Long after he had backed away from the industry that had defined him, Ferruccio Lamborghini still sought solace in his greatest creation. “I’m enjoying the peace and quiet of my vineyard,” he said of retirement. “But when I miss the sound and the fury I take refuge in my garage and turn the key in the ignition of my Miura... Just enough to make the needle move.”

There could be no more simply eloquent expression of the impact the Miura made on the automotive world, how this fluid, exquisite machine defined its era and how it was regarded as the ultimate expression of style and technology on four wheels.

The name belongs to a breed of bull, one of the fiercest in Spain, and it was the company founder who came up with it in the early 1960s when the manufacturer that would go on to glory in the car world was just taking its first steps in the industry.

According to Gian Paolo Dallara, the Miura is “the perfect car”. He might be biased, as the engineer from Parma is one of the fathers of the Miura, but it’s hard not to agree with him.

“Looking at it 50 years on, with all the experience I’ve acquired over that time, I can say with conviction that I would change nothing, nor would I want anyone else to do so. Some cars are like that – extraordinary works of art.”

Dallara, who along with Paolo Stanzani and Marcello Gandini from Carrozzeria Bertone, designed the Miura, recalls the car’s genesis.

“I was an eager youngster when I came to Lamborghini,” he says. “I had already worked at Ferrari and Maserati and I’d caught the racing bug, so pretty much immediately I asked Ferruccio if, sooner or later, we would produce racing cars. He said we would and to prove it, he sent me to the Le Mans 24 Hours.

“However, the demands of growing the company were such that we didn’t do anything. The Ford GT40 stood out at Le Mans and was a font of inspiration, along with an F1-derived 12-cylinder, 1500cc engine that was cast as one part including the gearbox, which I had worked on at Maserati.

“The aim of the Miura project was to mount the 12-cylinder engine in the rear transversally, with the gearbox and differential cast along with the engine in a unique way. It was a totally innovative solution at the time and we were able to do it because Lamborghini was extremely tolerant and had great faith in his people.”

Dallara doesn’t deny there might have been an element of recklessness in designing a car like this.

“Today, with all the simulation tools available, maybe there is no room for a leap in the dark like this. Back then, you learned through trial and error, whereas today, there is plenty of research and experimentation carried out before even a single part is produced. It’s still possible to include something intuitive in the design, but it’s definitely harder and maybe everything is more homologated. On the other hand, it’s far easier to create a design that is totally safe.”

Lamborghini signed off on a chassis formed of drilled sheet metal with a limited number of pressed parts and it was presented at the Turin Motor Show in October 1965.

It was spotted by highly-regarded coachbuilder Nuccio Bertone. Lamborghini courted him incessantly, having worked up to then with Touring for the 350 GT and the 400 GT.

“I was stunned by that chassis,” recalled Bertone years later, talking to Italian journalist Gino Rancati. “I realised we could create something crazy.”

After some hesitation, Bertone took on the task of designing the bodywork and gave the project to Marcello Gandini, then in his thirties. “The Miura was my first car. I had no experience in this field, but Bertone had seen some of my sketches and decided to entrust me with the design,” he says. “The car had to be ready for the Geneva Motor Show in March and it was already November.

“I didn’t take my inspiration from any car in particular: the Miura was simply a synthesis of sports cars typical of the ’50s and ’60s.

The reason for its amazing success was that it was incredibly innovative, although it didn’t break with the styling cues of the time.”

Around the time of the end-of-year festivities in 1965, Lamborghini called Dallara and asked him to come to the factory to see the first sketches that Bertone had sent to Sant’Agata.

“I realised immediately that Bertone had created something that had never been seen before,” says Dallara. “From then on I have always been convinced that masterpieces are created when the concept comes at the first stroke, with no retouching required.”

The Miura P400 was launched at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show, the model on display painted in the orange colour that became something of a signature for it. The Miura was an immediate hit, both with the press and the general public.

Initially, Ferruccio Lamborghini thought the car would effectively be a flagship for the marque, but after a few months, it was clear from the sales figures that history would decree otherwise: not only did the Miura become the ambassador for the Bull around the world, it also enjoyed incredible commercial success, staying in production until 1973.

Several evolutions were introduced, although it’s always di cult to distinguish between a real model produced officially in the factory and variants, such as the Jota, produced largely thanks to the e orts of New Zealand test driver Bob Wallace, who introduced significant modifications on a Miura S.

So exactly how many Miuras were built? According to official records, there were 764, but according to Enrico Maffeo, who runs the Historic Lamborghini Centre, the exact number remains unclear. “At the celebrations for the Miura’s 50th anniversary, I met one of our customers who told me he’d had a serious accident with his car and that, when he brought it to the factory for repair, the body had been changed while keeping the same chassis number. So how do we count that? Is it one or two cars?”

The end of Miura production coincided with the completion of Lamborghini’s disengagement from his most prized creation, as the oil crisis hit and demand flagged. “The golden age was over,” he later recalled. To survive we launched the Countach and the Urraco. In 1970 I had chosen to sell 51 per cent of my stock. I sold the rest in 1972.”

Sheer momentum kept Lamborghini going but, as the situation became ever more turbulent, the existence of the brand came under repeated threat through the 1970s and ’80s, until it was finally rescued by Audi in 1998. Thanks to a great deal of work over the past 15 years, the Bull brand has been relaunched and its future is assured with grand plans for expanding production, a key element of which is the introduction of an SUV, known as Urus.

Just over a year ago, Lamborghini also took back the reins of its past, creating the Polo Storico department to manage the historic archive, carry out restoration and to certify the originality of its cars.

“It was our customers, particularly Miura owners, who persuaded us to set up this new department,” explains Paolo Gabrielli, head of after sales. “Today, we manage the restoration work ourselves, making use of approved outside suppliers, but we are finalising a workshop here in Sant’Agata and in a few months we will be able to carry out mechanical repair work.

“To this end, the Polo Storico is helped by the fact that the documentation held by the company is comprehensive, despite problems in the decade prior to the arrival of its German owner.” Naturally a Miura had to be one of the first cars restored by Polo and in a happy coincidence for this story, the one that went ‘under the knife’ actually belongs to Gian Paolo Dallara.

“It’s chassis number 68 and its first owner also came from Parma,” says Maffeo. “By chance, this car was photographed a lot, because Pierluigi Bormioli who had acquired it was a very popular personality in the media at the time, not least because of his girlfriends, one of whom was the model and actress Tamara Baroni. Around the city, the car was known as the Ta-Miura!”

Dallara handed it over to Polo Storico, where the journey began to restore it to its original beauty.

“When we got our hands on it, it was already stripped, which made the initial phase more complicated,” explains Maffeo. “The stages of a restoration like this are first to take an inventory, then we remove the paint with water, then we check the chassis on a jig and make adjustments where necessary. All bodywork parts are scanned to check them against the originals and each individual mechanical component is checked to ensure it matches the technical drawings.

“Finally, the car goes to paint, which is done using a modern catophoretic process to protect it against the elements. We estimate the whole job takes about a year.”

In a few months’ time, Dallara will therefore again be able to drive a masterpiece he created along with a handful of young colleagues, who were fuelled by a strong desire to experiment and a great passion for cars. And once again Dallara will get to share the sound, fury and beauty of a machine that still has the power to captivate, every time the needle moves.

Click here to read the full AUTO #17 issue online.