Perhaps one of the most famous disagreements in automotive history is the one that made entrepreneur Ferruccio Lamborghini start manufacturing cars, shortly after an unsavory encounter with Enzo Ferrari. The tractor businessman set his sights on a front-V12 grand tourer, eventually producing the shark-like 350GTV prototype, which evolved into the 350 GT, penned by Touring Supperleggera. During Ferrucio’s tenure, his cars remained very consistent, using ZF gearboxes and the same Bizzarrini engine design, enlarged to 3.9 litres, in many of the models succeeding the 350 GT, such as the 400 GT 2+2, Islero, Jarama, Espada, Miura, and Countach. This mechanical DNA continued until 2010, with the Murcielago LP670-4 SV, the last Lamborghini to feature the brand’s flagship engine before being replaced by an all-new design under Audi AG.
Manufactured in a short run of 247 cars, the 400 GT is the successor of the 350GT and was produced in two series: the ‘Interim’ two-seater (23 cars) and the more common 400 GT 2+2 (224 cars). Very much like their predecessor, these cars featured a luxurious leather interior, ZF gearbox, power windows, and Lamborghini’s signature V12, producing 320hp.
Chassis 01276 was completed in Sant’Agata on on December 5, 1967, as one of the last 25 cars built (224/247). The car was finished as an American specification, and delivered new through Jake Kaplan of Providence, Rhode Island. The car headed for Florida, and changed hands again in 1974. Later, in July 1987, this 400GT underwent a cosmetic and mechanical restoration, and set on to win the Pocono Raceway Concours (1987), and the Congressional Concours d’Elegance (1988). In 1996, it won the ‘distance’ trophy at the Vintage Fall Festival (Lime Rock, CT) and participated in the 2000 VSCCA New York-New Jersey Tour. Following these events, the car was reupholstered and had a top-end rebuild between 2000 and 2003 at Exoticars of Frenchtown, New Jersey. The car was then auctioned in 2008 and purchased by one of the Royal Families of the Gulf, from which we acquired the car in 2022.
For the following three years, we improved the car cosmetically and mechanically by rebuilding the carburetors (Pierce Manifolds), repainting most of the body, replacing all the interior carpet, rechroming some of the brightwork, rebuilding the gearbox with new synchros, sourcing rare interior parts, remanufacturing the car’s radiator and oil cooler, and replacing the tyres with correct Michelin XWX’s. The car was displayed at the Concorso Italiano UAE 2025, and it will make its future custodian the proud owner of real Lamborghini history in its purest form.
