This Lamborghini almost cost Miles Davis his life – Jalopnik

There will never be another Miles Davis, and Lamborghini will never reimagine the Miura, but the icons have a history together. And that came to an abrupt end in the fall of 1972, a time that marked a major turning point in the musician’s life, both musically and otherwise. On October 11, Davis released “On the Corner,” a stunning electronic combination of rock, jazz and funk that was the logical evolution of his other music from the late ’60s/early ’70s. However, it took listeners some time to catch up, and it received scathing reviews. Just ten days later, he was in a New York hospital recovering from a near-fatal car accident in his Lamborghini Miura.

Of course, it wasn’t so much the Miura that was to blame, but rather Davis. That’s what James Glickenhaus says, who knows a thing or two about exotic sports cars and told him the story Road and rail. Glickenhaus, who happened to be driving near Davis at the time, said the crash resulted from Davis attempting to make a sudden right turn off the West Side Highway from the left lane. The two bags of cocaine in the car may also have something to do with it; When Glickenhaus stopped to help, he said, he found them before police could and dumped the coke into a nearby sewer.

However, that is only part of the Miura’s story. In fact, the car was almost as important to Lamborghini as Miles Davis was to jazz.

‘Supercar’ appears to be a term first used in 1920 to advertise Bentleys, but it was the premiere of the Lamborghini Miura in 1966 that brought it back into common use. The Miura made its debut at the Geneva Motor Show that year as the first Lamborghini with a mid-mounted V12 engine, setting the stage for a long list of thrillers including the Diablo, Countach, Aventador and even Lamborghini’s insane 1,001bhp Revuelto.

It’s true that Miles Davis’ 1972 Miura didn’t deliver that kind of performance, but keep in mind that the first-generation model was launched as the fastest production car in the world – backed by a top speed of almost 186 mph. And the Davis car could go faster, as it came from the third Miura series, the SV, which was first shown to the public in 1971.

Featuring an upgraded suspension and riding on larger tires under wider wheel arches, the Miura SV also rewarded owners with a separate lubrication system for the five-speed manual transmission. Changes under the hood included revised cam timing, larger valves on the intake side and redesigned carburetor jets all working together to bring 385 horsepower to the party; drivers could celebrate by running from 0 to 60 mph in less than 10.5 seconds, eventually reaching a top speed of 186 mph.

The Miura also attracted a lot of attention from celebrities. In addition to Davis, the list of famous former Miura owners also includes Eddie Van Halen, Peter Sellers and Elton John, while the car has had roles in more than 40 films, including the original 1969 version of ‘The Italian Job’.

Growing up in the pre-civil rights era, Miles Davis knew firsthand that standing out in the white world could bring the wrong kind of attention: In 1959, he was beaten by police while simply taking a cigarette break during one of his performances in New York City—and not going along when told to do so. Of course, it would be putting it mildly to say that Davis didn’t give a damn about the expectations of whites.

So he had no trouble driving around New York City in the kind of exotic cars he knew could easily get him stopped for DWB (Driving While Black). For example, Davis used one of his first big royalty checks to buy a Mercedes-Benz 190 SL, a curvaceous and athletic roadster that is the founding member of Mercedes’ SL family – which also includes the anything-but-subtle 2026 Mercedes-Maybach SL 680 Monogram Series. He also owned a post-war Jaguar, although there are conflicting reports as to whether it was an XK120 or an XK140. Regardless, the experience was enough to convince him to own an XJS later in life.

Davis’ Italian phase began in 1958, when he bought his first Ferrari. He actually had to go the second-hand route, because a new Prancing Horse product was not yet within his budget at that time. Davis would eventually add a Ferrari 275 GTB, a 308 GTS, the Miura and a Testarossa to his Italian stable.