0979 America’s first ever Miura

I feel that we should begin a new thread for subject 0979, America’s first ever Miura. We are now less than a year away from the Miura’s fiftieth anniversary and at the end of the day not so much is known about this car which initiated the great love of so many Lamborghinisti for the bulls of Bologna throughout the USA. Apart from Joe Sakey’s chapter which described the epic journey of Karl Ludvigsen at the wheel of the Miura, I never saw a picture of 0709 neither at Kaplan’s nor during the 1967 N.Y. motor show!. Let’s hope some good docs will pop up soon!.
To begin with its early days, let me show you what is to me the oldest existing picture showing our subject car. Everybody knows this picture (att) showing an unknown Miura surrounded by the absolute ‘dream team’ of the early days and published in various books. If you look carefully at the photo taken at Sant’Agata , you will notice the second Miura which appears behind the car in the foreground was no less than 0502, the prototype car. This proves that the two cars were together in the early days of 1967.
Then If you compare the ‘main’ Miura as seen on the attached document with the batch of pictures of 0979 taken during spring of 1967 by Gene Butara for Car & Driver
(Lamborghini Miura Archived First Drive Review ? Review ? Car and Driver) there are a number of similarities to be seen but the most pertinent one to me is the rather large gap between the shell and the two opening bonnets (lids).
This makes me assume both cars are actually the same one, as these kind of gaps were not to be observed on any other early Miura.
Next picture showing 0979 on the following post
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Here is another picture out of the latest book from Tonino Lamborghini showing what should be the first Miura to be exported to America in the early days of April 1967.
That was a day to be celebrated by both Alitalia and Lamborghini and we are lucky some intelligent people recorded this important moment in history.
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To follow up with my two previous posts, I wish somebody will soon be able to fill up this present post with various pictures showing both 0979 at the time of its arrival at Kaplan's and some time later during the 1967 N.Y. auto show.
In my point of view, the batch of 18 pictures one can discover on
Car and Driver was taken shortly after the auto show as the Pirelli stickers were still to be seen on the tires.
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Dear all,
I know that for all of you who read the chapter “a trip to remember” in the “Bible” the news that the Miura Karl Ludvigsen drove in his “epic trip” across the eastern part of America wouldn’t be 0979 can be quite chocking for itself but that’s the truth and let’s see why;
See that in his raw notes (post#10490, page 525 Miura the original supercar) Karl Ludvigsen described his “test car” as “red/orange, was flown into N.Y.C., 4th car built for N.Y Motor Show” and also mentioned “row of 9 idiot lights at panel bottom”, all of this bringing very logically to chassis number 0979, America's first ever Miura.
Nevertheless for a lamborghinista well accustomed to the model history and to his related prototype and early production cars, this description just doesn’t match with the actual Miura pictured by Mister Ludvigsen !

Let’s begin with the most amusing feature which makes problem between 0979 and the actual car pictured in Mr Ludvigsen’s report. I said amusing because in that case you don’t need any further documentation than the “Bible” to learn that KL’s car was only fitted with a row of 5 lights like any production car (the Bible p38). See on my attachment out of the batch of 18 showing “the true 0979” (Car and Driver the “row of 9 idiot lights at panel bottom” was readily visible on this particular car framed by Gene Butara after the N.Y Auto Show.
Please take notice too that 0979 was fitted from day one with a wooden steering wheel (photo courtesy of the Revs institute)and that K.L.’s car received a standard to production leather covered one!
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See that 0979, the 5th car in the production list, thus being the second true “ production car” after the building of the three prototypes, still had his body panels (lids) beaten on the original wooden buck, which means it was still fitted with “thick” wheel arches something which was no longer to be observed after only a few cars were built at Bertone. The following cars got their lids (bonnets) with straight cut arches and K.L’s car was no exception to the rules.Some more pictures taken by Mister Ludvigsen and published in "the Bible" clearly show the differences between the two type of cars.
(Bottom picture with courtesy of the Revs Institute)
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Coming back to the production list, one has to learn that the first five Miura manufactured at Bertone were fitted with leather covered seats/headrests/door panels and that it took some months until any other production Miura came out of the Bertone's production line equipped with that kind of optional feature.
The fact 0979 was fitted with such a leather upholstery is pretty obvious on the upper pictures (Alitalia) but this can also be observed be seen on the many pictures visible on Car and Driver.
Coming back to the mystery Markley's car, see behind the driver's head of the 3thd image (Revs Institute) that unlike 0979, K.L’s car was fitted with the regular basket weave (skai) material!. Both these kind of Skaï and of perforated leather have been discussed in various previous posts.

I could go on playing pointing out differences between the two cars as there are many more to be observed but knowing now for sure that K.L’s car wasn’t 0979, we can shift up to:

“what for a car did Ludvigsen deliver to Bill Markley?”

Also, this is no reason not to go on with the whereabouts of “the true 0979” along 1967 and this we’ll discuss under “0979 America’s first ever Miura”
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To come back to the actual Miura 0979 whereabouts after Gene Butara’s photo session, the next documented place it could have been might well have been the Los Angeles Auto Show which took place in October 1967. I know that Bob Estes, then the official West Coast importer for Lamborghini, should have logically provided a car for the show but maybe he retained his only car (VIN 3024 rosso/nero) for the test drives during the show.
Anyway, looking at its wide wheel arches, wooden steering wheel and narrow windscreen
surround, I bet this red car was our 0979.
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After the "maybe" let's come to some more documented information

I do remember that last August LNtoast documented us with a very interesting article out of "The American Sportsman-Spring 68" for subject two beautiful Lamborghini Miuras.
I was surprised at the time that nobody pointed out that the red car was no other than our old 0979. To me the differences between this very early Miura and the second featured car, a production model of white hue, were so obvious that I couldn't believe that no "Professor" could even point them out.
To be true, it was so obvious that the well-known reporter Denise Mc Cluggage let us know in her own article that "cars bearing earlier factory numbers are different from later ones" followed by " the two Miuras that we drove and photographed from Gordon Tatum's car store in Maryland even had a slightly different expression in the mouth-or front grille if you prefer".
Better than that, the wheels were still partly painted in red, a rather unique kind of a decoration probably made at Sant'Agata before delivery (see 0979 at the airport) and some of you will surely remember that this oddity was even pointed out by em42 in a recent post.
To me put all together these facts should have drawn attention to the God who wrote the Bible, if he's a specialist of our beloved Miuras of course !.
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Dear all,


the next coming question after I told you what I know about Karl Ludvigsen's "epic trip"
is "what for a car did Ludvigsen deliver to Bill Markley?”


First let's take into account the number 5 cars once delivered to Kaplan in the year 1967 as per “the official Lamborghini’s production list” :


Production number 5 VIN 0979 rosso/nero 24.03.1967
Production number 44 VIN 3075 bianco/nero 28.07.1967
Production number 83 VIN 3210 bleu/bleu 23.11.1967
Production number 93 VIN 3231 bianco/nero 28.11.1967
Production number 98 VIN 3075 verde/senape 12.12.1967

Then assuming that:
1) Karl Ludvigsen did truly deliver his “unknown car” to Bill Markley in October 1967.
2) Jake Kaplan never imported any car directly from Italy (or from any other foreign markets)
3) that he made no exchange/swap with Bob Estes (West coast importer) against the red car Bob received in June 1967.

Then there is no chance Mister Ludvigsen’s car was even painted in a bright red hue!!!

My guess according to the list of the various cars delivered to Kaplan along the year 1967 is that the unknown Miura pictured in “the Bible” was 3210 with its livery of Blue/Blue. I know that Bill Markley’s family is still residing around Chicago but I never succeeded in reaching them. Next step is one of you contacting them and showing us some beautiful pictures (in colour please) of their magnificent Miura.

After all it's an American story and it deserves to be further developed by some American Lamborghinista !