I’d always thought the Diablo was a disappointment. For a successor to the Countach—which had become a carbuncular paragon of Eighties excess—a letdown seemed inevitable. It was a setup. The Diablo was initially penned by Bertone’s best when Lambo was owned by a Swiss investment firm. But as the planned release approached, Lamborghini changed hands yet again, becoming another of Chrysler chair Lee Iacocca’s collaborative dalliances with flailing Italian brands.
But they are also forms, first and foremost, with unorthodox engineering supplementally deployed to coerce presumed features in other vehicles into tolerable existence. Sitting in the Miura was like squeezing into a Little Tikes Cozy Coupe; my knees were at 9 and 3 on the wheel. The pedals seemed intended for transmetatarsal amputees. And the engine literally caught fire during my allotted seat time.