Countach, the ultimate supercar

Bought that at the People's Drug Store in McLean my Freshman year of H.S.

 

The car has aged VERY well, I wonder how well the girls have.....

 

Anyone know the backstory on this car other than having sat at both Symbolic and Bellagio for quite awhile?

 

Wasn't that car destroyed in the crash test?

 

Fantastic Joe! where do you dig up these rare shots?

 

Wasn't the original Prototype amazing? I wonder if that pure shape could be made to work now with today's technology? The factory should make a replica.

 

The car was destroyed but the condition of the girls is less certain...

 

Appreciate your response...Thanks Joe!

 

Yes, it sounds a bit to much to me too: i just did one attempt and car did not want go over 250 km/h, but it was before fixing the spark timer and carbs, causing a big loss of power over 5000 RPM. I do not believe car can reach 293 kmh even without the wing as they tested (they tested a car without the wing, it's written in test report).

It's strange because usually Auto Motor und Sport was very accurate: may be Lamborghini sent them a very well "tuned" car with Ansa sport, lowered suspension and no air filters... or simply there was a bit of tail wind.

BB512ì test values are very very close to others i read on others magazines, so they are true: i think that Countach did exactly what they wrote, but i do not know how she could be so fast. May be Countach 5000S was faster than we think, who knows.

ciao

 

Or by his wings...
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The car that did 293 kmh/kph (to be exact: 292.7 kmh) was tested by the annual magazine "Motor Revue" (issue 1982/1983). "Motor Revue" was an annual sister magazine of "auto motor und sport". The 0-100 time for this 5000S was 5.2 sec, while the car did 0-200 kmh in 17.8 sec. The figures were real, but probably this 5000S was a well tuned factory car (later "auto motor und sport" tested a QV - IMO a standard car - with 298 kmh; 0-100 4.8 sec. / 0-200 17.0 sec for the QV).

For the "auto motor und sport" issue posted by Albert LP, they used the data of the "Motor Revue" test car, but only found the S2 (as mentioned by Emilio) to do the photo session. The small real 5000S photos were taken from the photo archive as the "Motor Revue" test took place earlier.

BTW a 288 GTO wasn't much better than the standard QV: The "ams" figures for this car are 303 kmh, 0-100 in 4.8 sec., 0-200 in 16.2 sec. "1000 mtr from standstill" time was better for the GTO, too: GTO with 23.0 sec., QV 24.1 sec.

In 1975 they ("ams") made a LP400 test: 288 kmh, 0-100 5.4 sec., 0-200 18.7 sec.

As Albert-LP mentioned here, "ams" figures are reliable, the figures just depend on the car sent. I remember a Ghibli that did 274.5 kmh, IMO this car was a "factory hot rod" although the 0-100 kmh time was 7.0 sec.; maybe Walter can tell us more about that green metallic Ghibli.

 

Very interesting, thanks!

After fixing the spark advance timer, changing distributor cap, spark plug wires and carbs tuning, my 5000S is very fast and the engine looks to have twice the power over 5000 RPM than before. 5000S engine has an outstanding output starting from 2000 RPM: really impressive and very pleasant, with bigger thrust than a QV until 4000 RMP. But QV has a better top end power: i do not think between the two cars there are just 6 km/h in top speed difference and 0.7 second in the 0-200 km/h time...
May be the 5000S driver destroyed the gearbox to mark those times: gearbox is very slow and the shifiting time is very important in the 0-200 km/h time, unless the test is between a tuned 5000S and a standard QV with OEM mufflers.

Thanks again for you explanation

ciao

 

"Auto, Motor and Sport" are a very reliable source for their test-figures.
But this figures are depending on the car they had available.
The famous green Ghibli clearly was a "hot rod"-Maserati and the figures had nothing to do with the standard version.

I strongy assume this was the same with the LP400 and the Ferraris of that period.
In Germany we say: "Good noise belongs to a good job!" ("Klappern gehört zum Handwerk"). The Italians made a lot of noise in those days...:

 

one thing is sure: countach power output were and still are quite different one car from each other

 

I agree, those are handmake engines so they are all different each other. And above all is very difficult to tune exactly the engine (advance, carbs, ignition) so we have so big difference. I saw this on mine: before tuning less than 300 hp for sure(i wuld say 270-280, no more), after a good fixing/tuning it has at least 30% more power. Not a small difference!
I think car has a very poor ignition (and 400/400S even worse) and with a new ignition (like the swiss redone, i do not remember the name) could gain a lot of power.

ciao

 

Walter, I agree with everything you said here. The LP400 tested by "ams" wasn't their worst running car. The same applies to the Daytona, BB's etc. tested by them. But the most "obvious" factory hot rod test cars were the green Ghibli and the blue metallic Khamsin (ca. 272 kmh).

 

1981 Italian magazine Quattroruote Ferrari BB 512i test data: Countach 5000S was faster!
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I was refering to the ageless style. I am aware of the sad fate of the chassis.