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When newcomer Lamborghini arrived on the motoring scene in 1963 his supercar rivals down the road in Maranello and in Modena took note. Here was a wealthy industrialist with the drive and the means to challenge their supremacy who had already put together a team of gifted young engineers who were to transform his ambitious dreams into reality.
Lamborghini’s first model, the 350GT, wowed the motoring press and public alike when launched in 1964. “Enzo, Orsi and David Brown had better look to their laurels!” remarked Sports Car Graphic magazine after testing an example early in 1966. Not content to rest on their own laurels, Lamborghini’s engineers were already at work on a successor, the 400GT, which was in road testers hands by the end of that year. “Better than all the equivalent exotic and home-bred machinery in this glamorous corner of the fast-car market” judged Autocar after 300 miles at the wheel.
The series produced 350GT/ 400GT coupé was the work of respected carrozzeria Touring of Milan, retained by Ferruccio who, some say, was not entirely happy with Franco Scaglione’s design for the first 350GTV prototype. Although even the revised design remained somewhat controversial, just a handful of bespoke show cars were built on the 350/ 400GT chassis. Touring was responsible for a pair of handsome spyders and the rakish, shooting brake inspired ‘Flying Star II’ for a French client. Sporting Milanese firm Zagato penned a pair of coupés with many of their trademark features. Almost certainly the most exotic creation of all, however, came from much closer to home: Neri & Bonacini’s mysterious ‘Monza’.
Giorgio Neri and Luciano Bonacini ran a well-established workshop in Modena looking after Ferrari and Maserati racing cars, and had taken over responsibility for the maintenance of customer cars after the latter’s competition department shut its doors in the late 1950s. They had been retained by Ferruccio Lamborghini to build the first prototype Lamborghini chassis and engine, and the very first complete car to bear his name, the 350GTV, in 1963. They continued as Lamborghini’s chassis supplier until handing over responsibility to their former employee Marchesi once 350GT production was well underway.
Already responsible for the famous ‘Nembo’ series of Ferraris, Neri & Bonacini now turned their hand to creating their own interpretation of a high speed Lamborghini granturismo. As a contemporary Italian historian put it: “This Monza 400 does not lack character: the cockpit, set low onto a flowing and powerful infrastructure, creates a silhouette which cannot fail to impress. The wide mouth opening, almost at ground level, the shape of the side windows, the rear sail panels all make it a handsome car. This prototype has been born with the blessing of Ferruccio Lamborghini, who is said to have followed it closely after disappointments with coachbuilders.”
Believed to have been finished in May/ June 1966 (this date appears on photographs shot by journalist Pete Coltrin of the car nearing completion), the Monza may have been intended to put forward an alternative Lamborghini model but, after attracting the attention of the motoring press for a few brief months, it remained a tantalising one-off and disappeared from view for almost four decades.
At the time the authoritative American magazine Road & Track, who followed the construction of the Monza in their November 1966 issue, commented: “Basic contours are considerably cleaner than [the] production Lamborghini.” In their 4th August 1966 issue, Italy’s weekly motoring equivalent AutoSprint observed: “The line of the car is very pleasing and most rakish…the absence of garish chrome and the purity of its lines place it amongst the finest creations of the Italian automotive tradition.” French magazine L’Automobile noted in 1967 that: “A surprise awaited Spaniards at the circuit of Jarama attending the presentation of the Lamborghini Miura. The latter was admired as it has been everywhere, but this curiosity was shared with another model with a previously unseen silhouette, which also bears the badge of the Italian constructor. Baptised ‘Jarama’ in honour of the Spanish circuit, this prototype has been executed on the 400GT from which it takes its mechanical elements. Existing for now only as a one-off, the Lamborghini ‘Jarama’ has nothing aesthetically to envy the classic GT version.”
When we recently arranged for Giorgio Neri to be interviewed by Octane magazine as part of a feature on this car, he recalled: “I think we built it for an American client, possibly with the intention of racing at Le Mans, but there were homologation problems”. He was under the impression that the car had been built earlier, possibly in 1963/4, using a 350GT chassis (virtually identical to the 400GT chassis) but, seeing the car for the first time in almost four decades, confirms: “È perfetta (it’s perfect)… exactly as I remember it”. He recalls that the intention had originally been to call the car the ‘Monza Neri and Bonacini’ but that they finally decided to abbreviate the name to “Monza, a romantic and suggestive name”.
Quite how remains a mystery but this rakish one-off was shipped to Spain and presented on Lamborghini importer Amato’s stand at the 1967 Barcelona Motor Show where it caught the eye of a wealthy Spanish gentleman who, having already achieved success in other high-risk sporting pursuits such as motocross and big game hunting, had recently decided that motor racing might be fun. Moving rapidly from a tuned Mini Cooper to a new Porsche 904 (and soon a 908), his taste in road cars was equally exotic. The Lamborghini Miura on Amato’s stand was drawing the crowds, but there was a lengthy waiting list which, even with his connections (in a country where most of Generalissimo Franco’s citizens had to make do with home-grown family cars), was rather less appealing. Sitting next to the silver Miura, however, was an equally low-slung berlinetta resplendent in metallic Amaranto set off by chrome Borrani wire wheels. After negotiations, and possibly a word or two with friends in high places, the Lamborghini Monza was his…except that the ‘Monza’ script adorning the car’s rear had already been replaced by a ‘Jarama’ badge in deference to the car’s new home country (long before Lamborghini had christened its own Jarama model).
Source: Bonhams
Images: OldConceptCars
