“We Will Never Do A New Miura,” Says Lamborghini Design Boss

Lamborghini caused a bit of a stir a few years ago when it launched the Countach LPI 800-4. A modern-day hybrid-powered reimagining of the spectacular Marcello Gandini-penned original, it wasn’t necessarily met with across-the-board approval, not least from the late Gandini himself.

It was nevertheless a shrewd move for Lambo, which had no issue moving all 112 examples at around £2 million a pop. Nostalgia, after all, is arguably the most powerful tool a lot of older car manufacturers have in their belt, which is why retro designs are so prevalent across the board, from the Renault 5 E-Tech to the aforementioned new Countach.

Lamborghini Centro Stile design chief Mitja Borkert

So it would make sense to expect more retro goodness from Lambo, right? Well, regardless, it’s not a seam the company wishes to tap any further. At the Goodwood Festival of Speed, Car Throttle sat down with Lamborghini’s Centro Stile design director, Mitja Borkert – in other words, the company’s design big cheese.

Asked if there’s another classic Lambo he’d like the chance to reimagine, Borkert’s response is unequivocal: “We have a clear rule: we are looking towards the future, and I fully agree with that. That’s a clear aim of [CEO] Stephan Winkelmann. One sentence that I really like is ‘the mirrors are small, but the windshield is big.”

Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4

That statement has nothing to do with actual Lamborghini design (although it could be), but all to do with its design vision. “The [new] Countach was a special moment,” he continues, “because we wanted to celebrate the starting point of our design DNA, but at Lamborghini, we are not doing reinterpretations of the past. That’s why, for example, we will never do a new Miura… We have to create something that is a Lamborghini, but we are never a brand looking backwards.”

That said, there’s a reason Borkert calls the original Countach the beginning of modern Lambo design. Its brutalist wedge shape has informed pretty much every car from the brand since. Its predecessor, the swoopy Miura, was undoubtedly gorgeous, but “not the starting point of our design DNA,” says Borkert as he casually sketches its stunning silhouette.