Rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout followed by the first De Tomaso, the Vallelunga, which mated a tuned Ford Cortina 1500 Kent engine to a VW transaxle with Hewland gearsets. Introduced at Turin in 1963, 58 were built 1964-68. Finally, in 1966, the Lamborghini Miura was the first high performance mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive roadcar. The concept behind the Miura was that of putting on the road a grand tourer featuring state-of-the-art racing-car technology of the time; hence the Miura was powered by a V12 transversely mounted between the rear wheels, solidal to the gearbox and differential. This represented an extremely innovative sportscar at a time when all
BMW V12 LM aerodynamics and safety. Debuting at the 1998 24 Hours of Le Mans test day in May, the two V12 LM chassis set times which were not favorable, their best lap placing them 11th behind factory entries from Porsche, Toyota, Nissan, and Mercedes-Benz, all of which were running grand tourer-style cars instead of the theoretically faster Le Mans prototypes. By the time qualifying for the race came around in June, the BMWs had improved to 6th fastest in qualifying, placing behind two Porsches, two Mercedes, and a Toyota. Unfortunately, during the race both cars suffered quickly. Vibrations were detected in the