Yahoo Autos Lamborghini Miura Retro Review: What it's like to drive the original supercar
“Glon, you’re in the Miura.”
Hang on, I’m in what now?
About a minute later, I have the keys to a 1973 Lamborghini Miura SV finished in Oro Metallizzato. Five minutes later, I’m annoyed by the frosty winter air whooshing onto my face but too enthralled by the V12’s noise to close the window. The person who coined the phrase “never meet your heroes” clearly hasn’t been let loose in the original supercar, a model of paramount importance in the pantheon of automotive history.
Unveiled in 1966, and positioned above the 400 GT as Lamborghini’s range-topping model, the Miura may as well have landed from a far, unexplored corner of the galaxy. It stretched about 172 inches long, 69 inches wide, and merely 41.5 inches tall, dimensions that gave it proportions more closely aligned with today’s definition of a supercar than with the crop of GTs whizzing by in the left lane of the Italian autostrada in the 1960s. I can’t say that the Miura broke with tradition, Lamborghini didn’t have much in the way of tradition three short years after its gutsy inception, but it looked nothing like the 400 GT.
Highly respected Italian designer Marcello Gandini penned the Miura while working for Bertone. Its Fiat 850 Spider-sourced headlights were mounted nearly flat, its door handles were integrated into a column of fins, and its roof line peaked above the seats before flowing into a Kammback-like rear end. Mamma mia! It may look humble parked next to an Aventador, but its design was revolutionary in the 1960s.
Equally revolutionary was the technical layout. While the 400 GT — and most high-end GTs sold during this era — were fitted with a front-mounted engine, the Miura’s 3.9-liter V12 was positioned directly behind the passenger compartment. Odder still, it was mounted transversally. Some historians claim that the inspiration for this arrangement was the original Mini, which stretched just 120 inches long thanks in part to a transverse-mounted engine. The Mini’s role in shaping the Miura has never been proven, but what’s certain is moving the engine back and turning it 90 degrees changed Lamborghini’s history.
More than simply a new model for what was then a small, obscure company, the Miura became nearly a deity in the automotive stratosphere. It blazed the course that dozens of supercars have followed since.
Rejigging the proportions required rearranging the interior. While most 400 GTs offered enthusiasts a 2+2 seating layout, the Miura landed as a two-seater with a markedly sportier cabin. The seat cushions were positioned at almost the same height as the door sills, while the headrests were attached to the piece of glass that separates the passenger compartment from the engine bay. The dashboard’s layout was different as well: the driver faced two big gauges housed in individual pods and a separate cluster made up of five additional gauges and a clock embedded into the tall, driver-oriented center stack.
