Just over a month ago, I came across a particularly intriguing Instagram post from British magazine The Road Rat. Its title: «The secret story of the Lamborghini Miura II».
For a passionate Lamborghini, it's hard to remain indifferent. The Miura is one of the most legendary cars in the brand's history. Yet I'd never heard of a project called Miura II. Let alone a Lamborghini developed in the late 1980s during the Chrysler era to succeed the Jalpa.
The message published by The Road Rat evoked life-size models, forgotten design proposals and even the involvement of prestigious names such as Marcello Gandini and Nuccio Bertone. Enough to arouse my curiosity. So I contacted the magazine to find out more and ask their permission to share the story on Italpassion.
Their response was as sympathetic as it was unexpected:
«We think the best solution would be to send you a hard copy of the magazine so that you can publish photographs of the article. This shows that it's actually content published in a magazine, while avoiding revealing the whole story. It's a win-win situation.»
A few weeks later, the magazine arrived in my mailbox. And the story does indeed deserve to be told. Here, exclusively, and with the magazine's permission.
When Chrysler dreamed of a small Lamborghini with a V10 engine
To understand this project, we need to go back to the late 1980s. At that time, Lamborghini was not yet the flourishing brand we know today. Its entry-level model was the Jalpa, The Jalpa was a V8 mid-engine sports car sold from 1981 to 1988. Despite its qualities, the Jalpa never achieved the success it had hoped for. In eight years of production, only 410 examples were sold. By comparison, Ferrari sold thousands of 308s and 328s over the same period.
When Chrysler bought Lamborghini in 1987, a project for a replacement was already underway. Its code name: P140. The objective was clear: to develop a more compact, more affordable Lamborghini, capable of attracting a wider customer base than the Countach.
The LP140 project, nicknamed «Miura II»
This is where the story gets exciting. According to information gathered by The Road Rat with Tom Gale, former Vice President of Design at Chrysler, the American teams didn't just supervise the project. They decided to participate directly in its stylistic development.
Internally, Chrysler even came up with a particularly ambitious working name: Miura II. The idea was simple but bold: to create a new mid-engined Lamborghini capable of taking over the Miura's historic role as a more accessible supercar than the range's flagship model.
Several Chrysler designers were invited to work on the subject after office hours. At the time, the same teams were revolutionizing the American market with the Chrysler minivans... Tom Gale explains in the article that he wasn't totally convinced by the first Italian proposals and wanted to open up the competition to young American designers.
A battle of styles between Chrysler, Bertone and Gandini
The photographs published in the magazine show a virtually unknown episode in Lamborghini's history. In a huge workshop in Sant'Agata Bolognese, several life-size models are lined up side by side.
They include :
- two proposals by Chrysler; ;
- proposed by Marcello Gandini; ;
- a Bertone proposal.
The photos seem to date from the late 1980s or early 1990s, when the Diablo had just been validated.
Among Chrysler's designs, two variants were known as Miura II A and Miura II B. Version B, visible in several photos, features styling typical of the period, with an extremely low profile, reduced overhangs and flowing lines. Tom Gale even explains that certain elements of his design would later find their way into several Chrysler models of the 1990s.
A Lamborghini V10 before its time?
One of the most fascinating details concerns the planned powertrain. According to the article, some P140 prototypes were equipped with a 4.0-liter V10 developing around 362 hp. For the 1990s, such a configuration would have been particularly ambitious for an entry-level model.
On one of the sketches recovered by The Road Rat, The «V10» lettering is clearly visible in front of the rear wheel. When you consider that the Gallardo, launched only in 2003, would become the first modern Lamborghini to democratize the V10 engine within the range, you can't help but wonder what might have become of this project had it been given the green light.
Why was the project abandoned?
Despite the investments made, the project never came to fruition. Tom Gale himself admits that he can't remember all the reasons, but several factors seem to have worked against the P140.
The recession of the early 1990s, the disappointing sales of the Diablo and Lamborghini's chronic financial difficulties probably dampened Chrysler's ambitions. In the end, the American manufacturer only owned Lamborghini for seven years, before selling the brand to the Indonesian MegaTech group in 1994. The P140 project survived for some time in various forms, but the versions presented at this design competition gradually disappeared from the radar.
What if this Miura II had existed?
Before the Urus, the best-selling Lamborghini in history was the Huracán. Before the Huracán, the Gallardo had already demonstrated that a more compact and accessible Lamborghini could become a huge commercial success.
So what would have happened if Chrysler had continued development of this «Miura II» in the early 1990s? Would Lamborghini have launched its first production V10 more than ten years before the Gallardo? Would it have found the formula for success for its entry-level models more quickly?
We'll never know. But thanks to The Road Rat and Tom Gale's personal archives, this forgotten chapter in Lamborghini's history has now resurfaced.
And for those of you who would like to discover even more previously unpublished photos, sketches and details of this incredible story, I can only recommend that you buy the relevant edition of The Road Rat, which devotes several pages to this secret project that has remained in the shadows for over thirty years. Thanks to Jonny Lieberman for researching and writing the original article.
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