A look back at the classic Lamborghini Miura

Teamspeed has always been known for it’s extensive tribute threads to the world’s finest automobiles and our tribute to the classic Miura is a another wondrous delight of imagery to lust over. As noted by Wikipedia, the Lamborghini Miura was produced between 1966 and 1972. The car is widely considered to have begun the trend of high performance, two-seater, mid-engined sports cars. While the mid-engined layout had been used successfully in competition in cars such as the Ford GT40 and Ferrari 250 LM at Le Mans, the Miura was the first viable road car sporting the layout. At launch, it was the fastest production road car available.

The Miura was originally conceived by Lamborghini’s engineering team, who designed the car in their spare time against the wishes of company founder Ferruccio Lamborghini, who showed a preference towards producing powerful yet sedate grand touring cars, rather than the racecar-derived machines produced by local rival Ferrari. When its rolling chassis was presented at the 1965 Turin auto show, and the prototype P400 debuted at the 1966 Geneva show, the car received a stellar reception from showgoers and motoring press alike, who were impressed by Marcelo Gandini’s sleek styling as well as the car’s revolutionary design.

As Lamborghini’s halo car, the Miura received periodic updates and remained in production until 1972, and was not replaced in the automaker’s lineup until the Countach entered production in 1974, amidst tumultuous financial times for the company.