Lambos were expensive this week. A 2003 Murciélago sold for $508,500, 67 percent over its #1 (“best in the world”) value in our price guide. But even more special than that Murci was a 1972 Miura P400 SV that sold for $4.9M. That’s 34 percent above its #1 value and comfortably more than the previous world record for the model, a $4.26M sale back in 2020.

What was a six-figure Italian classic 15 years ago is now, with the right specs and condition, a blue chip collectible approaching the $5M club.

The words “Lamborghini” and “supercar” tend to go hand in hand these days. Indeed, the brash, brightly colored exotics from Sant’Agata Bolognese are some of the most popular supercars out there. Throw a stone in a nice part of Miami or L.A. and you’re bound to hit one. This wasn’t the case in 1965, however—Lamborghini was a much different company back then. The tractor-turned-carmaker focused on producing small batches of refined, mature gran turismos that aimed to best Ferrari’s equivalent road cars. Frivolities like racing just weren’t part of the equation. The car that changed that philosophy, and put Lamborghini down its current loud, wedge-shaped path, was the Miura. No wonder it’s the most valuable Lamborghini of them all.

After Lamborghini’s first car—the 350 GT—began steady production in 1964, several company engineers and designers started thinking about what to do next. Everybody in the group was in their mid-20s. Ferruccio Lamborghini was 48. They were enthusiastic about racing, where mid-engine cars were dominant. Mr. Lamborghini wasn’t, and insisted on staying away from motorsport. Nevertheless, he budged and gave the team the go-ahead to develop a mid-engine sports car.

The chassis design was a monocoque with an integral roof, leaving the front and rear of the bodywork as unstressed, hinged panels. The steel chassis included drilled holes for lightness. Meanwhile, Lamborghini’s signature V-12, then displacing four liters, was a long unit. Mounting it longitudinally would have meant lengthening the wheelbase and compromising the handling. The clever solution was to mount the engine transversely in parallel with the rear axle, sort of like an Austin Mini but on a much larger scale and behind the driver instead of in front. Due to limited space, Lamborghini also fabricated a transaxle, mounted at the rear of the engine and in unit with the crankcase (like on a motorcycle), so the engine and gearbox had to share oil with each other.

A rolling chassis debuted at the 1965 Turin Auto Show, and just the naked mechanicals were enough to cause a stir and send potential customers rushing to the Lamborghini stand. But Lamborghini, still a boutique carmaker just a few years in the business, thought of the project as a promotional tool. It wasn’t just lacking a body. It didn’t even have a proper name.

When they finally decided to put this new mid-engine design into production, Bertone won the deal to design a body and gave the job to a young Marcello Gandini. The finish product debuted at the Geneva Salon in 1966 and it once again caused a stir. Its name—P400—referred to the engine placement (“P” for Posteriore), and the engines displacement of 400 deciliters. But Mr. Lamborghini, a Taurus, also wanted a proper name and went with Miura, after a renowned breeder of fighting bulls. Bullfighting-themed monikers have been a Lamborghini trademark ever since.

The original Miura’s shape was a masterpiece and its $20,000 price in the U.S. was enough to buy five brand-new Corvettes, but there was still room for improvement. The P400 has numerous ergonomic quirks, and at over 100 mph the nose starts to generate lift. The common oil supply between the engine and gearbox also didn’t allow for a limited-slip differential. A first batch of upgrades arrived with the Miura P400 S in 1969, which added vented brakes, power windows, optional air conditioning, improved rear suspension and better tires as well as a bump in power from 350 hp to 370.

Then, in 1971, the SV came with even more rear suspension improvements, a slight lowering of the nose to alleviate that pesky front-end lift and wider 15-inch wheels under flared fenders. The retractable headlights also lost their signature black trim, aka “eyelashes,” and engine output again grew, this time to 385. Later P400 SVs got a split sump, which meant separate oil supplies for the crankcase and gearbox and made a limited-slip feasible, although it wasn’t standard factory equipment.

Lamborghini built 762 Miuras, and just 150 of them are the higher-spec SV models. The hierarchy of values is straightforward, with three distinct series carrying three distinct prices. Basically, the first P400 sits at the bottom, the improved P400 S in the middle, and the fully developed P400 SV at the top.

This Miura SV, Chassis 4972, was built in 1971 and finished in Rosso Corsa with gold rocker panels over tan leather. It sold new to an Italian living in Germany, before a later British owner converted it to right-hand drive in the 1980s. A Hong Kong collector bought it in the 1990s and commissioned a full restoration. Then, singer Jay Kay of Jamiroquai bought it, and it featured in a 2004 episode of Top Gear. It sold on again and received a full restoration in Italy in the 2010s, returning it to its original left-hand drive but giving it a blue leather interior instead of the original tan. Otherwise, it has its original engine, chassis, and body and was represented in concours condition.

It sold at the RM Sotheby’s “Dare to Dream” auction, which featured a collection owned by financier Miles Nadal that included 140 cars and motorcycles as well as hundreds of pairs of collectible sneakers. Despite top shelf Ferraris like an F40 (sold for $3.47M), an F50 ($4.24M), an Enzo ($4.295M), a LaFerrari ($3.69M) and a 275 GTB/4 ($3.305M), the upstart Lamborghini flew past its $2.75M—$3.5M estimate and its #1 value of $3.65M to take the top spot of the sale and become the most expensive Miura ever sold at auction. It’s a bit of a surprise given the interior change and the steering wheel switcheroo, which would ordinarily be hindrances at auction on a car like this.

Condition counts for a lot, though, and this car wears its restoration well. The car was also vetted by Lamborghini’s PoloStorico and issued a Certificate of Authenticity. And, speaking of documentation, we’ve heard that the stack of books and records that come with the car is a foot high. The setting, an auction full of high-dollar classic European cars in excellent condition, also helped. Then there’s the trajectory of Miuras in general. They have been consistently getting more valuable for well over a decade. “It is absolutely one of the most beautiful piece of automotive design, ever,” says Dave Kinney, publisher of the Hagerty Price Guide of Lamborghini’s breakout supercar. As for the market for them, “most people are realizing that Miuras really are worth the big money they’ve been selling for, so I don’t necessarily think this result is a one-off.” For now, though, the red and gold over blue beauty is the new king of the bulls.

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Welcome to Lamborghini Legends, a series of stories to mark the Italian brand’s 60th anniversary, in which our European correspondent gets behind the wheel of some of Sant’Agata’s all-time greats. Here he discovers why auto writers of the 1960s had to come up with a whole new category for the Miura.

I have no idea exactly how fast I’m moving along this winding Italian backroad, but I do know that it is fast.

The broken speedometer might actually be a blessing. I’m sure I’d be having second thoughts about pushing the car this hard with the confirmation of a three-digit velocity adding to the seven-digit value attached to this last-of-the-line 1973 Miura SV.

So I shove such concerns to the back of mind. I concentrate instead on savoring every moment of this once-in-a-lifetime drive in what truly is a once-in-a-lifetime automobile.

The Miura is literally the definition of “supercar.” Before Giampaolo Dallara, Paolo Stanzani, and Bob Wallace decided to mount Giotto Bizzarrini’s four-liter V-12 engine transversely, in the middle of a lightweight Lamborghini monocoque, nobody had ever used the word.

When Lamborghini showed the Miura’s rolling chassis at the 1965 Turin Motor show, Italy’s coachbuilders all put in bids to design and craft the bodywork. Pininfarina pitched, but it was Bertone that won with a design that barely changed from first sketch to production.

“I like this one,” declared Ferruccio Lamborghini. “It’ll earn us legendary status.”

He was not wrong.

What Lamborghini and Bertone both got wrong was the number of Miuras the company would make. They estimated that the demand would be for 50 cars over the following five years. The reality was that 763 were be built between 1966 and 1973.

If you include the “unicorns”—the rare, limited-run models—there were six versions of the Miura. 275 examples of the original P400 were built in the first three years before the updated S followed in 1968, featuring a strengthened chassis. 338 units were delivered into 1971.

Alongside this a one-off Roadster was developed by Bertone, but turned down by Lamborghini for production. The car was sold to the International Lead Zinc Research Organization to showcase its wares.

In 1970 Bob Wallace wanted Lamborghini to go racing. The result was the Miura Jota (pronounced “Yota”) a 440-horsepower, featherweight track tool that, although tested over some 12,000 miles, never competed. Sold to InterAuto in Brescia, the car was subsequently destroyed by a mechanic who crashed it into the side of bridge. Customers, including the Shah of Persia, got wind of Wallace’s wildest Miura and pestered Lamborghini sufficiently that four “SVJ” models were built.

When it comes to series-production Miuras, however, it is the final 150 Super Veloces that are the most super of all, and not just because the badge says so. These SV cars have a more rigid chassis, revised suspension anchor points, and, most notably, a five-inch wider rear track that allows for the fitment of fatter, 255-section tires. Four triple-body Weber carburetors are installed on the V-12. From car 53 onwards, SVs have a separate lubrication system between engine and gearbox. Power increased to 385 hp at 7850 rpm.

Visually, SVs are distinguished by flared rear fenders, new tail lights, enlarged intakes and vents, and a lower, longer hood. Most obviously of all, the car’s distinctive “eyelashes” disappear.

The SV has a more lavish interior, with extra leather trim and could even be optioned with air conditioning, although only one in five customers ticked the box.

If it’s fitted to this, chassis number 5092, I can’t say. I do know that A/C would come in handy. One remarkable feature of Bertone’s aerodynamic styling is that, even with the windows fully down, precious little outside air finds its way into the cabin.

For the first few minutes, I’d really welcome some cooling: The engine just won’t idle. Every time I pull to a stop I have to blip the throttle to keep the V-12 alive. I’m getting a little hot and bothered. The pedals are ideally placed for such heel-toe action, but it is disconcerting. Later on, the engine decides that 2000 revs is the perfect idle speed, suggesting that those four Webers need a bit of fettling.

Aside from this minor niggle, the Miura could not be more marvelous. The slightly splayed-leg, long-armed driving position suits those who are short in stature like me. Though the attitude will hinder taller drivers, the visibility through the panoramic windscreen is superb, making it easy to accurately position the car, even without the benefit of a passenger-side mirror.

The steering, which is a tad heavy at parking speeds, lightens with velocity to a point that’s almost dainty. The whole car feels much more fleet of foot than I imagined given the mass of V-12 behind the seats. There’s no red line on the tachometer but 7000 rpm seems to be the gear-change sweet spot—it’s just below peak power, but revving higher feels wrong, especially since a mis-shift would be catastrophic.

Yet that’s never likely. The glorious, gated transmission is a conventional H-pattern and, while a tad slower to shift than a modern manual, it’s positive and accurate. With every change, there’s the immense satisfaction of the “click-clack” sound of metal on metal.

Heading down from the historic hilltop Castello delle Carpinete, following the meandering flow of the Fiume Secchia river, the Via San Pietro delivers a heady mix of tight turns and fast, open corners. The Miura devours it all. Even the occasional scrappy surface doesn’t trouble the car’s ride.

I may not be able to gauge my speed accurately, but the SV’s quoted sub-seven-second 0-to-60 mph time is quite believable. There’s an urgency to its acceleration that feels real-world right, and, unlike the preposterous performance of the brand’s current line-up, one can really exploit its grunt on the road.

Exploit it I do. The truth is, had I not been in a convoy of other Lamborghinis, new and old, and with an intense pace set by a pair of Urus SUVs, I would probably never have dared to drive this car so swiftly. And if I hadn’t then I would never have appreciated quite what an achievement the Miura really was.

No wonder the ’60s had to come up with a new genre for it.

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