated away from the stop. One of Lamborghini's engineers devised a modification for the carburetors which created a fuel-return. Ferrari, who used these same carburetors in one of their cars, and suffered the same problems, were able to use Lamborghini's modification to solve it.

Some other interesting details: the position of the fuel tank is at the front causing the vehicle to have less weight at the front as the fuel tank gets lighter (closer to empty), thus making the car more difficult to handle at 150+ MPH. Another detail is that the doors resemble a bull's horns when it is opened wide (Lamborghini's logo itself depicts a raging bull).

The Miura is also technically the first Supercar ever in the world. Since the word "Supercar", which is coined by L.J.K. Setright, a distinguished automobile journalist, was used for the first time for the Miura on L.J.K's own review of the car.

In 2004, Sports Car International named this car number four on both the list of Top Sports Cars of the 1960s and Top Sports Cars of the 1970s. The car was ranked number four on the list of the Top Sports Car of All Time.

2006 Miura concept

A Lamborghini Miura concept car was presented at the Museum of Television & Radio on January 5, 2006 alongside the Los Angeles Auto Show, though it was not present at the show itself. Instead, the Miura officially debuted at the North American International Auto Show two weeks later. It was the first design by new Lamborghini chief, Walter de'Silva, and commemorates the 1966 introduction of the original Miura in Geneva.

Lamborghini president and CEO Stephan Winkelmann has denied the concept will return the Miura to production, saying “The Miura was a celebration of our history, but Lamborghini is about the future. Retro design is not what we are here for. So we won’t do the Miura.”