The Miura had no competition. Hollywood voice-coaching for engines wasn’t available then; the simple fact that you had a 350bhp V12 was enough. The engine sounds the way it sounds; the multi-cylindered, multi-layered mechanical thrash of a thousand components drawn and assembled by hand and by some miracle working in perfect synchronicity.

Even at 110 and 120mph with a lightening load in the front-mounted fuel tank the Miura tracks true. We can’t prove or disprove the allegations occasionally made about its high-speed lift issues or difficult limit handling. At the pace you’d want to drive it at now, the Miura is sensational. And occasionally you ought to think a little less about the physical act of driving it and remember what it is you’re driving; that it’s you piloting that shape through the scenery, providing the display Ferruccio, Marcello and the others who created it so clearly intended forty years ago. Bella macchina, as the Italians say. And maybe no macchina will ever be more bella.