Famous Lamborghini Miura from iconic movie rediscovered

What happened to the Lamborghini Miura used in The Italian Job?

If you have ever watched The Italian Job, then you’ve seen the iconic Lamborghini Miura racing up Italian mountain roads. You also saw its fate. What happened to the Lamborghini Miura used in The Italian Job? We finally have answers.

What is The Italian Job?

First off, in this article, we are not talking about the Edward Norton, Mark Wahlberg, and Charlize Theron movie of the same name that came out in 2003. That was a remake. We are talking about the original 1969 movie starring Michael Caine and Benny Hill.

Both movies quite famously utilized Mini Coopers in their big chase (though the 2003 movie used the modern Mini). However, the opening title sequence of the original The Italian Job had a gorgeous Lamborghini Miura racing up the famous Great St Bernard Pass in Italy.

Was the Miura destroyed in the movie The Italian Job?

In the movie, the Miura is most definitely destroyed. After going into a tunnel, still in the opening sequence, the Miura slams into a bulldozer and is then pushed off a cliff. In the world of movie magic, usually a fake car would be used for this, but they used an actual Miura.

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The trick is, it wasn’t the same Miura. The movie actually borrowed two Miura models from Lamborghini. However, one was already wrecked before the movie, so it made for the perfect stunt car. Sadly, shortly after the movie was filmed, the original operating Miura that drove up the pass was lost.

When we say lost though, we don’t mean misplaced or even destroyed. Instead, whoever owned it, didn’t know that they owned the classic from the now iconic movie. Now that has changed, as Lamborghini has uncovered the original, and it’s the one we have pictures of plastered all over this blog.

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Interesting facts about the Miura from The Italian Job

There are a few interesting facts about this particular Miura. For starters, the Miura that drove up Great St Bernard Pass was selected right from the production line to match an already wrecked Miura that the Lamborghini factory had on hand.

In the movie, the seats in the Miura are black and the headrests are white. This is because the seats from the factory were white, but the stunt driver feared damaging them so asked if they could be swapped out with black. As the headrests are mounted separately in the Miura, they stayed white. The seats went back to white when the car was delivered.