Lamborghini is a supercar manufacture with a reputation for bucking trends and going against the grain. Its rebellious nature can be traced back to its origins where Ferruccio Lamborghini decided to prove Enzo Ferrari wrong after a dinner table spat. While the first Lamborghini could have been argued as conventional, the 350 GTV did a great job of putting Ferrari on notice. However, it was the mid-engined Miura that broke with conventions and became a legend. How do you succeed arguably the world’s first true supercar? If you’re Lamborghini, you turn the world on its head all over again with the Countach.
The Lamborghini Miura was a real milestone car, not just for Lamborghini, but for the entire automotive landscape. While Ferrari were still busy with traditional front-engined machines, the Miura’s transversely-mounted V12 at the car’s centre displayed all of the weight distribution benefits on offer. Additionally, putting all the mass in the middle of the car gave it a distinctive silhouette. It was utterly adored, but by the late 1960s, Lamborghini knew it would have to follow the car up with that difficult second album.
Italian design house Bertone was one again taken with creating something truly striking, but we doubt even they knew what a poster car they had created at the time. Officially speaking, the alien wedge-shaped supercar was dubbed the LP 500 concept, but it didn’t take long for it to go by a more colloquial name. Legend has it that when a Bertone security guard first saw the car he exclaimed ‘countach!’ This word from the Piedmontese dialect actually has no literal translation, but its meaning is roughly ‘by the gods’ and is used as an expression of disbelief or amazement. This account comes directly from Lamborghini’s legendary test driver Valentino Balboni.
In 1971 the Lamborghini ‘Countach’ LP 500 made its debut with Carrozzeria Bertone at the Geneva Motor Show. The crowds were in awe of a machine that looked like nothing else. Remember this was 1971, an era where rounded headlights and curves were still the accepted way of things. Here was this totally unique shape cutting its presence into the surrounding scenery. Marcello Gandini, the car’s designer, had created something special. However, another surprise was in store as the driver’s door opened vertically like some sort of spaceship.
Lamborghini was inundated with request for the car, even though this was simply a concept at this stage. Development work started immediately with the cast-iron promise that a pure-bred V12 engine would sit behind the driver. The yellow concept car was actually then fitted with a four-cylinder engine for testing other components during homologation. Sadly, this very first Countach was scrapped at the end of development.
It wouldn’t be until 1974 that the first production Countach hit the road, but excited onlookers highlighted that the hype was still very real. This now immortal machine ultimately had a production life that spanned 16 years over five variants of supercar. Each model got more extreme in terms of performance, but also visual theatre. During the the era of excess that was the 1980s, Lamborghini’s Countach couldn’t be any more at home.
Even in 2021, 50 years after the world first saw the Lamborghini Countach, it remains one of the most instantly recognisable automobiles in history.
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Keyword: 50 years of the legendary Lamborghini Countach