Quote:
Originally Posted by V-16 ID 141:
After a lot of pondering ive reached the conclusion ( may be wrong)that ID 141 is not a maserati. Note the twin bulges on the bonnet for the lights and the engine gave it away ..... I had my confusion about the maserati (rear lights) and the Lamborghini Miura. I think this was a prototype and never made. not too sure about the year but looking at the exhausts which are not quads...guessing its late sixties, to early 70s so my moneys on the lamby all right. a lamby miura........ V-12 and all that...difficult one but i think i got it right |
WOW V16 Great Work
It is indeed the Maborghini Miura P400 Roadster!!
Full history:
One of the most exclusive Miura's, still in existance, is the Miura P400 Roadster, which was presented on the 1968 Brussels Auto Show.
Designed and built by bertone, this open version was not a normal Lamborghini with the roof removed. Unlike the 350 GTS presented by Touring a few years earlier, the Miura Roadster was almost completely redesigned, with excellent taste as always.
The complete rear section of the car was modified, the rear louvres covering the engine were removed, the tail lights changed and the exaust pipes now went through the lower grill. Various small changes were made to the rear section of the original Miura, like lowering the roofline by 3 cm, and the angle of the windscreen was changed. All this was necessary to eliminate undesired turbulence at 300 Km/h even without the roof, which was actually never even built.
The interior also had to be modified, because the switches from the overhead console had to be put somewhere on the dashboard, and the steering wheel showed a great similarity with the one of the Marzal and the Espada prototype.
The car was finished in a bright-metallic azure, while the interior was upholstered in a magnoliacoloured leather (just like on the first 35O GTV). The impact was very great, but this was to be another one-off, many owners requested a similar car, but Lamborghini never delivered a Miura Roadster or even a replica, but Bertone had never even designed a top for this prototype Miura.
The Miura Roadster was also known as the Spider or Spyder, but its official denomination was the Roadster, this original car was soon sold to the ILZRO, the International Lead and Zinc Research Corporation. This company was already delivering various metals to the car industry (aluminium, zinc and alloys).
They decided to buy a Miura some time earlier to reconstruct it using their own metals and technology, to show the car on various auto shows and display the use of their metal alloys.
The ILZRO was able to acquire the Miura Roadster since Lamborghini didn't authorise the modification of a production Miura, and Bertone began working on it as soon as the ILZRO payed it. It was completely disassembled and all possible parts were changed into zinc-plated, chrome-plated, polished or remanufactured using some metal made by the ILZRO, some of these items included the carburators stacks, exhaust system, radiator, bumpers, switches and both front and rear bumpers.
These modifications were all directed by John Foster, who was actually a designer for Ford. But the result was rather special, the Miura Roadster was converted into an showcar, a Miura replica almost.
Bertone usually used bright colors and contrasting black detail work on the prototype, but this car featured chrome details, and was finished in a metallic green sprayed over a black metallic base giving a strange dark green pearl like color, with a contrasting brown suede upholstery it looked really nice.
The name also changed, now into the 'Zn-75', a name taken from the periodic table of metals used for this modificaton.
After the Miura Roadster was presented and the factory made no intentions of actually producing an open-top Miura, several owners had their original cars modified into Roadster replica's, one of the more famous is the white Miura transformed by Herbert Hahne, the German Lamborghini importer, and also featured wider wheel rims and other bodywork changes making it look like an open-top Jota. Only one Roadster exists, and all the replica's only lower the value of the original Miura on which they are built.
*Data courtersy
www.lambocars.com*