Miura P400 S
Chassis #
Engine #

1968 LAMBORGHINI MIURA P400
Chassis #3676
Engine #2296
Prod. #243
11 Oct 1968

11 Oct 1968 - Prod. #243 Originally White/Black. First purchased by Justin de Villeneuve (real name Nigel Davies) manager of Twiggy.

Sold by Justin de Villeneuve to new owner.

12 July 1970 - Rebuilt as Prod. #526 in Green/Black. Upgraded to S specifications with +20 bhp and painted Lime Green with RHD and Air Conditioning by the factory.

1990 - "All but gutted in a garage fire." Restored (again) by the factory at a cost of more than $200,000. Odometer claimed 15,000 totals miles at the time.

May 15, 1997 - Sold at Coys of Kensington auction in London, England for only $107,520. Owned by the Classic Car Club collection, an organisation that hires out exotic cars for very reasonable money.

Owned by Henry Weitzman.

Oct 2006 - Appears in feature article in Classic Cars Magazine.


Following is an article by Roberto Giordanelli

"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinte variety"
ANTHONY AND CLEOPATRA
- William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

The Lamborghini Miura - chic as ever and as sharp as Cleopatra's needle, but I recently read a piece in a car magazine that criticised the Miura mercilessly.

Sure, compared with a sensible car, the Miura is difficult to control and imposible to live with - just like Cleopatra I should imagine. But there are enough mortals around who don't prize careful clean-cut Mr. Rights and perfect Californian Barbiedolls above all else. The Miura was made for them.

Much written about, the Miura is so special that the fact that it is a Lamborghini is almost irrelevant. Comparing it to any other Sant' Agata product is pretty pointless. The Miura is a legend that can stand alone. Road testers in fancy dress appart, Miuras are seldom driven by spivs.

Its creators could not have known at the time what they had sired. How could they? They may have had a hunch about its future, but nothing more. Imagine you were at the "Cavern" in Liverpool in the early '60s. You could have had no idea what the Beatles would go on to achieve. The same goes for Eel Pie Island and The Rolling Stones. Greatness, like art, is normally determined with time. I say normally, but with the Miura that time was almost instantaneous. Ferruccio Lamborghini went to great trouble hogging a parking space right outside the Casino in Monte Carlo at the time of the 1966 Monaco Grand Prix. At precisely the right moment the car in the reserved space was swapped for the brand new Miura. The stunned crowds were twenty deep around the Miura when it burst into life. It paraded around the Principality and was used by Louis Chiron as the Course Car for the Grand Prix. Unlike the progress of the Beatles of Rolling Stones, the Lamborghini Miura not only shot instantly to the top of the Supercar charts, it created them.

The car we test here has become known as the "Twiggy" car. In fact it belonged to the supermodel's early manager - Justin de Villeneuve (real name Nigel Davies). In the late sixties, as an engineering student at Twickenham Tech, I remember seeing this very car. Apart from a rugby ball, this was the lowest projectile ever seen in Twickenham. Twiggy's elfin looks shifted the modelling world up a gear. Discovered at fifteen when she was schoolgirl, a mod and a part-time hairdresser, she quickly shot to international fame. Despite her celebrity staus she never let success go to her head. Now, at 48, she is as good-looking as ever, happily married and living in London. Before you say she was too thin, it is well known that "no woman can be too rich or too thin". Whilst on the subject of the rich and thin, this car was also once owned by Bernie Ecclestone. The list of buyers of brand new Miuras reads like a "Who's Who": Jean-Pierre Beltoise, Frank Sinatra, Prince Faisal, Vittorio Brambilla, Nuccio Bertone, Rod Stewart, Walter Wolf...

Even before Bertone had designed or made a body for the Miura, the sensational half-finished rolling chassis with its tranverse V12 engine was displayed at the 1965 Turin Motor Show. Enough enquiries were made for production to be feasible. Geneve 1966 saw the public unveiling of the P400 Muira. In 1969, the 350php P400 was uprated to 370bhp and badged P400S. Again to be uprated to 385bhp, the Miura P400SV was the last of the line. Around 762 Miuras were made (counting is not an exact science in Italy) before giving way to the Countach. A few SVJs (J for Jota, the one off semi-racer) were built to order, but that's another story. The three models of Miura, P400, P400S and P400SV, were progressively improved.

Test driver, New Zealander Bob Wallace, had the major input to the original product as well as revisions. The story of the original concept is that one night after the workers had gone home, engineers Gianpaolo Dallara and Paolo Stanzani, together with Wallace, put some ideas down on bits of paper. By playing around with various dimensions, they noticed that the V12 motor could fit sideways. This longitudinal space saving would give the car the proportions and space required for it ti be a usable road car. The makers admit to being influenced by the beautiful lines of the Ford GT40. But the fabulous Ford, which had a short V8 mounted longitudinally, would have lost its proportions had it been any longer. It also had zero luggage space - no good for Lamborghini. The transverse layout of the Miura kept the rear short and perfectly proportioned, yet still left space for a reasonably sized boot behind the engine. Bertone (whose name is on the Miura), Gandini and Giugiaro all claim design inputs to the revolutionary mid-engined Supercar.

The gearbox/differential casing is integral with the engine block. It sprouts out of the back of the transverse aluminum block between the back wheels. The clutch is in a housing at one end of the block just like a Mini. For the P400 and P400S, the transmission oil was shared with the engine's (again, like the Mini). The P400SV's specification included a limited slip differential. This required a separate compartment for the special transmission oil.

Without writing a book about Miuras, let us concentrate on our glorious green gobsmacker. It was built in 1968 as a P400 and painted white (the Miura's most unflattering colour). In 1970 the car was sent back to the factory for major revisions. Apart from the colour change to green, the car was converted to right hand drive and the specification was up-graded from P400 to P400S, hence the Miura "S" rear badge.

Miuras and Miura "S"s have seven inch wide wheels all around. SVs boast slightly wider rear wings and nine inch wheels. The rear wheel arches of the Miura and Miura S are not quite filled by the wheels; the Miura SV looks dea right. Moreover, if fitted with wider, slightly taller rear tyres, there would be a beneficial effect on aerodynamics and rea grip. Had the green machine been mine, nine inch rear wheels would have been top of the list - never mind.

There IS something special about a Miura. Getting back to my opening paragraph, despite being difficult to handle, you never turn down a drive in a Miura. So when the green gasper growled on to the test track and I sat in the seat, despite being neither rich nor thin, I too felt special. The view out through the rear window is awesome. You see the world through a multitude of caburettors and fuel lines, an inch behind your ear. Winning its "Decade Class" at the Auto Italia Weekend, this car is in very good fettle without being "Concours". Now RHD, you can file under "Character" that the central intruments are still angled to the left and that the speedometer is still in kilometres - 320 of them. Just like Twiggy and Cleopatra "age cannot wither her..." the Lamborghini Miura is as dramatic as ever, it scoffs at being 30 years old. Inside, the mechanical workings of the pedals which sprout from the floor are brazenly on show. Still under "Character", the clutch pedal is for athletes only, and the bizarre sitting position is for mutants. Any history of tennis elbow will eliminate you from changing gear - funny how these difficulties disappear on the move...

Cutting out and not starting was a bad way for our test to begin. While we were jumping to stereotypical conclusions about tempermental old Italian Supercars, someone noticed that the modern immobiliser system had self-activated. But by far the worst problem was the stiff accelerator pedal. Press the pedal - nothing. Push harder - still nothing. Stand on the pedal and - bang - 12 butterflies jerk open. Speed control was in 50mph increments - not good for our intimate, car-to-car photography. Rectifying silly faults like this can make such a difference.

Some of the "beautiful people" drove them in their heyday with marijuana gently wafting from the roof vents. Purely in the interests of a controlled "period" test you understand, a funny cigarette does help. In the real world, it's a bit like riding a motorbike, there is no time for day-dreaming, you are always thinking about your next input. Induction and exhaust moise combine with mechanical thrash and transmission whine into a cacophony of motoring majesty. The Miura's 4-litre V12 is a screamer. Below 5,000 and 8,000rpm you need a lop aof space and no police - just like our test track.

Tales of lift at 170mph

Miura stories often involve hair-raising tales of lift at 170mph. The amount of high speed lift that the Miura generates is greatly affected by the body's angle of attack. Set up correctly, they could run at their top speed without perfoming back-flips. Without going to war, this lovely Lamborghini is as anti-social as human activity fets - it's just magnificent. The Miura is the acceptable face of motoring arrogance.

With the steering wheel forcing your legs apart, 2.75 unassisted turns are required from lock to lock. This means low speed bad, high speed good. This Miura handles well enough for normal/fast use but for serious circuit use, this one, like all of them, needs help. Suspension condition, set-up and geometry very enormously. You can't just bolt a Miura together. Like a racing car, they need sorting. To criticise a Miura's handling is just that, i.e. criticising that one particular car. After 30 years the original rear springs tend to settle. Correct length, correct poundage replacements are best. Beware of the stiff rear suspension, it can promote oversteer. The Miura needs stiff front suspension. To combat chassis deflections, chassis stiffening improvements to the front end were constantly uprated as the production ran; as were anti-dive/anti-squat wishbone geometry. Brake improvements came with ventilated discs appearing halfway through the Miura S production run.

Challenging and enjoyable as it is, with just a little thought, and a modicum of modern technology, the Miura - like any classic - could still be improved. The originality afficionados will already have been upset by my earlier "wide wheel" observations. When I suggest that a Lamborghini Miura needs a recirculatory fuel system, electronic ignition, sound and heat insulation and something done about the steering wheel and sitting position, they may accuse me of heresy. Whether you improve the Lamborghini Miura of not it is still as gorgeoues as Cleopatra... also rich and thin.

Text and photos courtesy of