Lucky Owner of Rare Lamborghini 400 GT Reaches 300,000 Miles on It

The Lamborghini 400 GT is a thing of beauty and elegance. A finely tuned machine, with a V12 engine, producing around 320 hp. It's a grand tourer, not a commuter car. And yet the particular 400 GT we're talking about has nearly 300,000 miles on the odometer!

Surely, you might think there must be tons of things wrong with the car by now! Well, no. At least not according to the owner. Jack Ridell's only complaint - if we can even call it that - is that sometimes there are gear synchronizer problems and he has to double shift.

In all fairness, the excellent shape of the car isn't all due to Lamborghini craftsmanship. Ridell has taken great care of the car since buying it in 1972, for $6,250. Adjusting for inflation, that's about $35,000 in today's money. Which is a great deal, considering only 247 of these were built, if you also count the early "Interim" models, based on the 350 GT.

When he bought it, the 400 GT had done around 23,000 miles. Ridell kept it pretty much original, but did a few mechanical modifications to it. He put in a Jaguar distributor, so he wouldn't have to tinker with the timing every so often. That's because the owner says he prefers to spend time driving the car, and believes classic beauties such as his Lamborghini like the road more than they like the garage. Ridell has taken part in the Concorso Italiano at Monterey every year since the event was inaugurated.

The original owner of this 400 GT advertised it for $7,500 when he was looking to sell it. That's considerably more than the price he settled for in the end. He was getting married and had a company car, so he really wanted to get rid of the Lambo. On the rare occasion when one pops up for sale, a 400 GT 2+2 can fetch a price of over half a million dollars. We wonder if the company car was worth it.