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Barn-find 1969 Lamborghini Miura S headed to auction for its 50th birthday

Car collectors who have caught barn find fever show no sign of healing from it anytime soon. An unrestored, barn-found 1969 Lamborghini Miura S will sell for big money when it crosses the auction block in the fall of 2019, and it might return to the road in time to celebrate its 50th birthday. Auction house RM Sotheby's explains the Miura S it will sell in London on October 24 has only covered a little bit over 10,000 miles since it rolled off the assembly line in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy. German advertising executive Walter Becker purchased the car in 1971, according to CarBuzz, and sold it to racing driver Hans-Peter Weber in 1974. He drove the Miura, maintained it, and went to great lengths to keep it original until he died in 2015. It has been parked in a German barn since, so it's a freshman barn find that likely doesn't need a ton of work to once again move under its own power. We'd be more worried if it spent 25 years in a barn. The front turn signals aren't original, and the seatbelts are aftermarket units, but the rest of the car is 100% authentic. Its body has never been repainted, the seats have never been re-upholstered, and the 365-horsepower, 3.9-liter V12 engine has never been opened. It's complete, and there are no signs of obvious damage or neglect. We've seen 10-year old supercars in worse shape than this one. The Miura is one of the most sought-after 1960s Italian cars, only 338 examples of the S variant were made from 1968 to 1971, and finding an unrestored example that hasn't been completely destroyed by people, rust, or both is rare. RM Sotheby's expects the 1969 model scheduled to cross the block in London will sell for anywhere between 800,000 and one million British pounds, sums that represent $965,000 and $1.2 million, respectively. We'd get the V12 running, keep the rest original, and enjoy it, but the next owner might be tempted to give it a full restoration, especially now that Lamborghini sells a full catalog of Miura parts via its Polo Storico division. Featured Gallery 1969 Lamborghini Miura S barn find View 18 Photos Auto News Lamborghini Performance Classics

Get a load of these crazy European Nimrods

I've been attending the Geneva Motor Show for the better part of a decade, and it's become my favorite stop on the entire show circuit, in large part because of all the exotic automakers, coachbuilders and green startups. I also love the Palexpo's consistently mind-bending displays of tuners, who typically work exclusively on six-figure automobiles. Some offer subtle improvements and personalization programs, but most seem hellbent on being more outlandish and bizarre than the next, a room full of millionaire class clowns. More often than not, I spy something and think to myself "What kind of Nimrod would do that to a perfectly good ____ ?" This year, that rhetorical question is in fact a self-answering one.
The jokes, they write themselves.
But seriously, if you're wondering who would take a perfectly lovely Ferrari 458 Italia or a Lamborghini Aventador and affix a wild body kit of dubious aerodynamic and aesthetic merit at great extra cost (both to the car's MSRP and to its assuredly grenaded resale value), the answer could very well be Nimrod Elite Tuning, a newer high-end restyling house out of Slovakia. That last locational tidbit might also explain the company's unusual name, which is likely a nod to a mighty Biblical hunter (descendant of Ham and a king of Shinar, Nimrod is mentioned in Genesis and Chronicles) and not meant to be taken as a synonym for "idiot" or "moron."

Lamborghini teases engine sound, but of Sesto Elemento or Cabrera?

Lamborghini has launched a website for something it calls the Hexagon Project. The mysterious page asks that you submit your email address, and then it gives you a taste of glorious V10 engine noise, with the message: "Listen to your instinct. Discover the roar of a new creature from Lamborghini. That will be just the beginning."
But where is that wonderful noise going to come from? Since we don't see Lambo launching a front-engined, front-drive minivan in the near future, we're guessing it'll be found in the back of some low-slung, edgy super car.
In our minds, that leaves two candidates. The popular opinion, perpetuated by our friends at Jalopnik, is that this is the engine for Lambo's Gallardo replacement, rumored to be called the Cabrera. This is a sound guess, although the naming of the site, Hexagon Project, makes us think that there's more to it all than just the Cabrera's new engine.