The landscape is charged with a sense of mystery. It's almost filmic, flinty shards dotting the Serra do Caramulo landscape amid sage-stippled pastels. It's also deserted, which is just as well, as our presence would otherwise have a sore-thumb resonance. A Lamborghini Miura SV announces your impending arrival. You hear the car long before you see it. And let's be honest, matters have taken a turn for the juvenile, or adolescent at the very least. On these roads, in this car, it's hard not to picture the opening scene of a certain British heist flick. It's harder still to quell the impulse to murder the Matt Monro classic that accompanies it.
But that's the thing about the Miura: it invites romanticism. Nothing about this car is in the realm of the ordinary. It hasn't lost the power to shock, either: onlookers stare in a kind of poleaxed silence. With Lamborghini, myth and reality often lap, not least the small matter of how and why the marque came into being 60 years ago, but just be glad that it did. What is telling is that it swam out confidently against the prevailing tide despite its relative youth. It was barely three years old when the Miura first emerged fully formed, let's not forget.
Ferruccio Lamborghini got a taste for car-building in the immediate post-war years after he opened a small garage in Cento. There he took a secondhand Fiat Topolino and created a two-seater barchetta before entering it in the June 1948 Mille Miglia. His race ended 700 miles in, after he crashed into a restaurant. Nevertheless, his small business adapting wartime vehicles for agricultural use soon became a large one. That led to him establishing Lamborghini Trattrici and by the mid1950s his firm was one of Italy's foremost manufacturers of tractors.
Denne historien er fra November 2023-utgaven av Octane.
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Denne historien er fra November 2023-utgaven av Octane.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
Will China Change Everything? - China is tearing up modern motor manufacture but is yet to make more than a ripple in the classic car world. That could be about to change dramatically
China now dominates the automotive world in a way even Detroit in its heyday would have struggled to comprehend.Helped by Government incentives, the new car world is dominated by China's industries: whether full cars that undercut Western models by huge amounts, ownership of storied European brands such as Lotus and Volvo, or ownership and access to the vast majority of raw materials that go into EV cars, its influence is far-reaching and deep. However, this automotive enlightenment hasn't manifested itself in the classic world in any meaningful way - until now.
Jem Marsh
The hard-bitten Marcos boss was driven like few others and never knew when he was beaten. Thankfully
Vandamm House
A Mid-Century Modernist masterpiece that was immortalised on celluloid - despite never actually existing
Making light
Alfa Romeo's post-war renaissance began with the 1900 saloon - and matured with Zagato's featherweight coupé version, as Jay Harvey discovers
FULL OF EASTERN PROMISE
Is burgeoning classic car interest in the Middle East good for the global classic market? Nathan Chadwick investigates
Before the beginning
This rare Amazon Green pre-production Range Rover is Velar chassis number 4. James Elliott charts its historically revealing factory restoration
Ben Cussons
As the outgoing chairman of the Royal Automobile Club hands on to his successor, Robert Coucher quizzes him about the evolution of this great British institution
BULLDOG & THE PUPPIES
We gather five motoring masterpieces by avant-garde designer William Towns - and drive all of them
Below the tip of the Audrain iceberg
As the Audrain organisation grows, we take a look behind the scenes at the huge car collection that feeds it
Flying the Scottish flag
Young Ecurie Ecosse driver Chloe Grant gets to grips with the Ecurie Ecosse Jaguar C-type at Goodwood. Matthew Hayward is Octane's witness