Anson Lamborghini Miura SV
The following is a compilation of hearsay, legend, and gossip. Like all legends, it probably has at least a germ of truth. Unlike some, this legend does not make me want to investigate and determine where the fact lies. The legend is too much fun.
Ferruccio Lamborghini was a successful Italian industrialist. He owned factories making tractors and air conditioners, and had done quite well. Because of this, he also owned one of the great Italian success symbols -- a Ferrari.
That much is accepted as fact.
One day (the story has it) he was enjoying the fruits of his labor, tooling around the countryside in his Ferrari, when it began misbehaving, making noises he felt were not appropriate to Italy's finest sports car. Being in the neighborhood of Modena, and Ferrari's factory, he dropped in to get it serviced. Since Signore Lamborghini was something of a VIP, while the car was being serviced, he was shown into the Presence -- Il Commendatore himself, Enzo Ferrari.
Naturally, the conversation soon turned to cars, Ferraris in particular, and Signore Lamborghini helpfully offered some suggestions to improve the cars. Signore Ferrari was not appreciative -- rather, he suggested that Signore Lamborghini ought to confine his attentions to farm machinery, and leave the sports car business to Ferrari.
Lamborghini responded to this verbal slap-down as any hot-blooded Italian industrialist would -- he announced that he would build his own sports car, to show Ferrari how it ought to be done.
Ferrari's response was a classic of grand hauteur, and has been preserved for posterity: "Ecco," he replied, "une trattore gran turismo!" ["Well -- a sports tractor!"]
Doubtless Signore Ferrari later had many moments in which to think those words over. He had cast the gauntlet, and Lamborghini picked it up, determined to beat Ferrari at his own game. He gathered his best engineers, hired designers (in that part of Italy auto designers fall out of trees on you), and a year later, in 1964, unveiled the Lamborghini GT350 at the Paris Auto Show. It wasn't until 1967 that he achieved his goal, however. That was when he presented one of Marcello Gandini's designs, the Miura, to a stunned world -- the year he stole Ferrari's thunder.
The earlier Lamborghinis had been nice cars. Sure, they were fast. Sure, they had V-12s. But nobody would call them outrageous.
The Miura changed all that. It looked at what the competition (read, Ferrari) was doing, and then went further -- much further. Unlike any street Ferrari of the time (except the little Dino 206, no match for the Miura!), it was mid-engined -- and to make it even more exotic, the engine was transversely mounted. The crankshaft crossed the car's centerline, rather than paralleling it. This concentrated the mass further forward, giving better balance, and making it quicker to respond to steering input.
And it was as fast as it looked. The 4-liter V-12 breathed through six Weber carburetors, pumping out about 350 horsepower. 0-60 came up in about six seconds. Its top speed, depending on versions, went as high as the 170s -- ungodly speeds for the time, and plenty fast even now.
The Miura soldiered on through various versions -- the S, and finally the SV -- and still looked stunning when it was replaced in 1974 by the even more outrageous Countach. Unlike what you might expect, the SV was not the fastest Miura -- that honor went to the S. The SV had more power, but outweighed the S by a significant amount: the sheetmetal was increased from .9 mm to a full 1.1 mm!
In a sense, the Miura forced Ferrari's hand, ultimately leading to the elegant front-engined Ferraris (the 250s, 275s, Daytona, etc.) being replaced by the mid-engined models -- the 365 BB and 512BB, Testarossa, 512TR and 512M. (I left the 308-328-348-355 series out, because they were never the top line, being descendants of the delightful little Dino 206/246. The Lamborghinis competing with that series would be the Urraco/Jalpa line.) In a curious twist, Ferrari has now replaced the mid-engined 512M with the front-engined 550 Maranello, which can easily be called a direct descendant of the Daytona. This could be said to mark a return to Ferrari's home territory, leaving the Diablo in command of the ground staked out by the Miura thirty years before. But Ferrari, refusing to surrender, presses the mid-engined supercar market with the ever-faster V8 cars, and occasionally creates something wild, like the F50, as if to say that they could win if they really wanted to.
But I digress. This review concerns the Miura, the car that started it all, and Anson's model of it.
This is my first Anson model, but it won't be my last. I chose to buy it for three reasons: 1) The Miura was on my want list, and nobody else makes it, 2) I wanted Anson to be represented in my collection (and reviews), and 3) I got a very good price on it. I specifically intend to pick up one of their Dino 246s, because it's a beautiful shape -- and again, nobody else makes it. Whether I choose an Anson when another maker offers a given car depends on what follows.
So how good is Anson's Miura?
I have two models of the Miura. Both were made by Anson, but I've chosen to photograph the red one for this layout. It was sold as a "Majorette Platinum" model, in a box with French markings. The other was sold under Anson's name; it's purple, a color oddly common among Lamborghinis. The first Jota, a highly modified lightweight Miura, was a violent shade of purple. (It never underwent instrumented testing, being destroyed in a crash while being driven by a mechanic. The name and the purple color have since been recycled onto a special version of the Diablo, and Maisto offers a model of it.) The purple one is a kinder, gentler purple than the Jota, a rather pleasant color, with rocker panels in a pale, silvery grey. The red car is a slightly cooler, bluer shade than Ferrari's Rosso Corsa, with gold wheels and rocker panels. I will give Anson credit for thoroughly painting the underside of all the metal panels.
To modern eyes the detailing is a conflicting mishmash of black (rear louvers, front hood vents, headlight surrounds, and front bumper) and chrome (door trim and, most noticeably, the windshield wipers). When we consider the prevalence of chrome trim in the Sixties, I have to say the Miura's use of it shows admirable restraint. (To Anson's slight discredit, the brightly chromed wipers are too thick in scale, which doesn't help.)
There are a few vents leading into the engine compartment, foreshadowing the heavily vented and scooped Countach to follow. Unfortunately, none of them look very good on this model. The ribbed vents aft of the side windows are part of the door casting, and openings are represented by poorly applied black paint. The rocker panels also sport a pair of vents just ahead of the rear wheels -- and again, the openings are represented by black paint. Not very convincing.
One of the Miura's unmistakable design trademarks was the set of louvers above the engine, allowing rear visibility while actually covering the engine rather than a rear window. This was an areodynamic compromise that allowed plenty of airflow into the hungry V-12. The louvers on this model are fairly well represented by a black plastic panel in the engine lid. (Ultimately, Ferrari co-opted and modified this concept to become the vented plexiglas rear "windows" on its F40 and F50.)
Another feature that defined the Miura's look was the pair of upward-facing headlights, a decade before the Porsche 928 made the look familiar. Here the headlights themselves look pretty good. They are set into ribbed black plastic fixtures, which in turn are set into openings in the trunklid. Unfortunately, on my sample they are not inset evenly, the right one being somewhat too high in its opening. More little points off.
The front bumper/grille looks reasonably good, with fair representations of the turn signals and side marker lights. The two openings underneath have a rakish slant to them, but they look rather as if they were carved by hand -- which they probably were on the master die. They also remind us that air dams hadn't been invented yet when this car was designed.
If we tilt the front-hinged trunklid upward we see that the two front tires (sporting "Pirelli" in bright yellow printing on the sidewalls) have a somewhat concave profile, as if underinflated. The area between is dominated by the "spare tire", actually a tire-shaped extrusion with a matching "Pirelli" script. It's set into what is probably a gas tank -- there are some detail bits at its forward edge, but nothing that would give a clear indication of its function. Still, they did give the tire a nicely detailed wheel and matched the tread pattern where it shows, so it's better than some (Maisto's Boxster, for instance).
There is a rudimentary attempt at portraying the front suspension, but the reasonably realistic shock absorbers are all but hidden by the totally unrealistic A-arms. To make things worse, the hinged edge shows a huge reinforcing block, as if scaled up from the hinges on old Hot Wheels cars, where the radiator should be. Finally, the steering action is the worst I've encountered yet: rough and lumpy, not at all smooth. (Dismantling the model reveals that the "lumpiness" is caused by the teeth of a rack-and-pinion steering gear, the only one I've seen yet on a model. Helical cuts on the teeth would have smoothed it out, but would be more difficult.)
The tires themselves are another reminder of the relentless evolution of technology. Not only are they much higher profile (ratio of sidewall height to tread width) than the modern ones, but the overall diameter is much greater. The tread on these Pirellis is simple, nondirectional, and in all likelihood correct. Directional tread wasn't introduced on street tires until the Goodyear Eagle "Gatorbacks" on the 1984 Corvette.
The wheels look quite good, being molded in a pleasant silver-grey that complements the rocker panel nicely. The hubs have good-looking three-ear knockoffs.
Moving on past the too-chromey wipers, we look in on the cockpit. The dash looks pretty good, and the doors open smoothly to let us look around inside. Black is the dominant color here. The shape of the seats is awful, so they're probably pretty accurate. There is a pair of speaker grilles between the seats that look quite good -- but the (doubtless AM) radio is nowhere in evidence. The shifter and the parking brake look good. The Ferrari-like metal shift gate looks much better than that on Maisto's F50. The shifter actually seems to be in the slots, unlike the one on Bburago's 550 Maranello.
The interior has a few weaknesses, though: the pedal cluster actually puts the tallest pedal (usually the accelerator) on the left, where the clutch belongs. The steering wheel looks pretty good, but its alignment is skewed to right. The console's gauge cluster looks unfortunately like the decal it is. The inside door panels aren't bad, but the interior handles for closing the doors are represented by a simple linear lump. There is no headliner, nor even an attempt at a rearview mirror. (And if there were, the view would be dominated by the massive dual throats of the six Weber carburetors.)
Let's open the engine lid and have a look under it. Besides the aforementioned carbs, one of the first things you notice is that this engine has ignition cables. In red. Sure, they're a little too thick, and there are only six of them for twelve cylinders, but they look so good I can't complain about little things. Unlike the wispy translucent ones on Maisto's F50, these look like genuine cables.
The next thing you might notice is the pair of "aluminum" frame members, with holes for lightness, cradling the engine and supporting the rear suspension. The rear suspension is a lot better than the front -- there is more "metal" here, and the shock towers are topped off by "nuts" that are actually hexagonal.
Toward the back we can also see some of the elaborate lengths exhaust engineers go to in ensuring that the exhaust tubes are the same length. And we can actually look through the louvered panel masquerading as a window.
Unfortunately, there are weaknesses here as well. Quality control breaks down on the engine's spotty chrome plating. The rear tires seem to be the same as the front, and suffer the same concave tread profile. In addition, they suffer a greater problem as well: with the hood open, we find that the edge of the fender well presses against the tire, effectively braking any freewheeling action. And, uniquely in my collection so far, Anson uses a single "live" rear axle rather than individually mounted wheels. To make things worse, when we close the engine lid, we still find the same problem!
To cap it all off, it's not easy to close the engine lid and get it to stay flush. The rubbing on the rear tire means you have to rotate it until you find a "flat spot" to let it close completely.
There is also the outline of a rear trunklid, but don't get your hopes up: we already have four opening features, and that trunklid would have to open on the reinforcing block -- similar to the one in front.
Finally, the rear of the car looks very nice: the taillights, especially, are beautifully done. But the tailpipes --! Try this: let's keep an eye on them. Now, open that engine lid again.
See it? The tailpipes moved with the lid! I know Lamborghini wanted it to be exotic, but that's probably farther than he would have gone.
To sum it up:
Strengths: Excellent taillights, shift gate; pretty good interior.
Weaknesses: Terrible steering, rear tires rub against sheetmetal, spotty quality control.
Overall: An average model, and the only one of a historically significant design.
NOTE: OK, if you know a little more about these models, I hear you saying: "Aha! There's another Miura -- I saw a Majorette Miura once!" But if you bought it -- like I did -- you'd find that it's also an Anson. The fit of the parts is marginally better on my "Majorette" Miura, and the tires don't rub the fenders, but it's basically the same model.
But then there will be a few who say: "But Polistil also made a Miura." That's true, they did. Those models are about as common as pig feathers, and the two Polistils I own don't encourage me to pay the usual asking price for one. But it's true that Anson's isn't the only Miura.
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