‘I newer had anything to do with the Miura – that was all Gandini.

’ Those were the words of the great Giorgetto Giugiaro after he accepted his Lifetime Achievement Award at the International Historic Motoring Awards in November.

It is not the first time this stance has been stated or reported, but it is the first time I have heard it from the horse’s mouth and it is something of a novelty, and a relief, to have such certainty applied to the subject.

After all, it is a discussion that has raged in print (including in Octane) for decades, but how did such conjecture over authorship start in the first
place and how was it allowed to simmer away for 60 years, to my mind besmirching the legacy not just of one of the most important cars ever built, but also of the two greatest car designers of the 20th Century? Pure mischief, I imagine. I well remember an article in which one journo convincingly described convincingly being shown convincing-looking blueprints and concluding it must be the work ofGiugiaro, though others frequently batted back with equally convincing proof that the fact that it was Gandini was beyond dispute.

Yet while such cloak-and-dagger speculation is entertaining to us as journalists
and readers, we have been fuelling the flames with barely a thought for the
consequences. Indeed, it was only in a recent conversation with Marcello Gandini’s daughter, Marzia, that it dawned on me how distressing this might have been for the great man and his family. That is why we have asked her to contribute to this issue, to give her and her late father’s perspective on the tittle-tattle and how it affected them.

To shore that up, Massimo Delbò has also talked to a load of people who were
midwives at the Miura
’
s birth, relating their recollections of the conception and
gestation of the groundbreaking mid-engined supercar. And while we are
mythbusting, we thought we might as well find out exactly what it takes to restore
such a complicated car that was originally built in such low-tech surroundings, as
well as what a seasoned track-tester would think when driving one for the first time.
So, as the wonderful Lamborghini Miura, the John the Baptist of supercars (the
Countach, authorship of which has never to my knowledge been questioned, being
the Messiah) celebrates its 60th anniversary, this is our chance to set the record
straight once and for all.