Fake exhaust tips are becoming more and more common by the day. Whether it’s Ford cutting holes in the bottom of fake tips, or Audi creating silver squares at the bottom of car bumpers, they’re everywhere.
It may feel like this is a rather new phenomenon, but you’d be wrong. Thanks to our eagle eyed pal Doug DeMuro, we now know an incredibly beloved car has incredibly fake exhaust tips: the Lamborghini Miura.
That’s right, the grandaddy of all modern supercars has fake exhausts coming out the back. It’s a surprising choice, but it makes sense: The rear end of the Miura is a clamshell, and when the engine cover is open, there’s no place for physically attached exhaust pipes to go.
The only other options would have been scraping the exhaust tips against the ground every time the engine cover was opened, or using recessed exhaust not visible from behind. Nobody wants that. The solution was to leave a gap between the actual exhaust and the tips – meaning the Miura’s famous tips are almost completely for show.
If you look closely, you can actually see the gap is smaller when the clamshell is open. Insanity.
Sorry to ruin your days, folks. It’s a real bummer, I know. But maybe there’s an optimistic take here: Fake exhaust tips are a lot older than we assumed. And, hey, if they’re good enough for the Lamborghini Miura, they’re certainly not a travesty on your family SUV.