Driving A Vintage Lamborghini Countach Made Me Laugh, Cry And Almost Puke

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Most automotive purists will say that the bombastic Lamborghini Countach only got uglier with age, and that the earliest, simplest version put forth by Bertone designer Marcello Gandini in 1971 remains the prettiest. 

As someone who is aging myself, I cannot deny the notion that things rarely get prettier as they get older. Gandini’s youthful, sleek, wingless Countach concept is indeed the loveliest of the bunch. 

But it isn’t my favorite. 

Back in 1989, when I was a kid in the country lacking not in sweets but coming up short on culture, I had a big poster of the 25th Anniversary Edition Countach on my wall, purchased at my school’s Scholastic Book Fair. (That year I also purchased a copy of the groundbreaking literary classic, My Teacher is an Alien.)

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I loved the Countach’s outrageous intakes, the dished wheels, and of course the massive delta wing clumsily slapped on the back. I’d only ever seen a Lamborghini once, a Countach parked in a suburban driveway that I’d barely spotted from the back of a school bus motoring home from a soccer match I’d likewise watched from afar. From the bench, that is. All those sweets didn’t exactly help my athletic prowess.

Sitting in the back of that bus, bored and nauseous, I was so dumbfounded by the sight of the car that I couldn’t even say anything. I didn’t tell any of my friends who were all focused on recounting the game that we’d probably lost. I just looked out the window and watched as the Countach scrolled by, an edgy spaceship that might as well have been from another dimension. 

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The five or so seconds I was within sight of that car was a foundational moment in my life. I remember it more vividly than any other single moment of my childhood. When I was lucky enough to drive a Lamborghini for myself almost 30 years later, a Huracan in 2016, I broke down in tears because the fat kid back then would never, ever have imagined getting a chance to drive one.

And dammit, now I’m crying again because I recently had yet another amazing honor. I was able to spend a morning in a Countach, a 25th Anniversary one at that, and though it lacked the big wing and was painted a subtle shade of silver instead of the garish red of the one on my poster, it was that same car I’d stared at from my room, the completion of a life goal so lofty I’d have never bothered to put it on a bucket list.

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Prior to this opportunity, I confess I wasn’t even sure that I ever wanted to drive one. We’ve all heard the adage about never meeting your heroes. I, like I’m sure many of you, saw that Top Gear segment where James May drove a Countach and hated every second of it. I’ve also been fortunate to talk to Matt Farah enough to pick up bits and pieces about the complexities of owning one. All this has made it clear that the Countach is far from an ideal machine.

But the Countach is an interesting machine, to say the least. That initial design from Bertone looked like nothing anyone had ever put on wheels before, so shocking that its name is literally profane. According to Lamborghini lore, a local farmer peeked in the design studio, saw the car, and uttered “countach.” In the local Piedmontese dialect, the word literally means “plague” but is used when you’re in awe and don’t know what else to say—like you or I might utter “damn” if we spotted a box-fresh Chevy Lumina Z34 driving by. Designer Gandini thought it was funny. Others on the team thought it sounded great. The name stuck.

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That amazing shape is a series of mostly aluminum panels mounted to a tubular steel space frame chassis, just like a race car of the time would have been. The Countach never saw a wind tunnel and its shape never subjected to the rigors of computational fluid dynamics; it just looked right, and back then that was really all that mattered.

Though the design was all-new, the engine was not, a 4.0-liter, 60-degree V12 taken virtually wholesale from the Countach’s predecessor, the Miura—which itself stole it from the Isolero, which borrowed the engine from the 400 GT, which ran an up-scaled version of the 3.5-liter V12 from the 350 GT, Lamborghini’s first car.

Foto Storiche Bn Linea Di Montaggio Miura P400 E Motori

That V12, by the way, would survive in some form or another all the way up through the Murcielago, until emissions and Audi parentage finally necessitated something new for 2011’s Aventador. (Editor’s note: And people say “parts bin” like it’s a bad thing. -PG)

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At launch, the 1974 Countach squared off such supercar greats as the (don’t call it a Ferrari) Dino 246 GT, Porsche’s 911 Carrera RS 3.0, and the De Tomaso Pantera. With an MSRP just over $50,000, it cost about as much as the other three put together. But over the next 26 years of production, the Countach would also face off against the Ferrari 308 GTB, 328 GTB, and even the 348 before finally being put out to pasture in 1990. 

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That initial 1974 Countach was officially called the LP400. The LP means “longitudinale posterioire,” a reference to rotating that motor by 90 degrees from its transverse arrangement in the Miura. That engine still sits behind the driver, but not quite in the center line of the car. It’s offset slightly to the left to offset the driveshaft, which runs from the front-mounted transmission back through the oil pan to drive the wheels at the rear. 

The 400 in the name refers to the displacement, which through the course of the Countach’s remarkable 16 years of production would eventually grow by more than a liter. The name of the car would change along the way, too, culminating with the 25th Anniversary Edition you see here. 

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In the mid-1980s, a relatively young, unknown designer named Horacio Pagani was given the task of modernizing the Countach and giving it a few more years of life before its ultimate replacement. He worked on a project to create a fully carbon-bodied car with a new chassis, a concept called the Countach Evoluzione. The prototype weighed a remarkable 1,100 pounds less than the Countach, which had swelled to 3,500 pounds by the time the 25th Anniversary Edition came around. That’s an impressive delta, despite the Evoluzione lacking an interior. The Lamborghini brass, however, weren’t impressed by the costs of producing lightweight composites wholesale, so Pagani’s other project, the 25th Anniversary Edition Countach, used composites sparingly, for just a few of the many new body panels. 

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But no ergonomic oddity nor logistical quirk was ever going to quench the love in my heart for that car. And so, when Lamborghini offered up an opportunity to drive one, plus a smorgasbord of other period bulls to celebrate the company’s 60th anniversary, I didn’t have to think twice. All I had to do was count the days.

This, though, isn’t just any 25th Anniversary Edition. This is the very last one ever built, assembled on July 4th, 1990, then shuttled next door into the Lamborghini Museum in Sant’Agata, Bologna, where it was destined for a quiet life of leisure. Mostly quiet, anyway. It gets dragged out of retirement to make some noise for certain special occasions, like Lamborghini’s 60th anniversary, to be driven by lucky so-and-sos like myself. 

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My first taste of the Countach experience was a painful one. Literally. I opened those iconic scissor doors and, perhaps a little too quickly, certainly a little too easily, swung my legs inside. I lifted my feet a bit to clear the massive sills and managed to slam my right knee into the sharp edge at the bottom of that door.

You know when you catch the fleshy bit under your kneecap just right and it hurts so much you feel the urge to vomit? Yeah, it was one of those moments, exacerbated by my having bruised that same knee the weekend before when took a tumble while carrying a chainsaw, having tripped over a branch on a tree I’d just felled. (Yes, I do live a charmed life.) 

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Thankful that the damage wasn’t done to my clutch leg, and determined to tolerate even permanent knee damage if it meant completing this drive, I made to start the car. I stepped on the clutch and thought, “This isn’t as stiff as everyone said.” 

And then I looked down at my feet and realized I was stepping on the brake pedal.

Knowing how legendarily slim the Countach’s pedal box is, I’d worn my most slender of non-racing shoes. (Non-racing because nobody wants to be that guy at a media drive event clomping around all day in race booties, or worse, those Piloti loafers.) Even those kicks weren’t slender enough. The gap between throttle and clutch, brake pedal situated in the middle, of course, was barely bigger than my shoe was wide. 

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Pedal identification on this particular Countach was made ever more problematic by the brake pedal being the softest of the three. Even the throttle was reluctant, but I didn’t find the clutch to be as quad-burning as I’ve heard many others complain. For that, I’m tempted to thank my love of cycling. All those hill-climb repeats over the years were paying off.

After finding the clutch, I brought the gated shifter from neutral and fired up the ignition and the smiles.

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I pulled the door down, which slammed shut with a loud clunk, then was immediately admonished by one of the Lamborghini engineers for not slamming it hard enough. It hadn’t fully latched. So, I sent it skyward again, swung it down a second time, got a thumbs up, and slotted the car into first.

First is down and left, a dogleg arrangement that positions reverse in the upper-left, blocked off by a beefy, machined mechanical lockout you need to move out of the way with your thumb. This I was thankful for, since I’d just climbed out of the Miura, which has the more standard gear arrangement with first in the upper-left. 

Referring to a shifter as moving like a rifle bolt is perhaps the ultimate of automotive journalism cliches, but I couldn’t help wondering if this is where it started, because the process of moving from first into neutral, then neutral into second really felt like chambering a round in a bolt-action 30-06. That you can peek down through the black anodized shifter gate and see the mechanism working within just makes it all the more precious.

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Reader, I didn’t stall the Countach. I pulled away without fuss, V12 having enough moving parts with enough inertia that I barely needed to touch the throttle as I released the clutch. And, since the Countach will gladly run past 60 mph in first gear, I was able to linger there for a little while as I figured out everything else.

I’d pushed the seat back as far as it would go in a vain attempt at getting comfortable. This left me with my arms at almost full extension. Not ideal in any car, especially one that requires as much strength to turn as this.  

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When it was time for the one-two shift it happened slowly, synchros reluctant and me not comfortable enough with those pedals yet to risk a double-clutch. A single actuation was trying enough at first. But, as the kilometers piled on and the roads opened, I started to find my footing. A quick lift of the clutch on the up-shift while swinging through neutral made the next gear slot in delightfully, while a little blip of the throttle during the lift on downshifts made everything move much more quickly in that direction, too.

The problem was that brake pedal, so soft and sunk so low that I couldn’t really get the angles right. No racing downshifts for me that day.

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I would, though, wring that delightful V12 out at every opportunity. Driven moderately, the Countach is loud but not terminally so, sounding positively refined in comparison to the Miura, which is unhinged at any rev. But the Countach rewards throttle and revs, its characteristic snarling exhaust note growing more intense with every dose of extra spin you request. Redline is marked at 7,500 RPM and the acoustic reward only gets sweeter the higher you go. Matching that, as the Countach gains speed it starts to move and bounce on the uneven Italian rural lanes, singing and dancing better than any Broadway show I’ve ever seen.

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The steering gets lighter with speed and all the ergonomic foibles stop meaning so much. Likewise, the truly awful interior, with plastic vents so brittle I didn’t dare adjust them, seemed to fade from my line of sight as I gazed through that big, swept windshield and hoped the road ahead was empty so that I wouldn’t have to test those terrible brakes. 

Screaming through the Italian countryside with the sun shining overhead was a total and utter rush.

And of course, an overwhelming dose of nostalgia that set the aforementioned wetworks flowing. But the problem with nostalgia is that it’s a reconnection with something old, something you don’t see anymore, and that’s often for a good reason. 

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The Countach is, of course, largely a product of the 1960s, of a different time with different expectations and needs. It really can’t even be compared to how modern cars get designed today. Its priorities were wholly different. Those straight pipes sticking out the back sound lovely but they aren’t doing the environment any favors. The lack of traction control or even ABS isn’t exactly compatible with today’s standard of driving, and while I don’t know what would happen in a crash I do know it wouldn’t be good.

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We can lament Lamborghini’s new Revuelto being bigger and softer and heavier than this, the addition of a plug-in hybrid system and airbags and drive modes muddying the experience. But we should also appreciate that the new car, with its 1,001 horsepower and all-wheel-drive, weighs just 400 pounds more than the 25th Anniversary Countach. That’s remarkable. 

But there is of course something endlessly charming about that old Countach, something that still makes me smile thinking about it. After my time behind the wheel, I got an unexpected sign that it isn’t just nostalgia at play.

This car was part of a parade of sorts, eight historic Lamborghinis sprung from the museum for a few lucky journalists like myself to experience as part of the 60th-anniversary celebrations. We’d all pulled up in the small town of Ariosto, probably five or six million dollars worth of exotica street-parked. 

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I was limping around on the sidewalk, nursing my busted knee, grabbing a few photos of the car for the ‘Gram and wondering whether I’d need a wheelchair assist to get through the sprawling terminals at Schiphol Airport the next day. 

A young, local couple with two kids came by, eyes wide. The father asked permission, which I of course granted, and soon both son and daughter were posing excitedly by the Countach. 

They wandered down to check out the Diablo and then the Miura and all the other wonders, but a few minutes later the boy, who was about the same age I was when I was in the back of that school bus in Vermont all those years ago, came back to look at the Countach again.

“How model?” he said in broken English.

“Scusi?” I asked, testing the limits of my Italian.

“Model?” he asked, pointing at that silver wedge from another dimension.

“Ahh, Countach.” I said, then repeated it for him.

He turned back to the car, nodded once, and said “Bella.”

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Tim Stevens is an automotive journalist based in New York. The former Editor-in-Chief of CNET’s Roadshow, his work has appeared in TechCrunch, MotorTrend, The Verge, Jalopnik and many more places. 

All photos via Lamborghini

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46 thoughts on “Driving A Vintage Lamborghini Countach Made Me Laugh, Cry And Almost Puke

  1. Anyone else having a problem reading these articles because they autonomously scroll up and down? I’m on an iPhone and I couldn’t even finish the article.

  2. I used to work near Nazareth PA. So I would frequently see Mario Andretti tootling around in his. And tootle he did. It never seemed to be going faster than an idle.

  3. Very rad!

    I too purchased a poster at my school’s Scholastic Book Fair in 1989, but I opted for the Ferrari F40. I loved that poster so much I had it laminated.

    Last year I moved my mom out of her home of 20 years and found the poster again! I brought it home with me but haven’t found a place to put it yet.

  4. F*ck me these pics are insane! I still love this car, it’s the first car I fell in love with as a kid. My dad had a black model where every door and hatch opened.

    He gave it to me years later and I still have it displayed. I love that thing.

  5. Never meet your heroes be damned. If the question is, “Do you want to drive a Countach?” The answer has to be an emphatic “Hell yes! Of course I do!”

  6. In the early 90’s, there was a shop a few miles from our house with a mid 80’s Countach frequently parked off to the side, in red with the wing. If you have never stood next to one, they are surprisingly small! The roof came up to my waist! This made it three times more fascinating to me, since the Countach looks so imposing in pictures.

  7. As a member of the high school class of 1987, I can only say Thank You for the wonderful article. As a Fine Arts degree holder who sometimes has trouble with math, I can’t figure out how a car introduced in 1974 and last built on July 4th, 1990 could have been in production for 26 years. Can somebody help me out here?

  8. These things are worth shocking amounts now. Literally just today, a 1988 passed through Cars&Bid for $675,000 and the comment section was actually astonished that it didn’t sell for more. I’ve only seen a few of these in person but would not have guessed they were even over $200,000!

  9. Seeing the picture of the red Countach with the doors open immediately brought me back to the model version I had as a kid, with doors that didn’t quite shut right.

    But as a kid growing up in the 80s & 90s…this was one of the cars, man.

  10. 35 years ago, I was just finishing up some contract work at an estate, when a red one pulled up. I assumed it was the property owner. Turned out to be a paving contractor there for an estimate. How’s that for advertising your reasonable rates.

  11. I’m always astounded by how small they are in person. Not much bigger than a Fiero or X1/9. Blows my mind, I was raised on American land yaughts.

  12. Got to see one up close recently at the Newport Auto Museum. It is the first car you see as you enter and sets the tone for the rest of your visit, the museum and the cars in it are awesome. And best of all, it is painted in the correct color, red.

  13. Ironically, I ran into a Lumina Z34 on the road just last week. A WTF moment, had not seen one in years (decades?). I had a 1994 SHO 5-speed for years and still miss it.

    The LP500S Countach was THE dream car of my late Gen-X childhood. More than the 930 or even Testarossa. Remember playing the original Accolade Test Drive on our Atari 520 ST home computer (circa 1988?) and this being the fastest car in the game if you could handle the understeer.

    Then the 959 and F40 turned the world upside down.

    1. My brother and I used to get up a half hour early every morning so we could load Test Drive into our Amiga 500 and play for a bit before heading to school.
      That’s where I learned at 7 years old that over-revving your engine causes your windshield to shatter. I have been very careful with rev limits ever since.
      Test Drive 2 finally brought us the ultimate showdown between the 959 and the F40. I remember begging my dad to get me that game for months before finally receiving it on one very happy Christmas morning.

  14. Ha, I have the opposite problem: I need a pillow behind me to reach the pedals in these. These feel like they were made for a certain size dude, sort of, until you remember that the pedal box is in a funny location that doesn’t line up with any human bodies, and then you’re just convinced that they were made Because V12, Hell Yes. And yeah: “I don’t want to break this” is a big thing inside, even though the important V12y bits seem robust as hell. Remembering not to accidentally lean on the speaker vents on the door sill is a feat.

    Also, did this one come with the removable passenger-side vanity mirror? That’s easily one of the funniest features I’ve ever seen on a car given that you just know some had to have been used for the other kind of, ahem, nose powdering. They’re even ridged around the edges so you don’t drop any! So on-brand. SO on-brand.

    Incredible sounding and looking cars, though. I don’t want one myself, but I love that wild cars like this exist.

  15. Man, what an opportunity. I’m envious, although for my dream to come true you’d have to replace the Countach with a Ferrari Testarossa. (Not that I’d turn down a chance with the Lamborghini, mind you.)

    1. A man of culture, I see…

      On a related note, the Testarossa and the Countach are two of the three cars responsible for my love of all things automotive. A Bburago 1:18 scale diecast model of an ’84 Testarossa was the first toy I remember playing with; the Countach was my favorite car in Need for Speed III: Hot Pursuit – the first video game I was properly obsessed with.

      The third is the humble Daewoo Matiz – I saw it on the cover of a Serbian automotive magazine when the Korean city car first came out and it was love at first sight. Hence my username and current daily 🙂

      1. I have that 1:18 Burago Testarossa in a cabinet in my basement right now.
        Found it in my parents basement after forgetting decades ago that I ever owned it.
        Still feels nice to run my fingers over the door louvers.

  16. Pretty sure I had the same Scholastic poster of the Countach, though I’m certainly in no position to drive one. And my unfortunately massive feet wouldn’t be great for it, given the description of the pedals. But I’m glad to at least read this excellent write up of the experience.

  17. Incredible article that manages to convey the sheer weight of the experience wonderfully. Cars are so inherently emotional that it can be very hard to properly describe how they affect you but I felt like I came along with you for the ride. It’s been a good couple of weeks for Countach media as Doug did a full review on one recently too. I know he’s a polarizing figure around here but I thought he did a good job of conveying how special and unique of an experience it is as well.

    The Countach is one of the greatest cars ever made for myriad reasons…but the spark notes version is simply that it’s one of the most recognizable and iconic super cars ever made. It’s a car that bridges the gaps, if you will. Car enthusiasts. Non car enthusiasts. Everything in between…literally everyone recognizes and admires this car, and if you don’t seek medical attention.

    I really don’t get this “never meet your heroes” idea that kicks around in some enthusiast circles. Try to meet all of them! Learn from them, and accept that your experience is on their terms and not yours. Embrace their imperfections because they’re a part of the package…and guess what? Regardless of how difficult it may be to use, the Coutach wouldn’t be so revered today if it didn’t offer a spectacular experience.

    Cars are inherently emotional and trying to view them any other way is a fool’s errand. I don’t care how rough and difficult they may be or how they’d actively try to wrap me around a tree…I’d love to drive a Countach, F40, McLaren F1, etc. We wouldn’t be where we are today without those icons/technological marvels of their time paving the way…and unfortunately we’re never going to see anything like them again.

  18. My favorite LA driving story: It was probably 1987 and I hadn’t bought my ’66 Mustang convertible yet so I was suffering with a 1981 Buick Skylark. One day I decided to take a drive so I went up Laurel Canyon from the south (LA) side in order to get to Mulholland Drive and take it out to the ocean. I pulled up in the left hand turn lane and mere seconds later a guy pulls up next to me in a Lamborghini Countach. He sees me looking over and checking his car out; he’s all hot stuff because he’s got the baddest car. Except…

    What must have been one of the very first Ferrari F40s to hit the states comes up to the light on the north (San Fernando Valley) side of Laurel Canyon. I look at the F40 and recognize it immediately and then glance over at the Countach driver who immediately deflates with this look of utter, hopeless jealousy. At this point I just start laughing uproariously because this guy on my right is obviously a showboating douche and he’s just been severely one-upped. The Countach driver looks at me, sees me laughing at him and gets really angry. I’m no lip reader but we can all guess. Moments later the green arrow lit up and I turned onto Mulholland to enjoy the drive and savor my quintessential “LA moment”.

    This incident helped me learn an important automotive life lesson. No matter how awesome your car is there’s someone out there with something “better”, or at least more rare and expensive. And so what? If life delivers you a Countach then enjoy the snot out of it and don’t worry about what someone else has.

    (signed, Guy who loves the cars he has been blessed with)

  19. Put a Countach body, transmission, and shifter onto a Lexus LFA, swap in a Lexus LC interior, and that’s gotta be the platonic ideal of an automobile right?

    1. It is so dang nice to see 70% of a picture being the subject matter instead of 70% being above the subject matter (yep, that site).

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