To share with you the fruits of a collaboration between Jalopnik and Vanity Fair’s gay car blog Stick Shift, here’s a mega-gallery of a gorgeous red 1967 Miura P400.
Jalopnik and Stick Shift are certainly no aliens to each other. Earlier this year, our Messrs. Wert and Siler gave a helping hand to Stick Shift’s Brett Berk in driving the bollocks Bentley Continental GT Speed, all twelve cylinders and six hundred horsepower of it.
To keep our cylinder counts steady, Brett, Hyperleggera’s Natalie Polgar and I drove out to Long Island on a recent August day to see a Lamborghini Miura in its full glory. William Branston of Champion Motor Sports was kind enough to let us all climb inside and imagine a life of 60s Italian playboyship.
Sticking true to its print roots, VF could only publish a handful of the photographs Natalie and I took of the Miura. But here at Jalopnik, we’ve got internets aplenty, so lean back and enjoy all twenty shots that made the cut, plus the narrative accompanying each shot.
If you’re interested in what it feels like to sit inside a Miura—or how one ends up with a classmate who drives a Countach to his senior prom—click through to Vanity Fair. But only after you’re done with the photos.
The Miura could be a prime candidate for a star role in the Italian remake of Transformers.
Rear quarter panels. Oh my, oh my.
Looking down the transversely mounted V12.
The P400 was the first Miura, the one with the eyelashes, the tendency to catch fire at idle and to become airborne in top gear.
This is the vicinity of the left front wheel. You can see the Fiamm horn and the chassis elements, drilled for lightness.
A view through a cooling vent in the trunklid—which, of course, is in the front.
The supremely competent Will Branston, director of Champion Motor Sports’s Collectible & Investment Car Division, is standing in front of a late model Diablo.
Cam cover with the famous twin choke Weber carburators.
Oil reservoir.
If you have a tattoo of this, please post in the comments.
About six inches behind the head of the driver and the passenger is the engine. That single pane of Perspex is tasked with quite a lot of sound and heat deadening.
If you’re 5'7" like Natalie, a Miura’s cockpit is the coziest place in the world.
Please dress up for your Miura. Thank you.
Yes, the speedo really is maxed out at 200 MPH. The Miura would do around 175.
The patina on this car was particularly beautiful. Concourse quality can be alienating: this Miura could probably be driven off the lot without guilt.
Vintage and very cool seatbelt arrangement. It’s a big metal hook you latch into a receptacle.
The eyelashes serve as brake cooling ducts. They would be gone in later editions of the Miura.
A curious tailpipe solution, most often seen on diesels with no particulate filters.
Perhaps the best angle to the Miura. You simply cannot spend too much time studying its lines and surfaces.
One day, we will be back to listen to it idle…to ride in it…to drive it. One step at a time.
All photos by Natalie Polgar and Peter Orosz.