In a history making sale, the one-off Lamborghini Bertone Miura Roadster been purchased by an American collector. Lamborghini's Miura is considered the most beautiful and arguably most desirable post-war sports car built for the road. A mere 762 Miura's were produced between 1967 and 1973.

The ultimate specification Miura P400SV now commands prices of up to US$800,000. In 1968 Lamborghini's factory produced a single Miura Roadster, designed by Bertone for the 1968 Brussels car show. The prototype car was later exhibited at car shows throughout the world, before being sold to the Boston Museum of Transportation. It remained there for many years, after which it was owned by various prominent collectors. Although demand for a production version of the Miura roadster was overwhelming, it remained a one-off.

Now, worlds only factory Lamborghini Miura convertible has been purchased by Adam Gordon, a New York real estate developer and car collector. Mr. Gordon intends to restore the car to its 1968 Brussels Salon former glory. Gary Bobileff, the pre-eminent Lamborghini restoration specialist, has been engaged to undertake the project. The ground-up restoration of the Miura Roadster will require approximately two years, after which time it will undoubtedly be one of the rarest and most valuable classic cars in the world. Bobileff says.

Joe Sackey, Lamborghini historian and author of the soon to be released book entitled Lamborghini Miura, comments "This event is automotive history in the making. Consider that Ferrari's ultimate GTO is valued by some in excess of $12 million and even though they have competition heritage, 39 were supposedly made. The Miura Roadster is a true one-off, by comparison, and even though it is not competition inspired, its heritage is that of a "prototype show car" perhaps even more valuable to some collectors."

Lamborghini Bertone Miura Roadster

One of the most exclusive Miura's still in existence 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 louvers covering the engine were removed, the tail lights were changed and the exhaust pipes now went through the lower grille. 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 magnolia coloured leather (just like on the first 35O GTV). The impact of this prototype was very great, but this was to be another one-off, many owners requested a similar car, but Lamborghini never officially delivered a Miura Roadster or even a replica, but Bertone had never even built a top for their prototype.
 

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 wouldn't authorise the modification of a production Miura, and Bertone began working on it as soon as the ILZRO received 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 carburettor 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 colours and contrasting black detail work like on the original 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 colour, 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 modification. The Zn-75 appeared in May 1969, it was displayed all over the world on various Auto Show and to automotive companies worldwide, always attracting a lot of attention, when this job was over, the Miura Roadster was auctioned off to S.F. Radtke, the Executive Vice President of the Ilzro at that time.

In late 1980 the Miura ZN75 was completely refurbished by Synthetex Inc. and valued at US$186,000 when Mr Radtke donated the car to the Boston Transportation Museum in Massachusetts, U.S.A. in February 1981. The Miura was then shown in this museum for a long time were it was for sale at one time for only US$50,000, later it was restored for the museum by J. Geils who was actually on the board at the museum. After the restoration the car was sold at an unknown auction for a rumoured US$200,000. Later this rare Miura was auctioned again and bought by the UK based Portman group, who intended to start a Lamborghini museum featuring this very unique Miura.

As usual this one of a kind prototype caused several Miura owner to request a Roadster from the factory, but they made no intentions of actually producing an open-top Miura, so some owners took their original Miura to a workshop and hat it modified into a Roadster replica, one of the more famous ones is the white Miura transformed by Herbert Hahne, the German Lamborghini importer, this one also featured wider wheel rims and other bodywork changes making it look like an open-top Jota. Only one real Roadster exists, and all the replica's actually lower the value of the original Miura on which they are built.

The original ZN-75 changed hands several times over the last few years before it ended up in the United States, owned by a New York based real estate developer, Adam Gordon who decided to have the car restored to the 1968 Brussels Salon original by the well known Miura restoration specialist Gary Bobileff. The total restoration of this one of a kind Lamborghini will probably take about two years, but this will create one of the most valuable Lamborghini's in the world.

Text by Joe Sackey; Muira Roadster history courtesy of Lambocars.com