Lamborghini Miura
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The Lamborghini Miura is a sports car built in Italy by Lamborghini between 1966 and 1973. A mid-engined layout had been used successfully in competition, including by the Ford GT40 and Ferrari 250 LM at Le Mans. De Tomaso had produced a road car with this layout, but otherwise cars designed for the road were almost uniformly front-engined, rear drive vehicles. The Miura was a trendsetter, the one that made the mid-engined layout de rigeur among two-seater high performance supercars.
The Miura debuted in 1965 at the Turin Motor Show, with a production version launched five months later at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show. It was powered by a 3.9 L V12 engine mounted transversely and producing 350 hp (260 kW).
Early Miuras were notorious for being a fire hazard. The problem was caused by Lamborghini's decision to use Weber 40 IDL 3C1 carburetors which were designed exclusively for racing applications and weren't suitable for road use. The problem occurred when the car sat idling (e.g. at a stoplight), the area above the throttles filled with fuel which often ignited when the car accelerated away from the stop. One of Lamborghini's engineers devised a modification for the carburetors which created a fuel-return. Ferrari, who used these same carburetors in one of the cars, and suffered the same problems, were able to use Lamborghini's modification to solve it.
Some other interesting details, the position of the fuel tank is at the front causing the vehicle to have less weight at the front as the fuel tank gets lighter (closer to Empty). Thus making the car harder to handle. Another detail is that the doors resemble a bull's horns when it is opened wide (Lamborghini's logo itself depicts a raging bull).
In 2004, Sports Car International named this car number four on both the list of Top Sports Cars of the 1960s and Top Sports Cars of the 1970s.