Classified ad of the week: Rod Stewart’s Lamborghini Miura

Buy a feather-haired rocker’s Lambo. You’ll need around £1m...

Back in 1972, a man called Roderick paid £8,000 for this yellow car. Admittedly, that was £700 more than the average house price at the time, helped in no small part by his insistence on the fitment of a cassette player with a recording function. And right-hand drive. And air conditioning. But it's still a snip - relative or otherwise - because these days you'll need around £1m to put it in your garage.

Which is an awful lot of money. But this car is an awful lot of brilliant. If you're a Miura nerd, you'll have already spotted that this one is the super-hot SV (spinto veloce) version (you can tell by the deleted eyelash trims around the lights and swollen wheelarches). That means there's a 390bhp engine lurking in the spaceframe, as well as revised front and rear suspension, which improved handling and accommodated the new nine-inch Campagnolo wheels.

All the upgrades afforded it the title of world's fastest production car when it was introduced in 1971. Trouble was, Lambo decided to announce that it'd started work on the Countach, it's successor, the same year. Even though it was years off production, buyers were willing to wait for the unreleased new model and demand waned.

Which is a terrible shame, because only 150 SVs were made. But it wasn't without its.... idiosyncrasies. The fuel tank, for example. It's mounted over the front wheels so the nose gets light and ever so slightly undriveable when you get low on juice. And, occasionally, the carburettors spit petrol onto the hot engine, which causes it to spontaneously combust. And the interior is tiny. Still, it's pretty impressive considering it was designed and developed by seven twentysomethings working in their spare time.

Rod's is a real end-of-the-liner. It's one of just seven right-hand drive versions, and the 701st of 765 Miuras ever built. In 2004, it left Lambo's Sant'Agata factory after a £120,000 restoration, then earlier this year joined Top Gear on Lamborghini's 50th Anniversary road trip celebration in Italy, after which the owner treated it to a £54,300 engine rebuild. Then it sold at auction last month for £919,900, and now it's up for sale again with POA next to the price box.

Source : TOP GEAR