Lamborghini that has been locked up since 1975
Chow to find a diamond the size of a fist in an old mine. Maybe like dusting a Picasso painting in a Parisian loft. Or how to discover a Stradivarius among the objects of a humble antiquarian. That’s how exciting it must be to rescue that old sports car that a now deceased man locked up in a house he owned decades ago. Especially if the car is a Lamborghini Miura. Not just any Miura, but one of the 150 Miura SV built. And not a unit of any shade, but one of the two units in metallic brown color (very elegant) and the only one of that tonality in configuration for the European market.
The car in question was equipped with an engine 3.9-liter V12 Fed by four Weber carburettors, already included a gearbox of five speeds and presume to deliver 380 CV what are they worth to pass from 0 to 100 in 6.7 s and to reach 276 km / h. If these figures are impressive today, in the early 1970s they were worthy of a racing car.
Such a supercar has remained in the More provincial Italy in the shade, apparently still with traces of dried gel on the roof and a cigar burn on the driver’s seat, a sign that Giuseppe Caprioli, its owner, knew how to enjoy the good life. Not surprisingly, before he had owned another Lamborghini Miura, this time let it be S (365 CV) and yellow.
The history of the car begins in 1972 with a 23-year-old who was probably listed as the owner so that the real owner would not have the car in his name (a business question, perhaps). The next buyer bought it in 1974 and only had it for six months. It was after this period that Roe deer He got the sports car by acquiring it as a pre-owned in a dealer Padua Lamborghini.
I enjoyed the car for a while but the truth is that the locals hardly ever saw it again since 1975. Yes, I spent a whole season in the Ferrucio Lamborghini museum, but when he returned to his owner he was ‘condemned’ to the shade and since then became almost a legend: one of those cars that people know is kept in a nearby house, for which collectors and fortune hunters they ask and listen to talk while drawing a predatory smile on their face.
Roe deer He died in April of last year and the family tapi the walls of the semi demolished hovel (it must be one of his many properties) where the car was kept; They didn’t want thieves or people bothering them while they figured out what to do with such a jewel.
The truth is that they were easy to sell. Few times a barn find (as locked cars are known, forgotten for years and finally rescued from eviction) could have raised so much expectation in a prestigious auction, the one in which bids come by phone or online from anywhere in the world.
But Simon, the heir in charge of doing something profitable with the car, had a old school friend who had always been in love with Miura. We assume that old friend has a estatus econmico similar to the family Roe deer, because he was the chosen one taking for sure that Giuseppe Caprioli would have ‘approved’ it as a new owner. And they are not today enough to give a jewel, even to a friend.
The video that Kidston has produced in which it is seen how the Lambo is exposed to light again from the sun for the first time in decades is almost a act of justice. But the most shocking thing is how, after making an ’emergency point’ (battery, spark plugs, gasoline and tires, basically), the twelve cylinders of its engine backfire with a sound that brings us back to old motor racing.
The good thing is that its current owner does not want to restore it, but to fix it, keep it … and without a doubt enjoy it more than Caprioli could or wanted to. Its value, by the way, can approach two million euros as, unrestored. As I said: it is a gem.