A while back I wasted two hours of my life a while back watching the terrible movie Lamborghini: The Man Behind the Legend. Starring “Dollar Store Jason Statham” Frank Grillo and Gabriel “only here for the paycheck” Byrne as Ferrucio Lamborghini and Enzo Ferrari respectively, this relentlessly shitty movie nevertheless contains a one hundred percent totally accurate sequence when a smug Byrne in a Ferrari Mondial QV casually dispatches Grillo in a Lamborghini Countach. Their supposed rivalry is started in an earlier scene in the movie where Lamborghini accosts Ferrari outside his factory to complain about the clutches Ferrari uses, and Il Commendatore haughtily tells Lamborghini to “go back to his tractors.”
Was Lamborghini the sports car company a creation of pure spite? Ferrucio Lamborghini was born to wine-making parents in 1916, but his interests lay in mechanizing labor rather than any romantic notions about the farming of grapes. He studied mechanical engineering and found himself maintaining trucks for the Italian Air Force during the Second World War.
After the smoke cleared at the end of European hostilities, Ferrucio opened a small garage in Bologna and began to tinker, using war surplus parts to create his first tractors. Because these used Morris car engines that ran on expensive petrol, Lamborghini patented a fuel atomizer, that allowed the engines to start on petrol and then switch over to cheaper diesel. Buoyed by favorable economic conditions supporting Italian farmers buying domestically built agricultural equipment, Lamborghini Trattori soon found success in the post-war mini-industrial boom. By the mid-fifties, Ferrucio Lamborghini was a very rich man.
Ferrucio shared his hardscrabble background with another Italian industrialist, Adolfo Orsi, who owned Maserati. According to an interview with Thoroughbred and Classic Cars given in 1991, Lamborghini said:
“Adolfo Orsi, then the owner of Maserati, was a man I had a lot of respect for: he had started life as a poor boy, like myself. But I did not like his cars much. They felt heavy and did not really go very fast.”
He was also unimpressed with the succession of Ferrari 250s he owned. The Old Man famously saw his road car business as a necessary evil to finance his beloved racing team. Lamborghini considered Ferraris fast but unrefined and recalcitrant in use. Whatever the truth of what was said between them, Lamborghini had enough engineering knowledge, resources, and business acumen to believe he could do it better.
The Hills Are Alive To The Sound Of V12 Engines
The hills surrounding Turin were overflowing with sports car expertise and Lamborghini availed himself of the best of it, creating the very first Lamborghini Automobili 350 GTV which appeared as a prototype at the 1963 Turin show. The production version, substantially reworked for ease of use and manufacture, appeared in 1964 sans pop-up headlights and with less chrome trim. With no need for concessions to motor racing, the 350 GT followed the continent-crushing gran turismo layout with a large V12 under the hood and an opulent 2+2 cabin. 120 were built, but Lamborghini’s next car would be the genesis of the type of car the company is known for today.
The Miura wasn’t the first mid-engined production car, but it gave life to the idea that serious road-going performance machinery should have its motor in the middle of the chassis. Up to this point, mid-engine designs were nearly exclusive to racing cars, and Enzo Ferrari himself considered the configuration too much for non-racing drivers to handle. Indeed, the first mid-engine road-going Ferrari, the 365 GT4 BB, would not appear until 1973.
Ferrucio hadn’t been consulted about the Miura’s mid-engine layout, but as soon as the naked chassis was presented, he was convinced. Nuccio Bertone saw the Miura chassis on display at the 1965 Turin show and came to an arrangement with Ferrucio there and then. Marcello Gandini, whose hiring at Bertone had previously been vetoed by the departing Giorgio Giugiaro, would be allowed to get on with designing the Miura with a little input from Bertone himself. The Miura’s voluptuous curves and coquettish eyelashes are pure Fellini’s La Dolce Vita – an Italian man’s vision of the ideal feminine form on wheels. The successor would cast aside such sixties thinking.
Despite the Miura being only four years old Lamborghini gave chief engineer Paolo Stanzani and Gandini permission to think about a successor in 1970. The transverse layout of the Miura, while novel meant it had weight distribution issues and widow-maker handling. To remedy this a technician working under Stanzani, Oliveriero Pedrazzi came had the idea of turning the engine not only length ways, but crucially backwards in the chassis with the gearbox in front of the engine between the driver and passenger, giving the car its LP designation: longitudinale posteriore. As Pedrazzi told the website deRivaz & Ives:
“I came up with the idea of using the engine-transmission combination of the Espada, but turned around so that the gearbox would be located ahead and between the seats for the driver and passenger. It was done to essentially rationalize our production process and save costs.”
With the four-seater Espada and slightly gawky Jarama (also a Gadini design) now covering the grand touring market, the new car was free to be the ultimate expression of Italian style and performance. Italy had long been a European industrial design leader, thriving in the spirit of post-war modernism. Gandini like his great rival Giugiaro had spent the latter part of the sixties and early seventies experimenting with a daring new automotive form language; harder edges, flat planar surfacing, sharp transitions and dramatic side profiles to give birth to what would become known as the wedge. Post Miura, Gandini designed the 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo (built on the chassis of Tipo 33 Stradale) and the 1970 Lancia Stratos Zero concept cars. Both featured trapezoidal shapes, low profiles with new ways of entering the cabin, and the slashed rear wheel arch that would dominate the form of the prototype LP 500 Countach, first shown at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show.
So Shocking Its Name Is An Expression Of Amazement
The Countach LP 500 was nothing less than a showstopper. Low and sharp, simple yet sculptural, dramatic yet beautiful, and positively futuristic. It looked like a car to adorn the artwork of an Atari cartridge; except they wouldn’t exist for another six years. Its name came from the reactions it elicited. According to Gandini from the Lamborghini website:
“When we made cars for the car shows, we worked at night and we were all tired, so we would joke around to keep our morale up. There was a profiler working with us who made the locks. He was two meters tall with two enormous hands, and he performed all the little jobs. He spoke almost only Piedmontese, didn’t even speak Italian. Piedmontese is much different from Italian and sounds like French. One of his most frequent exclamations was ‘countach,’ which literally means plague, contagion, and is used more to express amazement or even admiration, like ‘goodness.'”
The original LP 500 prototype wasn’t just futuristic on the outside, it was state-of-the-art on the inside as well. A bank of large primary-colored warning lights dominated the sightline of the driver, mounted on the column and viewable through a single-spoke padded steering wheel. There were no door mirrors to spoil the aerodynamics; instead, a periscope system provided a view of the Polizia Stradale disappearing behind you. These flights of fancy were eliminated from the production LP 400 which appeared in 1974, although the inset on the roof for the rearview system remained on the early cars; these pure early versions are nicknamed Periscopio.
Dissecting The Design
In any view, the Countach is simply outrageous. Despite the four-liter V12 being in the spine the Countach is nearly 10” shorter than a Muira. There’s no fat anywhere on it; everything is pulled taut. The upper section of the car is essentially four lines starting from the top of the taillights and running forward down the length of the car, varying in height just enough to package the underlying components and passengers. The top surfaces simply span these lines, gently curving and twisting to create great tension and a logical resting place for the side windows and the additional air intakes that road testing dictated would be required over the show car.
The front bumper, the bottom of the scissors doors, the front corner of the rear wheel arches, and the center lines of the axles are all level, creating harmony to balance the drama happening above. Those slashed rear wheel arches are a trademark flourish that would appear on other Gandini designs, but there is visual theory behind them. The larger gap in front of the wheel suggests forward movement, like how you would frame a car in a photograph with empty space in front of it. The NACA duct on the flank is pure science as function, one of the underlying principles of modernism as a design movement. Comfort and ease of use are secondary concerns – the doors are not a gimmick but because the Countach was a wide car and its chassis construction necessitated larger than usual rockers. Unusual commitment requires such unusual solutions. The Countach is sensational without being sensationalist; its form is shaped by the desire for speed and style, briefly sculptural but totally alien. Imagine gazing upon one as it came to a standstill, heat haze shimmering from the rear vents. Quietly ticking as the engine cooled. The door swings up with a controlled hiss. It would feel like a car from another time, or perhaps another world.
Look How They Massacred My Boy
Ferrucio Lamborghini, sensing the seismic changes in the automotive market in the early seventies, sold his share of the car company in 1974. The company staggered between financial crises in part because the Countach was never developed for the United States so for a while was unable to be sold here legally. Consequently, in 1975 a Canadian industrialist, Walter Wolf developed his own updated version. Equipped with steam roller Pirelli P7 tires and extended wheel arch flares to cover them as well as front and rear wings, the Walter Wolf Countach formed the basis for the upgraded factory LP 500 S, and some of these cars entered the US grey market.
Unlike their rivals at Ferrari, who had access to the Fiat checkbook, cash-strapped Lamborghini had to make do with updating the old bull as best they could, injecting it with more and more testosterone. Official models finally arrived in 1985 with the LP 5000 QV, which could be optioned with a Bosch K-Jetronic injection system, making it emissions-compliant in the United States. In the era of excess, these models were also saddled with excessive oversized bumpers. The final indignity arrived with the 25th Anniversary model in 1988, designed by Horacio Pagani. To mimic the supercar that had totally captured the eighties cultural zeitgeist, the Ferrari Testarossa, Pagani infected a pox of strakes all over the poor Countach.
Towards the end of the eighties, motor racing was having an increasingly direct effect on the cars you could buy. Turbocharging, computer-aided design and composites began to move the supercar needle towards 200 mph. The Porsche 959 and Ferrari F40 emerged in 1986 and 1987 dripping in racing technology but the Countach wasn’t quite done for yet. In 1987 Pagani developed an ‘Evoluzione’ version. This Einstürzende Neubauten-looking beast had body panels and a brand-new chassis made entirely of composites, giving a substantial weight reduction. Lamborghini also stuffed it with state-of-the-art drivetrain technology – electronically adjustable suspension, four-wheel drive, and ABS brakes. A blueprinted engine pushed it to 205 mph; had it gone into production it would have been the fastest car in the world. Although magazines did get the chance to drive it in period, it was a test bed and probably never seriously considered for sale.
If you were a young car fan in the eighties you fell into one of two camps: Countach or Testarossa. Despite me now being a sometime paid-up member of the tifosi, I have never really got on with the Testarossa – it’s a bit ungainly and carries too much Out Run baggage for my liking. The Countach always had a special place in my heart because an unconvincing version was one of the first Matchbox diecasts I pushed around the brown carpet with my chubby baby fingers. The brilliance of the original LP 400 was it commands your attention and then rewards you for keeping it. The drama came from the form and the intent. A Persicopio in vibrant seventies earth tones is a transcendent statement of modernist Italian industrial design, like a Voxson Radio or an Olivetti Valentine typewriter. I often think that one of the hallmarks of any great design is that nothing added could possibly improve it, and the wider wheels and aero addenda of the later versions do nothing for the original car’s purity of purpose.
Despite what they say modern Lamborghinis have forgotten this heritage, instead concentrating on the more-is-more aesthetic ideas of the cocaine-powered eighties versions. The current range is a riot of furious angles and extreme details, each one an assault to the eyes, appealing only to dilettantes, attention-deficit TikTokers, and bored Middle Eastern playboys. They shout and scream and demand your attention, but they don’t really deserve it.
Unless otherwise stated all images courtesy of Lamborghini Media.
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I took you to task for your unfortunate E-pinion so I must congratulate you for a spot-on Countach assessment.
> If you were a young car fan in the eighties you fell into one of two camps: Countach or Testarossa
Or both! I love(d) both equally, for different reasons.
I was neither. I mean, they both touched me in places no girls were likely to reach for another decade, but I was a Ferrari 412 fanatic. Until the F40 landed, at least.
Always loved the lp400. IMO Lamborghini jumped the shark after it. None of the mid-engined Ferrari product appealed to be beyond the Dinos and the 208/308.
I was in the Mondial following a Dino into Le Mans classic last year. I joked that convoy of two Ferraris was worth one million and forty thousand pounds.
The Dino will forever be 15k in my head.
When I was studying at the RCA, a local resident was daily driving one. I used to the see it parked in the mews out back all the time. It had a dent in the hood.
There was one in Sunderland of all places when I was a kid. The inside of it was filthy.
The Wolf Countach is not just the greatest Countach, but the greatest thing ever created by human hands and minds. And always will be
I beg you to turn off your designer mind for a moment and just experience how fucking awesome it is
Gold wheels and black with that blue darling? Ugh.
It works until the black trim. It’s like a Canadian dressed up for a fancy dinner: denim jeans + jacket, with a black button-up shirt.
I think it goes without saying that I meant a red one with tan interior
Purple with black interior or black with whore’s boudoir red interior.
The Wolf “Plague”? What does that mean? Rabies? Distemper? Parvo? Some sort of virulent canine syphilis, which sounds like the product of some exchange even worse than the Colombian, at least for the wolves? All of which and more are apt descriptions.
Beautiful car, ugly rear fender openings. It just doesn’t look as good as it would rounded-er.
I was 9 going on10 when the LP500 was announced, and it has been close to my heart ever since. Marcello Gandini got a lot of press coverage in the UK, and it was the first time that I realized that creating the shapes of cars was a real job, and decided I wanted some of that for myself. Hence the screen name.
As for concept car preference, I veer between the LP500 and the Pininfarina 512S Speciale.
Adrian, you didn’t mention the car crime of the century: the LP500 prototype being hacked up to adapt it for road use, crash-tested at MIRA to homologate it and, finally, the remains being crushed: https://www.countach.ch/History/LP500/index.html
I need to keep to a relatively tight narrative when doing these, otherwise it all gets off track. I wouldn’t call it a crime so much as a necessary sacrifice. It died so the LP400 could live.
I grew up outside the car world, I had bedroom wall posters of ballet Dracula and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Sometimes I see this as a gift though as I got to decide my team much later. As much of a joy as a Testarossa is, I’m Team Countach. But really I’m Team Lancia Stratos HF Zero because I prefer my Italian vehicles to be absurdly small
It always strikes me how small even today’s Lambos are.
In the 90s, those two camps became the F50 or Diablo, and like many of my peers, the Diablo was IT. By then, the Countach was the bloated and gaudy beast you so rightfully ragged on here, a far car from the gorgeous supermodel it began its life as, whereas the Diablo was long, low, and wide, looking every bit like the devil in a red dress that its undeniably awesome name implied. The Diablo may ow its existence to the Countach, but Lambos have always been very much of their era, and the Diablo will always be the one that defines my era.
That being said, the first time I was allowed to spend mom’s money on my own at a Schoolastic book far, I took home a 25th anniversary Countach poster(which incredibly I can’t find anywhere on the internet) and I know it may be a hot take, but I absolutely adore the modern Countach revival.
The front of the GTV makes the front of the GT look like crap. Change my mind
No it’s much better, but what I left out of the story is the GTV prototype was shown with no engine in it (because it didn’t fit).
Yea, it’s a shame it didn’t become a produced model. At least it survived!
I recall reading a long article about how someone bought the GTV and made it into a functioning car – which was pretty much equivalent of engineering a whole new (old) car.
For the show they filled the engine bay full of floor tiles from the factory because they realised it was sitting too high with an empty engine bay.
Those non-popup headlights remind me of the Jag XJS for some reason. Still, I guess it still looks pretty from every other angle.
It’s the incongruity of them.
Very much in agreement. I was also never a fan of the Testarossa, like the ends were designed by two different people who didn’t discuss what they were doing. It has grown on me in the last few years, though. It will never be a favorite, but I think as the memory of tacked-on strakes from auto parts aisles, tuners, and cheesy body kits has faded, some of the derision has gone with it and I don’t detest it so much now. Could be nostalgia, but that’s not an affliction I generally suffer from.
The thing I have to give Pagani is the craftsmanship. They really need a designer to better showcase it. Then again, they seem to be doing well enough.
As a “Boomer” I thought the De Tomaso Mangusta looked like the future, more so than the Lamborghini Miura. Then along came the Countach which blew my mind and you are right they ruined it keeping it current and finally they murdered it with the reissue.
Have you ever seen a North American Lamborghini 350 GT with the quad sealed beams? A surprised space frog. (-;
The NSU Prinz 1000, Ford Taunus P3, and the Lamborghini 350 GT all used the same headlights.
Looks better than this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamborghini_350_GT#/media/File:12-10-25-autostadt-wolfsburg-by-RalfR-30.jpg
Scary to think how much more effective the WW II Italian Air Force could’ve been if they’d used planes instead of trucks.
And if they actually knew how to fly a plane.
Prolly not. Check out the Caproni Ca.313 – a desperate Sweden bought 84 examples around 1940, when it was hard to purchase arms, but they had a hard time even flying them back to Sweden. It was nicknamed the Flying Coffin due to collapsing wings and constant fires.
In Italy’s defense, the airframes had been intended for France, and it was suspected that they had been carelessly built on purpose. They were also not meant for cold weather, and could not even be stored in temperatures below -5C/23F. Caproni sent an engineer to Sweden to supervise their reconstruction in 1941-1942.
All the remaining Capronis were gleefully destroyed in 1945 (minus the 21 that had crashed or otherwise self-destroyed) – first they were used for shooting practice, then lit on fire and used for drills, after which they were bulldozed and used as infill beneath landing strips.
True, but don’t write off Italian warplanes in general. The MC 200, 202, and 205 were world class in their time and as good as all but the best Allied fighters. The Re 2005, and Fiat G.55 were superior aircraft to virtually anything else in the air. Unfortunately, Italian manufacturing capabilities were inadequate to produce these complicated aircraft in a timely fashion and in numbers that might have affected air war outcomes.
For sure – although the three last ones all depended on the Daimler-Benz engine.
I think a world in which people have a bit more flair and a bit less efficiency would actually be a better place to live…
I just found out that Egypt briefly used C.205s in 1948 and 1949 – in retaliation, Israel blew up an Italian airliner (actually in 1947) and bombed the airport in Venegono, Italy.
Yes, it’s like when North American put Rolls Royce Merlin engines in the Mustang and turned it into a world beater.
The Finns actually flew open cockpit G.50s against the Russians and racked up a 40-1 kill ratio with those old things. Not that Russia had much beyond that Sturmovik flying tank until Lend Lease kicked in. The Finns really disliked the open cockpit G.50s because they were a bit cold for flying above the Arctic Circle.
Unbelievable. Italian pilots just liked their scarves fluttering. I like to think of the C.205 and its brethren as the Iso Grifos of their day…
I was expecting this to be about the taillights that look like they were sourced from harbor freight, or about the total lack of consideration for a cooling system, but then I realized that neither Jason nor David wrote this,
The Countach has a timing chain, so it’s basically perfect and reliable.
Adrian, how do you reconcile the lovely geometry of the OG Countach with its afterthought of an interior? That craft fair fit and finish of the instrument binnacle in particular. It seems like so many halo supercars of that era were saddled with parts-bin switchgear and a xenomorph’s embrace of human factors.
It’s a lot harder to hide the limitations building interiors by hand, especially with regards to things like leather. All low volume manufacturers had to use off the shelf gauges and switches then because they couldn’t afford to do otherwise (hence why Ferraris starting using Fiat bits from the early eighties onwards). Italian cars were known for having shit ergonomics. I can only think it wasn’t taken seriously at an academic level until much later.
“If you were a young car fan in the eighties you fell into one of two camps: Countach or Testarossa. “
I was Team Lotus Esprit.
And in the 90s I was Team NeXT Computers.
Agree. Always loved the Europa, and would take an Esprit too.
So you’ve been wrong for an entire lifetime!
:p
No, he’s right. The Lotus Esprit looks better than either the Testarossa or (American) Countach.
Team Porsche here. The 959 made both the Countach and the Testarossa look like a cocaine-fueled joke.
The look of the 959 was instantly dated, even more than that of the Testarossa. The Countach is the clear winner as far as looks go, although I appreciated all three because each was so outrageous in their own way.
I have to disagree here (unless you are limiting ‘Countach’ to the original L400). You can see how much the design language of the 959 persisted through the 993 into the water-cooled Porsches. The design has aged much better.
The 959 is a blob and thanks for coming to me TED talk. (are those even still a thing?).
The 959 always looked like puttin the wrong top over a new car. The 911 parts betrayed the Braun-esque smooth new bits. The inconsistency was too brutal.
Somehow like a Brazilian Ford Versailles (google it at your own risk).
Harsh take! (I used ‘Brazil’ Ford Versailles to make it SFW).
Agree to disagree (it’s all subjective – the heart wants what it wants). However, I will back you 100% that Lamborghini ruined the Countach, and that the Ferrari Mondial QV is a brilliant car (unless you are changing spark plugs) that doesn’t get enough love.
I guess I am conflating the Countach as a whole with the ‘periscopio’ earliest versions, which isn’t really representative of the model as a whole. I agree some of the design elements of the 959 were carried over more or less successfully to later models, my dislike of it is probably less about the way it exemplifies unfortunate ’80s styling cues than the perceived distortion of those I think of as distinctively ‘Porsche’. I don’t have a whole lot invested in the brand as a fan and none as an owner, so it is easy for me to dismiss that which doesn’t appeal to me about them, perhaps unfairly. When I saw the shaking bell that indicated a reply to my post, I was apprehensive viewing it because I had already second guessed myself and decided my take was pretty shallow and offered little new or original to the conversation. I was anticipating either being justly castigated for it or else having been responsible for prompting an unpleasant and nasty response. I was relieved to read your polite rejoinder, even if it does make mine seem even lamer in comparison. Such is the quality of the discourse here, a truly refreshing contrast to that of most other sites.
It’s all good – when it comes to 80s dream cars, one man’s (or woman’s) trash is another’s treasure. [thumbs-up]
Starting with something great and then making it worse with all sorts messy childishness is kind of a Lamborghini thing. I say as someone who adored the Diablo until they put Nissan headlights on it.
Was it really like this? I honestly don’t remeber such entrenchment between supercar fandoms. In my experience people who marvelled at supercars back then liked pretty much all of them.
These two were really the pinnacle until the F40 and 959 came along, was the point I perhaps should have made better,
Oh for sure, that I completely agree with. That would go on later with the F50 and the Diablo a bit (with the EB110 maybe splitting the attention three-ways at that point), although the peak in supercar appreciation in that era was likely sometime in that Countach/Testarossa-F40/959 transition.
I didn’t get the F50 until I heard one. They are absolutely feral.
Oh, I like the sound, but I still don’t like the F50. It looks like ass. I’m firmly EB110 in that generation (and who cares about the Diablo in a timeline where the Cizeta-Moroder came to exist?)
Even more feral than a TVR from the last two decades?
I would say so. The F1 engine thing isn’t entirely bullshit.
That is an exhaust note I’d love to experience.
Really I would have preferred an Espada in that icy metallic blue-green. I never saw a Countach that didn’t seem like the factory never quite finished building it and the owner made up for it with stuff from the JC Whitney catalogue. The periscope cars look good in photos but I’ve never seen one in person.
The F40 is a masterpiece. Can you please do an article about it?
A very nice review. Thanks Adrian. I got a good laugh at the “Toecutter Special”. What an amazing way for the Autopian to say it knows its commentariat. All aero, no weight, yeah that sounds like a Toecutter comment :D.
I have never been able to love most wedge cars though. The edges are too hard for me to love. I prefer the Miura to the Countach.
I recently blew some of my meagre Autopian remuneration on a very expensive book about Giuguaro. As it tracks his work through the years you can literally see the exact moment he swapped curves for edges. No slow build up. Just a complete change in direction.
I’m skeptical that the aero work on the Evoluzione reduced its drag much if any, but the weight reduction would definitely be welcome.
The Countach before completion was thought to be capable of 200 mph through an estimated lower drag vs its predecessors, but something went very awry. If Gandini was dead set on keeping it a wedge with sharp lines, but still really wanted to hit 200 mph with the engine they had during the year that the car came out, the Vauxhall SRV with less than half the Countach’s drag coefficient could have showed them the way.
You’ll be thrilled to know the Evoluzione was something like a third lighter than the standard car.
Nicely done. The Periscopo is absolutely stunning, but growing up the LP500 SV was the hot wheels I had. I totally preferred it to the Testarossa, but not to the F40. I feel like the F40 does a lot of what the LP400 does right in design. The Muira is however the Lamborghini I want most of all.
In terms of being utterly uncompromising in terms of performance, they have a similar ethos.
Adrian, what’s your opinion of the Murciélago? It was more a return to simpler lines and dropped the big wing flared fenders (at least until the SV editions) after the be-winged 80’s Countachs and 90’s Diablos.
It feel a little too German and not as lithe. I think the original Huracan is one of the better later Lamborghinis, but another one that got successively worse.
I’ve always loved the Countach. Besides seeing it in movies I probably shouldn’t have watched (“The Cannonball Run”), I had a Diaclone pre-Transformer version in red. It might as well have been from an alien planet. The Testarrosa never gripped me like that, even after they added it to “Miami Vice”.
The Testarossa is much more of a boulevardier than the Countach. It’s also some 500lbs heavier. It’s arguably a mid-engined GT rather than out and out supercar.
I like many others my age had the Alpine Audio Countach poster (Blue car, top view) on my wall as a kid. Always loved the look but being 6′ 4″ I knew I would never fit in one.
I wonder if loving the Countach is a direct function of what age you were when it was hot. As an ’84 baby by the time I was old enough to be begging my dad to buy me car posters they were of the Diablo and the F355 or 550 Maranello. The Countach was still cool but no longer the “it” car for my generation and I’ve never really loved its excess though I can understand why many love it. Years later when I first encountered photos of the early Countach I couldn’t believe it was the same car-and to my eye a much better looking one.
One huge flaw in the early Countach design, unless you are vertically challenged it’s impossible to fit. I’m 6ft 1″ and when I sat in an early Periscopo car I quickly realized there was no way I could find a driving position to actually drive the car. The gap between the clutch pedal and the steering wheel was less than the length of my leg from my knee to my ankle, and there was not enough room to even contort my leg to a position to depress the clutch.
I know some owners have modified early Countachs to allow taller drivers to actually drive them but as standard they are more of an objet d’art rather than a car for me.
Sadly I don’t have direct experience though at 6’4″ I’d be in even more trouble than you but I’ve read a number of reviews/complaints that the older Italian cars often have odd proportions inside that either fit your body or they don’t.
I’ve driven or sat in plenty of 60’s-80’s Ferraris and the only one that is a relatively tight fit for me is the Boxer. I’ve sat in a Miura as well and while that isn’t exactly comfortable has more room than the Countach.
good to know!
As an obese AND gangly gentleman, the Countach is a fantasy, as are pretty much any 80s supercar. Tjey are what Clarkson called a plinth car: you put it on a plinth and say “I own THIS!”
How can you both be obese and gangly
I am tall and fat. As I have said in the comments before, think “offensive lineman gone to seed.”
They later lowered the floor pan and seats a little. I believe it coincided with the move from low body to high body, but I can’t recall exactly.
Had a chance back in the 80’s for a ride in a Countach through some friends who worked at a stereo shop hawking Nakamichi gear. Lamborghini at the time had some sort of marketing agreement with Nakamichi. Tried crawling in, took shoes off, nothing was going to get me into that car except a chainsaw. Being 6’5″ and built like a defensive tackle at the time put paid to no ride for me.
Actually it might have been an Alpine tie in rather than Nakamichi.
Thanks Adrian,another great design hit-piece. Wouldn’t it be great if Lamborghini had just continued with the original design language of Bertone and Gandini.
I guess even if they had none would have the impact the Countach had, it was a step change in design.
For Lamborghini to have done this once, with the Muira, is incredible, to immediately do so again with that cars replacement is absolutely phenomenal.
We should be in the place now for a new Muira moment with EV platforms and drive by wire systems in theory removing all previous constraints for layout.