The air bag: Lamborghini Miura may never be beaten

Most of us can’t help but judge people and material things on first impressions, and it’s no different with cars. While many armchair pundits say we can’t really call any car beautiful or ugly, because looks are “subjective”, I think that’s nonsense. I’ve written at length in these pages over the years about my appreciation for visual aesthetics in the automobile industry, and I have spoken with experts in industrial design, as well as the designers of cars that I admire, and to this day, I can’t fathom why some manufacturers churn out metal that seems to deficient in the looks department.

Companies such as Lexus, for instance, seemingly want to make each new car more “visually challenging” than the last. Do you know who designed the new LX? No, neither do I. Or how about Ford’s Scorpio of 1994? I guarantee you won’t know that – it was so laughably ugly that, to this day, Ford won’t release the name of its designer. My father owned two – I refused to travel anywhere in either of them, unless it was at night.

How about, then, the car that tops almost every single poll regarding the most beautiful cars of all time? Lamborghini’s seminal Miura was responsible for the term “supercar” entering the motoring lexicon, and for good reason: it shook the establishment to its core in a way no other car has managed, before or since. Its chassis was a work of genius, basically designed by a small band of 20-somethings in their spare time, and the designer suit it was wrapped with has been bringing grown adults to their knees since it was unveiled in 1966.

An outrageous amalgam of curves, scoops, slashes and vents, the early models even had “eyelashes” around the exposed pop-up headlamps. To access its mid-mounted engine, half the body had to be lifted up, hinged at its rearmost point. Impractical, difficult to drive and downright dangerous on the limit, the Miura nevertheless became a poster car because of one thing: its looks. Anyone who says looks are unimportant on a car is wrong; the fact people have been squabbling over who actually penned its lines is proof of that.

Carrozzeria Bertone was the styling house Lamborghini turned to for the Miura's clothing, but debate still rages as to who was responsible for the sexiest silhouette to ever grace four wheels. It's generally accepted that Marcello Gandini was the man, who was only 26 when the wraps came off the first Miura at the 1966 Geneva motor show, but some claim Nuccio Bertone himself led the design process, while others suggest Giorgetto Giugiaro had the most say. Gandini, now 77, has always been adamant. "I did the Miura and I did it alone," he said in a 2009 interview with Automotive News Europe, "in just three months." You can't blame him for being so protective of his legacy – in half a century, no new car has come close to being as visually flawless.

Back then, designers had more freedom to express themselves without the strangulation of crash-protection legislation and the like. But there’s something primal about the Miura’s bulbous curves and its low, sleek profile – something that reaches within, grabs your heart and won’t let go. See it, admire it, fall in love with it – just don’t drive it. As a sculpture, it has no peer, but you wouldn’t want to cross continents in any Miura. With beauty usually comes compromise, and that’s something most of us can’t actually live with.

Will the world ever experience another “Miura moment”? I, for one, think not. So thank you, Signor Gandini, the world owes you a debt of gratitude.

motoring@thenational.ae