Car of the Week: This Concours-Winning 1967 Lamborghini Miura Could Fetch $2.8 Million at Auction

It’s being hailed as simply the best Lamborghini Miura in the world. Its cache of trophies includes Best in Show accolades at Concorso Italiano in 2017 and 2023, plus a coveted Bull Award from Automobili Lamborghini America, and the title of Best Restored Miura at the 2017 edition of The Quail, a Motorsports Gathering. The latter was after the car had been exhaustively brought to concours quality the year before. Now, this world-famous Raging Bull is set to headline Bonhams‘ Scottsdale Auction on January 25, and with just 33,870 miles on its odometer.

Built in the summer of 1967 as the 39th Miura to come off the line, chassis No. 3057 was first sold to American enthusiast Ben Johnson, who took delivery directly from Lamborghini‘s Sant’Agata Bolognese factory, just east of Modena in northern Italy. According to Bonhams research, as soon as he got the keys, he set off on a grand European tour in his new ride.

After the tour, Johnson reportedly shipped the car back to the U.S. but passed away shortly after, with the Miura relegated to gather dust in storage during much of the 1970s. In 1978, a longtime Lamborghini Club of America member, Dr. Dean Aberman, rescued the car with just 2,464 miles on it, and used it enthusiastically for the next 25 years. His adventures included regular weekend blasts across the California border into Mexico, and several “Italian Stampedes” along the Pacific Coast Highway from Los Angeles to the Concorso Italiano car show on Northern California’s Monterey Peninsula.

The hard-driven—but perfectly maintained—Miura was eventually sold at a Bonhams auction in 2015, where it crossed the block for $1,039,500. Its new owner? Well-known Los Angeles attorney, passionate supercar collector, and self-proclaimed “open-checkbook” restorer, Michael Weinreb.

“My love of the Lamborghini brand started with his-and-hers Gallardo Spyders, one for me, one for my wife Toni, followed by a pair of Murciélago LP640s. But I always dreamed of a Miura, and Dean Aberman’s car was well-known in the Lamborghini club,” explains Weinreb.

The collector, who currently has 35 best-of-the-best sports cars in his new subterranean Malibu garage, tells us he was encouraged to buy the Miura by none other than Valentino Balboni, the former chief test driver for Lamborghini and company ambassador, who was in attendance at the 2015 Bonhams auction.

“Valentino is a good friend and told me he was very familiar with the car and was impressed by its originality, its relatively low mileage, and the fact that it had been kept alive by use. It was the only persuasion I needed,” says Weinreb. But to join the Weinreb collection, the car would need a full restoration, so he put together a plan for a complete rebuild with the seemingly impossible deadline of August 2016 and the Miura’s 50th anniversary celebrations during Monterey Car Week.

Weinreb assembled a dream team of the most renowned Miura specialists in the country for the restoration, including Jeff “Mr. Miura” Stephan, Debbie Sidera of Debbie Motors, Andy Palmer of Palmer Coachworks, and the experts at Ed Pink Racing Engines.

“Having only 10 months to perform a complete restoration in time for Monterey was an extremely ambitious undertaking,” says Weinreb, “but the team worked long hours to pull it off. Even now I have a hard time believing what they accomplished.”

The work included a full-blueprint engine rebuild by Stephan, which increased the power of the iconic 3.9-liter Lamborghini V-12 from the original 350 hp to more than 400 hp. Stephan also did a major rebuild of the engine’s four Weber carburetors and five-speed manual transaxle.

The painstakingly rebuilt body, by Palmer Coachworks, saw key structural improvements added to achieve laser-straight panel gaps and add the kind of body stiffness the original Miura P400 always lacked. According to Weinreb, the bodywork restoration alone cost more than $150,000, with an additional $100,000 going into the repaint.

Extensive records of the restoration, filling two bulging binders, are included in the auction lot, along with all those concours trophies, the original driver’s manuals, and an original Miura tool kit. There’s even the Italian license plate that the first owner used on the car’s maiden road trip across Europe.

“I’m convinced that this is the best Miura in the world, a claim backed up by all the accolades the car has received since its restoration,” says Weinreb. “But after 10 years of ownership, I do feel it’s time to hand the keys to another passionate collector.” According to the conservative estimate by Bonhams, the car could fetch between $2.2 million and $2.8 million.

Click here for more photos of this 1967 Lamborghini Miura P400.