Think of a supercar, and you’d probably picture a powerful, mid-engined and rear-wheel driven that's nestled within a sleek and eye-catching body. This is the template that many of the world’s greatest supercars followed for decades, but how was it popularised?
Back in the 1960s, the Lamborghini Miura moulded the supercar template and forever changed the realm of performance-focused machines. As the Miura completes its 60th anniversary, let’s recap the genesis of the Italian machine that wrote the supercar rulebook.
How the Miura came about (1965)
Given how seminal the Miura is, you’d think it was developed with Lamborghini’s full confidence and financial might, but that’s not the case. In 1965, three of Lamborghini’s best engineers – Giampaolo Dallara, Paolo Stanzani and Bob Wallace – took on a skunk works project (unbeknownst to the rest of the company) developing a prototype performance car dubbed the ‘P400’.
Ferruccio Lamborghini – the founder and namesake of the Italian marque – was a firm believer in powerful and comfortable GT cars, as opposed to the hard-edged, racer-derived machines from his arch-nemesis: Ferrari. Lamborghini’s first two cars, the 350 GT and 400 GT, perfectly represented Ferruccio’s line of thinking, but the P400 deviated greatly from it.
The engines of the 350 GT and 400 GT were longitudinally mounted in the front, and were relatively laid-back and unhurried. In contrast, the P400’s 3.9-litre V12 was mounted transversally just ahead of the rear axle, and the car placed a much greater emphasis on performance. Expectedly, the P400 was the antithesis to the type of cars Ferruccio Lamborghini wanted to make.
However, when Dallara, Stanzani and Wallace finally presented the P400 prototype to Ferruccio, he gave them the go-ahead. Lamborghini greenlit the project under the belief that even if its performance ambitions didn’t work out, the P400 could still serve as a valuable marketing tool for the company.
Lamborghini introduces the Miura to the world (1966)
In November 1965, the P400’s rolling chassis (mechanicals minus the bodywork) debuted at the Turin Motor Show to immense interest. The rolling chassis weighed only 120kg, featured four white exhaust pipes, and attracted several coachbuilders who wanted to build the bodywork. Lamborghini ultimately contracted Italian design firm Bertone for the job, where Marcello Gandini – who went on to be known as one of the greatest car designers in history – styled the P400.
Just a few months later at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show, the first fully styled prototype of the P400 made its public debut. Interestingly, Bertone had finished the P400’s bodywork mere days before the show, and among all the rush, hadn’t properly checked if the engine would fit inside. It didn’t. So the engine bay was filled with weights and Lamborghini’s sales head had to turn journalists away from sneaking a look on the show floor.
Still, the P400 was a massive hit with showgoers and cemented itself as a highlight of the 1966 Geneva Motor Show. Design highlights included an impossibly low stance, curvaceous lines, a very long and tapered bonnet, ‘eyelash’ headlight surrounds, a sweeping roofline, and large rear window louvres. The P400 undoubtedly remains one of the most striking and beautiful cars ever made.
It wasn’t all show and no go either, as the P400’s transversally‑mounted V12 and 5-speed manual gearbox were derived from the 400 GT, but the former featured a stronger 350hp tune thanks to upright carburetors and an aluminum alloy block with higher compression.
The mid‑engined layout enabled a near-ideal 44:56 front‑to‑rear weight distribution. It should be noted that the P400 wasn't the absolute first mid-engined RWD car – that honour goes to the 1961 Bonnet Djet. However, it was the first high-performance series-production road car to use such a layout. It was also equipped with double wishbones and 12‑inch Girling disc brakes all around (unusual for road cars at the time), coil springs over telescopic dampers, and rack-and-pinion steering.
The P400 was promptly entered into production. In typical Lamborghini fashion, the production-spec P400 was christened the ‘Miura’, inspired by a breeder of Spanish fighting bulls.
The Miura’s success and iterations (1966-1973)
Unsurprisingly, the Miura proved instantly popular. Lamborghini built about 763 Miuras throughout its seven-year lifecycle. 275 units of the base Miura P400 (1966-69) were made. Interestingly, with a claimed 0-100kph time of 6.7 seconds and top speed of 280kph, the Miura P400 was the fastest car in the world at the time. It further accrued popularity by starring in the opening sequence of 1969’s The Italian Job, one of the most iconic films of all time.
At the 1968 Turin Motor Show, Lamborghini introduced the Miura P400S, which featured a reinforced chassis, improved interior with more features, uprated Pirelli tyres, revised bumpers, and a power bump to 370hp. 338 units of the Miura P400S were built from 1968 to 1971, and owners included stars like Frank Sinatra, Miles Davis, and Eddie Van Halen.
The final series production version of the Miura, the P400SV, was launched in 1971. Only 150 Miura SVs were built up until 1973, featuring flared rear wheel arches, wider 15‑inch wheels, bigger tyres, a stronger frame, a slightly higher ground clearance to better combat lift, a flatter nose with an integrated mesh grille and flush bumper, a power bump to 385hp, and more. Notably, the SV removed the Miura’s hallmark ‘eyelash’ headlight surrounds.
In addition to the series-production models, Lamborghini built few-offs and race variants of Miura, including the Miura Jota – it was later destroyed – a very limited Miura SV/J (only four factory-built examples), a one-off Miura Roadster, and more. In 2006, Lamborghini even revealed a Miura concept car that adapted the classic design with modern touches, though the marque confirmed that it was not production-bound.
Saptarshi Mondal
Saumil Shah
