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| Lamborghini Miura, part 1 |
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The remaining team members led by Gian Paolo Dallara are Bob Wallace, the test driver, and Gianni Malosi, head of production.
Mid 1965, the construction of the new chassis starts at Marchesi & Co. in Modena. Dallara monitors the progress closely and runs by every evening on his way home with some new drawings. Due to the lack of expertise with aluminium, they decide to use steel and, given the limited budget, the preference is for straight profiles and standard plates. These are cut, folded and welded. Marchesi and Bonora build but one simple tool that serves to cut round holes in the profiles allowing to lighten the chassis by a couple of kilograms.
Meanwhile, Dallara also works on increasing the cylinder content of the 3.5 liter power source up to 4000 cc, and he decides to fit the new chassis with a custom version of this new engine. The project therefore receives the name P400 where the P stands for Posteriore, meaning “rear”.
On September 14, when at Touring, at that time Lamborghini's supplier of bodies, Stanzani announces the construction of the chassis with central, transversal 12-cylinder engine, and he invites the Milanese coachbuilder to create the body. The car would be called Tigre and they expect to sell 10 pieces annually. The anticipated price tag is 9 million lire.
In the same period Nuccio Bertone is afraid that his incredibly gifted designer, Giorgetto Giugiaro, would leave the company. Giugiaro asks for a higher salary and wants to be more in the picture. Bertone, however, doesn’t want to compromise the wage policy within his company and consequently doesn’t give in to the requirements of the designer. Careful as he is, however, Bertone contacts Marcello Gandini. |
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at the end of the article you will find...
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