page_title: History of Lamborghini
section_title: 1967–1968 - Islero replaces 400GT, Stanzani replaces Dallara
hierarchical_section_title: History of Lamborghini / 1963–1972 - Ferruccio Lamborghini / 1967–1968 - Islero replaces 400GT, Stanzani replaces Dallara
caption_attribution_description: 1966 Lamborghini 400 GT Monza
context_page_description: Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. is an Italian brand and manufacturer of luxury automobiles. Lamborghini's production facility and headquarters are located in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Italy. Italian manufacturing magnate Ferruccio Lamborghini founded the company in 1963 with the objective of producing a refined grand touring car to compete with offerings from established marques such as Ferrari. The company's first models were introduced in the mid-1960s and were noted for their refinement, power and comfort. Lamborghini gained wide acclaim in 1966 for the Miura sports coupé, which established rear mid-engine, rear wheel drive as the standard layout for high-performance cars of the era.
  Lamborghini grew rapidly during its first decade, but sales plunged in the wake of the 1973 worldwide financial downturn and the oil crisis. Ferruccio Lamborghini sold ownership of the company to Georges-Henri Rossetti and René Leimer and retired in 1974. The company went bankrupt in 1978, and was placed in the receivership of brothers Jean-Claude and Patrick Mimran in 1980, who purchased the company for US$3 million, renaming it Nuova Automobili Lamborghini SpA.
context_section_description: Production of the 400GT continued, with Ferruccio Lamborghini seeking to replace the four-year-old design. Lamborghini commissioned Touring, which had styled the 350GT and the 400GT, to design a possible replacement based on the same chassis. Touring's 400 GT Flying Star II did not win Lamborghini's approval. Giorgio Neri and Luciano Bonacini, of Neri and Bonacini coachbuilders in Modena, produced their own design, the 400GT Monza, which was rejected as well. Facing mounting financial difficulties, Touring would close its doors later that year.
  Ferruccio Lamborghini turned to Bertone designer Mario Marazzi, who had formerly worked at Touring. Together with Lamborghini's engineers, he developed a four-seater concept named the Marzal. The car rode on a stretched version of the P400 chassis and was powered by an in-line six-cylinder engine that was made from one-half of Lamborghini's V12 design. Despite an innovative design that featured gullwing doors and enormous glass windows, Lamborghini rejected the design. Eventually, a toned-down version became the Islero 400GT. While the car was not the full four-seater that he desired, Ferruccio Lamborghini thought the car represented a well-developed gran turismo product. It failed to attract buyers, with only 125 cars produced between 1968 and 1969.
  New versions of the Miura arrived in 1968; the Miura P400 S (more commonly known as the Miura S) had a stiffened chassis and more power, with the V12 engine now developing 375 PS (276 kW; 370 hp) at 7,000 rpm. At the 1968 Brussels auto show, the automaker unveiled the Miura P400 Roadster (more commonly called the Miura Spider), an open-top version of the coupé. Gandini, by now effectively the head of design at Bertone, had paid great attention to the details, particularly the problems of wind buffeting and noise insulation inherent to a roadster. For all of Gandini's hard work, sales manager Ubaldo Sgarzi was forced to turn potential buyers away, as Lamborghini and Bertone were unable to reach a consensus on the size of a theoretical roadster production run. The one-off Miura Spider was sold off to an American metal alloy supplier, who wanted to use it as a marketing device. 1968 was a positive time for all of Ferruccio's businesses, and Automobili delivered 353 cars over the course of the year.
  In August 1968, Gian Paolo Dallara, frustrated with Ferruccio Lamborghini's refusal to participate in motorsport, was recruited away from Sant'Agata to head the Formula One programme at rival automaker De Tomaso in Modena. With profits on the rise, a racing programme would have been a possibility, but Lamborghini remained against even the construction of prototypes, stating his mission as: "I wish to build GT cars without defects – quite normal, conventional but perfect – not a technical bomb." With cars like the 400GT and the Islero, his aim to establish himself and his cars as equal or superior to the works of Enzo Ferrari had been satisfied. Dallara's assistant, Paolo Stanzani, replaced him as technical director.
caption: The design interpretation of the 400GT's successor crafted by Giorgio Neri and Luciano Bonacini was also rejected
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