THE ICONIC LAMBORGHINI MIURA EVEN LOOKED GOOD WITH NO CLOTHES ON.
Turin, November 1965. Motor shows are supposed to be about beautiful bodies, wild colours, chrome and curves - not a bare chassis. Yet that year, one lonely black frame sitting on the Lamborghini stand stole the spotlight from every fully finished car in the building. Folded sheet metal, drilled for lightness, compact and purposeful. Nothing unnecessary. Nothing decorative. Just a 4-litre V12 perched sideways behind the cabin like a caged beast waiting for ignition. It looked like a prototype escaped from a race paddock, but what the public didn’t know was that they were staring at the foundation of something that would rewrite the rulebook: the Lamborghini Miura. It marked the birth of a new era and, sixty years later, remains one of the most iconic moments in the brand’s history. In 2026, Lamborghini will honour that spark with a year-long Miura celebration and a dedicated Polo Storico tour, paying tribute to the car that effectively invented the term “supercar.”
The Miura’s story begins a year earlier, in the summer of 1964, when three young engineers - Giampaolo Dallara, Paolo Stanzani and test driver Bob Wallace - decided that if Ferruccio Lamborghini wouldn’t let them go racing, they would bring the spirit of racing to the road instead. All in their early twenties, driven by equal parts talent and audacity, they began shaping a concept internally known as Project L105. Their vision was radical: a lightweight, compact chassis designed to house something extreme, something that could deliver the emotion of a purebred racer to customers driving on actual roads. Ferruccio wasn’t convinced at first, but eventually trusted their intuition. That trust gave birth to the P400 chassis - a masterpiece of engineering rebellion and the philosophical core of the Miura.
On November 3, 1965, Lamborghini unveiled the satin-black chassis at the Turin Motor Show alongside the 350 GT and 350 GTS. It weighed just 120 kg - lighter than some modern motorcycle frames - thanks to its 0.8 mm steel sheet construction and the meticulous drilling done by Marchesi of Modena. A rigid central tub kept everything tight and torsionally strong, while front and rear subframes held suspension, drivetrain and accessories. The suspension was racetrack stuff: independent double wishbones, Girling discs, Borrani wires. But the real shocker was the engine-gearbox marriage. Lamborghini had created a single, compact transversely mounted power unit, something no road car had ever dared to attempt. And the visual crown jewel was the twelve vertical Weber carburettor trumpets rising from the V12 like organ pipes from a cathedral built for speed. The public loved it. The press went crazy. A static, engine-less prototype, not even a car, became the talking point of the show.
Before the show, Lamborghini had floated the project to Carrozzeria Touring, internally codenamed “Tigre”, but financial troubles made collaboration uncertain. Pininfarina was locked into other obligations. Enter Nuccio Bertone. Legend says he appeared at the end of the show, prompting Ferruccio to joke: “You are the last coachbuilder to show up.” Bertone studied the chassis and fired back with a line for the ages: “We will create the perfect shoe for this wonderful foot.” Whether or not those words are verbatim hardly matters; the connection was instant. During the Christmas holidays, with the factory closed, the first sketches were shown to Ferruccio, Dallara and Stanzani. They didn’t just approve them; they knew instantly they were looking at something groundbreaking. Something that would change the brand forever.
By March 1966, the once-bare chassis had evolved into a complete machine, sleek, sensual, impossibly low, and it debuted at the Geneva Motor Show as the Lamborghini Miura. It wasn’t just a new model; it was a new philosophy. A new genre. A new word: supercar, created by an English journalist who simply didn’t have any other vocabulary to classify what Lamborghini had built. Six decades later, that legacy returns to centre stage. In 2026, Automobili Lamborghini will celebrate the Miura with a full year of events and an official Polo Storico tour, honouring the machine that fused racing spirit with road-going emotion and redefined what performance cars could be. It all started with a chassis. A few sketches. And three young rebels who weren’t afraid to push a radical idea into reality. The Miura didn’t just change Lamborghini; it changed the entire automotive world. And its legend, born in satin black with four white exhausts and twelve towering trumpets, remains untouched.
Take a look at the YouTube video that details all the stuff written above, but in this new format called 'video': Guess the Iconic 1960s Supercar from Its Bare Chassis! | World Wide Window
Be sure to check out our YouTube channel here for more exciting and exclusive SXdrv content! And don't forget to smash that subscribe button!