This isn’t the genuine thing, but do you really care?
Don’t let its name fool you, as this tastefully customized Miura “SVR Jota” wants to be like one of the most hardcore Lambos ever created. You see, the Jota – which draws its moniker from the renowned appendix J FIA regulations, as “Jota” is the pronunciations of “J” in Spanish – was a hardcore, one-of-a-kind race-bred Miura, which unfortunately perished in an accident…followed by a fire.
Back in the day, Lamborghini employed New Zeeland test driver, automotive engineer and mechanic Bob Wallace to test the raging bulls as they left the factory. Naturally, like any other human being, Wallace was captivated by the Miura’s presence, pureness and beauty, believing that the mid-engine supercar has a lot of racing potential.
As every old textbook story goes, he pleaded Lamborghini to let him build a racing Miura, the Italian car manufacturer wouldn’t let him (being against any form of motorsport), but he did it anyway in his free time, spawning the manliest, toughest, roughest Miura ever, which – get this – had a weight of only 800 kilograms (1763 lbs) and developed 440 hp from its 3.9-litre V12 (the most powerful, road-going production P400SV Miura only boasted 380 hp).
Unfortunately, years later, the car was totally and utterly wrecked by a mechanic who tried to impress his girlfriend. No, were not kidding. To make matters worse, Ferrucio Lamborghini denied the construction of another hardcore Miura, but he did – however – allow seven other models to be upgraded with J-spec performance parts.
So, what about the car pictured? Well, it’s for sale in Japan, underwent a full restoration and it looks great, but it isn’t the real thing and it isn’t a converted SV/J model. It’s a regular Miura transformed to pay tribute to the original Jota. But is that such a bad thing?
PS: There’s another one, chassis #3033, which was modified down to the last detail to look like the real thing. It was even mechanically-modified by Bob Wallce.
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