Nowadays
supercars aren't nearly as exotic as they used to be. Oh, they're more
powerful than ever, extremely sophisticated, and ridiculously fast.
They're just not quite as rare or special--as truly exotic--as they used to be.
Nearly
ever major automaker has at least one supercar in the family, or at
least an über-sportscar with enough potency to make the claim. Porsche,
Ford, Mercedes, Ferrari, Chevrolet, Bugatti, Lamborghini, Pagani,
Ascari, TVR, Noble, Koenigsegg, and many more, have either a supercar
or quasi-supercar somewhere in the family tree.
That's
not a bad thing, but the sheer number of supercars, combined with their
increasing civility, has robbed them of some of the novelty that once
made them special. For me, at least, the debut of yet another swoopy
200-mph supercar doesn't pop the eyes as it once did, and the
electricity and sense of danger supercars used to provide has mostly
subsided.
It
wasn't always thus. Before 1966, performance cars largely fell into
three camps--muscular but floaty American cars; agile but gutless
British sports cars; or fast, comfortable, and bulky grand tourers.
Then
Lamborghini unveiled the Miura. The technical specifications boggled
the mind and even today deserve a respectful pause--a mid-engined
dual-overhead-cam V-12 pumping out a stratospheric 450 horsepower,
powering a car underpinned by fully independent suspension with
four-wheel discs.
That
hardware left behind the Ferrari GTO, probably the closest thing to an
exotic supercar at the time, and would serve as the underpinnings of
likely the best-known exoticar of all time and the Miura's successor,
the Lamborghini Countach.
A
supercar needs more than just machinery to be worthy of the name,
though--the Miura established the supercar class with its sheer
presence and charisma. The Bertone-penned Miura is long, low, and
threatening, with a fierce beauty that broadcast its status as a feral
predator of the road. The Miura is still beautiful today--its finely
sculpted flanks and raw muscularity stand out even more dramatically
among modern cars.
With
its exotic specification and brutally beautiful looks, the Miura
affects the viewer in primal, instinctive ways and adds electricity to
any room.
Now that's a supercar.
According to the excellent Lamborghini Registry, the breathtaking Miura SV shown here is a 1971 model formerly owned by the Shah of Iran--check out the fascinating back story here. It's hard to believe, but this Miura SV is still wearing its original Pirelli tires.
--Chris H.
edward on September 12, 2008 at 05:04 PM
This Car makes ferraris look sick by comparison,
and lamborghini was wayyy ahead of everybody back then as they are now,
the SV would be the one id like to have, the miura was cool but the SV has the updates that the original needed but didnt have,
Raw, sexual, and exciting are the SV and most lambos,