You might be a
Miura owner if............................
you know more about Bob Wallace
than you do about President George W. Bush.
you actually know how to spell Ferruccio Lamborghini.
you keep an empty well known Italian winery labeled bottle in your
garage just certain you will find an automotive related use for it.
Zagato, Zampolli, and Zamboni are names easily used in conversation.
you know nothing about bull fighting, yet somehow can name 5 bull
breeds.
you have first hand knowledge why someone would want a Halon system in
a car.
you can set a hand operated diaphram hot water matrix control valve as
accurately as any dual zone Cadillac digital system.
you get excited when you find obscurely listed Fiat parts on Ebay.
you secretly own a Slinky to impress the local kids in your
neighborhood.
More than rules, they are LAWS! 
As the
owner of an Italian vehicle, you have undoubtedly found that, from time to time,
the thing defies all known laws of Physics. Distinguished researchers from all
over the world have spent entire lives trying to understand such phenomena.
Recently, the Six Laws of Italian Sports Cars were discovered, thus reducing
most owners' dependency on sorcerers and prayer, to keep such cars running.
Careless application of these laws to any individual auto may fix the
problems of the moment, but cause hives or allergies in said owners.
1) THE
LAW OF PLEASING DESIGN WHERE IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER
"The inside of cam
covers or other relatively innocous areas, shall be laced with buttresses,
cross-bracing and all manner of esoteric stiffness-with-lightness design,
while something like connecting rods shall self-destruct at redline plus 1.0 rpm
due to a basic lack of strength." An example of this Law is the stunningly
beautiful Lamborghini or Ferrari V-12's of the late '60's. They were famous for
wearing out all four camshafts in 10,000 miles or less. The cam's metal appeared
to be recycled coathangers, which coincidentally are still in short supply in
Italy.
2) THE LAW OF NON-FUNCTIONAL APPARATUS
"All Italian Sports Cars,
regardless of age, shall have at least one system or component which does not
work, and cannot be repaired. Such a part shall never be mentioned in the
Official Shop Manual, although there may be an out-of-focus picture shown." It
goes without saying that such parts should never under any circumstances be
removed, lest the natural balance of the car be upset.
3)THE LAW OF
ELECTRICAL CHAOS
"All Italian Sports Cars shall be wired at the Factory by a
cross-eyed, color-blind worker, using whatever supplies are within reach. All
wires shall change color-code at least once between energy source and component.
all grounds shall be partially insulated." This tends to guarantee that the
owner of such vehicles will eventually be intimately familiar with its
electrical system, since he will need to trace out each wire, then rewrite his
Official Schematic, which will differ from all others in at least one area.
4)THE LAW OF PERSONAL ABUSE
"The more an Italian auto breaks down, the
more endearing it becomes to its increasingly irrational owner." For example,
you purchase an Italian Sports car, for all the money you ever hoped to earn,
and receive a ticket for air pollution on the way home from the dealer due to
the vast clouds of smoke that follow you. Several return trips to said dealer,
accompanied by your rapidly dwindling cash reserves, cures the smoking. But now,
the engine sounds like a food processor full of ball-bearings. After replacing
every component in the car, including the radio speakers, the noise vanishes and
is replaced by an odor reminiscent of a major fire in a goat-hair mattress
factory. You still keep trying, God help you.
5)THE LAW OF UNAVAILABLE PARTS
"All parts of an Italian sports car shall be made of a material that is
available in inverse proportion to its operating half-life." Thus, the
speedometer hold-down screws are made of grade 8 cold rolled steel, while the
valves are of fabricated Unobtanium, made only at midnight by an old man with a
pointy hat covered with moons and stars. Such parts will be backordered during
the design phase of the car, and will remain so forever. Bribes, pleading and
threats will be ignored.
6)THE LAW OF CRYPTIC INSTRUCTIONS
"Any official
publications dealing with repair, maintenance or operations of an Italian sports
car, shall be written such that every fourth word is incomprehensible to the
average American. In the event that a random sentence is understandable, its
information shall be wrong." This is also known as flat-tire English, where a
sentence flows along nicely, then-Kaboom!
as shared by Fred P. from VLG group
TOP GEAR copy (2003) from Giles
Chapman - subject: I Was There: Bob Wallace and Lamborghini Miura
development - Without the car-handling skills of gravel-voiced
Australian Bob Wallace, the Lamborghini Miura, unveiled in Geneva 37
years ago this month, might never have hit the road.
I was a race car mechanic when I joined Ferruccio
Lamborghini's tiny company in 1963. I'd known the chassis designer
Giampaolo Dallara from way back on the circuits from his Maserati days,
and he talked me into going there. I figured that here was an
opportunity to do something really interesting.
The chassis for the Miura was unveiled at Turin in
1965. Nuccio Bertone saw it and put his young designer Marcello Gandini
on to designing a body for it before even speaking to us. It was on
spec and the early work was all done for free, I believe. Gandini was
very, very bright, and the styling was dead right - spot on.
A team of three of us worked night and day to get
the car ready for Geneva at Bertone's design department. We half-killed
ourselves, and the show car wasn't even a runner! But the public's
reaction to it was fantastic; there was a book-full of orders and its
layout, which, really, was based on the Mini's, changed a lot of
people's thinking. Ferruccio was very pleased with the praise,
especially when Ferrari or Agnelli or someone brought a load of
engineers over to the car and said: "Gentlemen - wake up!"
To hell with it: I hated standing there in a stuffy
hall. My job was to drive the car and improve the thing. The Miuras
were a commercial success, but the early prototype preproduction test
cars were rough. We really had to do the whole damn thing again from
scratch. About two months later I had to drive the first road-going car
to Monaco for the grand prix. It was good for publicity and I enjoyed
it. There wasn't much traffic in those days. I was young and stupid,
and I didn't know what would fall off. In Italy at the time, a set of
test plates was like a gift from God. You never got a ticket, probably
because old man Lamborghini had bribed the local police to leave us
alone. It was insanity: only after a few accidents did I calm down.
The production car had a lot of shortcomings. It was
reasonably well-built, but not very rigid and the electrical and oil
systems were problematic. Fortunately, only about 10 per cent of our
customers noticed. It was crude, hotter than hell, and a lttle cramped.
You couldn't sell a car like that today, what we did back then is no
longer acceptable.
I drove literally every one of the early cars,
taking them out from Sant'Agata, along the freeway, up into the
mountains - anything from 150 to 200 miles each. The cars did improve;
we got a lot done because we were young and energetic. There are
still many myths about all these cars and how great they were.
I would have loved to race the Miura. I even built a
lightweight one in my spare time, but Ferruccio was absolutely aganst
it. He realised he could not afford to do two things at once, like
building road cars and running a race team. He was an extremely
intelligent man...and that was an intelligent business decision.
Bob Wallace, 65, was Lamborghini's development test
driver for 10 years from 1963 until 1973, helping perfect every model
from the GT350 to the Countach. He now lives in Phoenix, Arizona, USA,
where he runs an bespoke engine shop which works on, among other cars,
classic Ferraris.
The Lamborghini Miura is the undisputed grand-daddy of
supercars; the first V12-engined GT with an engine mounted transverse
and in the center. Of the first Miura P400 cars, 275 were built between
1966 and 1968, when a slightly improved Miura P400S (338 were built
69-70) was released. The final model, the P400SV (150 were built
70-73), was further updated with 385bhp on tap. All Miuras could top
170mph, but it was really the gorgeous looks that made it every
schoolboy's bedroom pin-up in the late 1960s.
from VLG Mark B. - 04/2007 - Guys (and gals hopefully ;~)>
How many VLG users does it take to change a lightbulb? Wink
I'll let you do the math - I may have missed one or two categories.
1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently
7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs
7 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs
5 to flame the spell checkers
3 to correct spelling/grammar flames
6 to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb" ... another 6 to condemn those 6 as stupid
2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is "lamp"
15 know-it-alls who claim they were in the industry, and that "light bulb" is perfectly correct
19 to post that this forum is about lamborghins and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb forum
11 to defend the posting to this forum saying that we all use light
bulbs in our lamborghinis and therefore the posts are relevant to this
forum
36 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to
buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this
technique and what brands are faulty
7 to post URL's where one can see examples of different light bulbs
4 to post that the URL's were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL's
3 to post about links they found from the URL's that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group
13 to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add "Me too"
5 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy
4 to say "didn't we go through this already a short time ago?"
13 to say "do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs"
1 forum lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now and start it all over again.
you know a little bit about Miura
bulls.
1971 Bullfight poster from Plaza de Toros at Toledo
6
magnificent bulls are from the Don Eduardo Miura breed and
recieve top billing. Below are the three courageous bullfighters
clips from various websites are below in random order
LINARES July 4th 1947 - "The Bulls of Death" - The Miura
Bulls (Don Eduardo Miura) - So called because they had been responsible
for the deaths of many of Spain's great Matadors . Manolete's second
bull and the 1,004th of his career was small and black its name Islero.
It had one small defect. It had very bad eyesight and tended to chop
with its right horn. His manager begged with him to finish this
bull off quickly . In the final act Manolete slowly, deliberately
pushed the sword deep up to its hilt, Islero jerked his right
horn up into the matador's groin cutting his femoral artery. As the
Banderillos carried the dying hero to the infirmary, the stunned crowd
rose to applaud.
http://www.geocities.com/matador1920/manolete.htm
Islero--(1947)--miura
bull, 495 kilos, that killed one of the most famous matadors of all
time,
Manuel Rodríguez "Manolete" in Linares, Spain
Q. Why does the bull have a "rosette" on its back when it enters the
ring ?
A. All bulls are bred on ganaderias (ranches) which specialise in
fighting bulls (toros de lidia). Each rancher (ganadero) makes his own
distinctive notches in the bulls' ears, has his own branded insignia
and his own colours. The rosette (divisa) shows the colours of the
ranch which bred the bull and has a small barb on it. Just before the
bull enters the ring via the toril gate, it is inserted into its hide
using a long spring-loaded pole. The most famous ganaderia is that of
the infamous Miura bulls from
Seville.
In today’s bull ring, as with gladiators in the ancient Roman
Colosseum, the bull has at least a tiny chance to win, survive and live
to a very happy old age.
Think back to how the great bullfighter Manolete (Manuel Rodriquez
Sanchez) was gored and killed by the bull Islero on August 28, 1947.
Islero’s victory and fame – his name yet remembered more than half a
century later in the Hispanic world – earned him a life at stud* to
produce more of Andalusia’s (named for the Vandals who settled southern
Spain) fierce Miura bulls.
*(seems to be conflicting story on Islero)
from 2005 -
The “Victorinos”, finally make
it to Pamplona along with Fuente Ymbro,
this bull-breed from Caceres will be the big novelty for Sanfermin 2005
This Caceres breed fromVictorino
Martín Andrés will be the big novelty on the Sanfermin
2005 bullfight program, as was announced yesterday by La Casa de
Misericordia organization. It was also confirmed that bulls from the
Seville breeder Fuente Ymbro, will also participate in the next
Sanfermin program.
Victorino Martín, has long been one of the
best known bull breeds in Spain but this will be their first time for
them to fight in the Pamplona bullring. In existence since 1919, this
particular breed has never fought before in Pamplona – apparently, and
especially so in these last years - because of discrepancies about the
financial arrangements between the two parts.
The other novelty for Sanfermin 2005 will be Fuente Ymbro, a new bull brand just
in existence since 1996 and bred out of Jandilla bulls and cows. Over the
last few years they have proved to respond well in the bull rings. The
other breeds will consist of Juan
Pedro Domecq, for the third consecutive year; Miura, constant visitors since 1979;
Cebada Gago, which has only
missed one year in the past two decades; Jandilla, chosen as the best bulls
from last year’s fights; Santiago
Domecq, who return after a two year absence; and the Dolores Aguirre Ybarra bulls come
for the fourth year in succession.
Regarding the “novillada” (young bulls) on the 5th,
the Miranda de Pericalvo
breed will once again be the protagonists. Meanwhile for the “corrida
de rejones” (bullfight with horsemen) on the 6th, the Murube breeder
will provide the bulls for that day.
The Breeders who have been contracted -
MIURA, from Lora del Rio (Seville)
D. JUAN PEDRO DOMECQ, from El
Castillo de las Guardas (Seville)
D. VICTORINO MARTÍN
ANDRÉS, from Moraleja (Cáceres)
HROS. de D. José CEBADA GAGO,
from Medina Sidonia (Cádiz)
JANDILLA, from Vejer de la
Frontera (Cádiz)
D. SANTIAGO DOMECQ
BOHÓRQUEZ, from Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz)
DÑA. DOLORES AGUIRRE YBARRA,
from Constantina (Sevilla)
FUENTE YMBRO, from San
José del Valle (Cádiz)
from
some chat room - Lambo have always named their cars after items from
the corrida ( the Spanish bullfight event ) , such as Miura, Jslero,
Urraco, Bravo, Jalpa and Espada. But not the Countach - another story
for another day
Diablo was the return to naming cars after bull-fighting and was a bull
made famous bull after a ferocious battle with one of the greatest
matadors in MADRID in SPAIN in the 1860s
Murcielago was the name given to a bull in CORDOBA in SPAIN in the
1870s. A famous bull-fighter spared the life of the bull in the ring
after it had dsplayed unique courage and spirit. It was then used to
breed a famous line of bulls for the bull-fighting rings of Spain.
And Gallardo is a famous bull-fighting breed, so the tradition
continues under Audi
http://www.huskyclub.com/P400partslist.html