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Of the supposedly 275 Miuras Lamborghini built before switching exclusively to the upgraded and more popular Miura S in late 1969, few are as famous as the orange car from the excellent Michael Caine movie, The Italian Job. And as many of you know already, the filmmakers used two cars for the opening scene, in which actor Rossano Brazzi drives up the Great St. Bernard Pass, only to run into a deadly trap set up by the Mafia:
Paramount Pictures asked Lamborghini for a car, but neither the studio nor the automaker intended to destroy a brand new "Arancio Miura" P400. So, Sant’Agata provided an identical, but already crashed Miura as well as a working example. The orange exterior is a bit surprising, because the car looks rather red shot through Panavision lenses on Kodak's 35mm motion picture stock from 1968. What's more, Arancio Miura was an extremely rare choice on the P400, especially compared to Rosso. Was the crashed car in fact red? Or did the filmmakers use the only other Arancio Miura P400, chassis #3778, built in November, 1968? Maybe the key master of Lamborghini's archives knows. But what Liechtenstein-based car collector Fritz Kaiser can now be certain about is that the surviving Italian Job Miura, chassis #3586, is his.
Originally ordered with a white interior, chassis #3586 was re-upholstered in black by the factory for the movie. Save for the headrests, as Lamborghini delivery-driver-turned-stunt-driver Enzo Moruzzi remembered when speaking to the company about the car:
There was a Miura P400 almost ready on the production line, in the right color, left-hand drive and with white leather interior. It was aesthetically identical to the damaged one and we decided to use it for the film. The only thing worrying us was the elegant white leather seats, given that car had to get back to Sant’Agata in perfect condition. So, I asked for them to be taken out, replacing them with a set of black leather seats that we used for testing. The giveaway was the headrests, which on the Miura are attached to the dividing glass between the driver compartment and the engine compartment, which couldn’t be replaced in time. In the film, you can see the original white headrests.
After the shoot, the orange P400 went to its first owner in Rome. Then, it went around the globe before ending up for sale at Kidston in England. Fritz Kaiser payed a little over half a million dollars for it last year. Now, identified as the movie car by Lamborghini, it should be worth more. And judging by these pictures, for all the right reasons.
1968 Lamborghini Miura P400 #3586
