In reverse: Poster child
It’s 50 years since the production version of the V12-powered Lamborghini Countach made its debut at the 1974 Geneva Auto Show. The extraordinary-looking wedge-shape machine became the definitive supercar of the 1970s and 1980s, and the poster every teenager had on their bedroom wall.
Model: Lamborghini Countach.
Engine: 3929cc V12 (280kW/365Nm).
Claim to fame: Fewer than 2000 examples of the Italian supercar were manufactured.
When wealthy Italian tractor maker Ferruccio Lamborghini tired of finding faults with the expensive gran turismo cars he’d purchased from the likes of Ferrari and others, he decided to create a car company and build what he visualised as “a GT car without faults … a perfect car”. Automobili Lamborghini never did build that perfect car but it did give the world a machine often cited as the most beautiful ever created, the Lamborghini Miura, and followed that with the even more remarkable Lamborghini Countach, the styling cues of which have influenced every subsequent Lamborghini since.
The Lamborghini Countach was the work of legendary Italian automotive designer Marcello Gandini, who brought the house down at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show with his yellow LP 500 concept. Three years later the LP 400 production car arrived with aluminium body panels in place of steel, full tubular space frame, and a 4.0-litre mid-mounted V12 in place of the concept car’s 5.0-litre unit.
The alien-like extreme supercar completely upended the world’s view on what a performance car could and should look like. Bristling with louvres, vents, scoops and NACA ducts, the Countach’s low, wide stance made it look glued to the tarmac, yet in side view it seemed to be travelling at 200mph even when standing still.
Complete with gull-wing doors to access the hulking beast, the driver first had to clamber over ridiculously wide sills to enter a snug cockpit bisected by a vast transmission tunnel to house the gearbox mounted at the front of the longitudinally mounted V12.
Sitting right behind the driver’s head, the all-alloy V12 was fed by six dual-throat Webers, delivering a thrilling soundtrack on its way to an 8000rpm redline, while propelling the flying wedge from standstill to 100km/h in 5.6 seconds, and onto a top speed of 316km/h.
Later variants of the Countach over the course of its 16-year model life were quicker and more powerful again, notably the 4.8-litre LP400S and the 5.2-litre Countach QV. Yet despite this remarkable longevity, fewer than 2000 examples of the Italian supercar were manufactured, with the best-selling variant being 1988’s 25th Anniversario edition. That car had a starring turn in Martin Scorsese’s film The Wolf of Wall Street, where the sight of the tragically trashed Countach after an ill-advised trip in the hands of an equally trashed Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DeCaprio) is enough to bring a tear to the eye of car lovers. In keeping with the Hollywood director’s legendary attention to detail, the film featured several real 25th Anniversary Countach, including the wrecked car that later sold ‘as-is’ for a cool $2 million.
A notable Tasmanian link to the Lamborghini Countach is Australian expat motoring writer Mel Nichols, who in 1976 wrote a feature story for British CAR magazine and Australia’s Sports Car World titled ‘Convoy!’ The piece, by the man who describes himself as a “Fearless Tasmanian”, features three Lamborghinis including a Countach being driven flat out from the Lamborghini factory in Sant’Agata Bolognese to England, and is regarded as one of the finest pieces of first-person, experiential motoring journalism ever penned.