Countach, the ultimate supercar

Congrats to the seller and the new Owner Alberto. I hope the new owner will look after her as much as the previous owner.

My best
Rob

 

Hello Nick,

your observations about my earlier post of the MIRA tests of 1120001 are correct, and I wish I could be more expressive in my use of the English language to transmit the real meaning of what I write. Anyway, I talked at length about the MIRA tests with my friend Giampaolo Stanzani when I wrote my books and I asked him for a confirmation about this 2 days ago. He told me in no uncertain terms that after the MIRA tests the remains of #1120001 (please remember that it was little more than an empty shell filled with non-working, discarded parts) were taken back to Sant'Agata; once it was there, the few useful parts were removed and what was left, in fact no more than the bent chassis and some equally deformed panels, was thrown away because it was simply useless. Probably the few parts that were still good enough to be reused were adequately refurbished and found their way in one LP400 or another during those years of very tight financial resources.

I would like to insist on the fact that at the time any crashed, wrecked Lamborghini owned by the factory that looked like it could be even remotely useful in the future was kept inside Lamborghini's perimeter, and you can see them piled in the infamous 'Death in the Afternoon' CAR pics (and many others taken by someone like me during those years.) You didn't throw away anything useful during those days: everything remained inside, no wreckers got any car out the factory. Even the 1963 GTV survived these years of neglect, so I am quite sure that if anything as glamorous as the chassis of the 1st prototype Countach was lying around, I would have noticed it and, believe me, I would have tried to buy it anyway. But it wasn't there and Stanzani confirmed this, it had been thrown away years before. I donated my picture archive to Lamborghini years ago so I can't check my own photographs; if anyone sees in those pics any LP500 chassis remains, I'd be happy to know.

The idea that someone is trying to build a reproduction #1120001 LP500/400 is not disturbing per se, of course. I simply love what Piet Pulford did, recreating the Jota; I helped him with some parts, in fact, and I think that he did a superb job. But he did never have any pretense of having 'miraculously' found the remains of the charred wreck, etc. In those years when a similar exotic was crashed beyond recovery, the wreck was scavenged for parts and once the precious bits had been removed, the remains were put in the press. It's sad, but this is how it was. Miracles happened, of course, so you can still find so many old cars lying around, but they were very rare and a heavily crashed car very rarely escaped the crusher.

If anyone says he has found the original wreck LP500/400, good for him. As Roy says, we have no right to pretend from him any detail. But this is true only if this guy does NOT want to present the car at Pebble Beach or Villa d'Este as the real thing, or offer it on sale with a fabulous price tag; in this case he will have to explain the history of that car, and they will be hard to believe (IMHO). After all most of us here have connections with collectors who might be interested in buying that car, and we all receive mails on a daily or weekly basis asking for information about this car or another; in this case (selling, displaying it etc) a photographic documentation from Day 1, supporting anyone's claim of having found THAT wreck, would be necessary. Anyway Joe was right in pointing out that the special one-off wheels might give the game away....

Now I'm quite curious to see the developments of this 'discovery', of which, it seems, many have already been informed. I'm really curious to know where this 'miraculous' find could have been reported, and who is (allegedly) working on it.....

All the best from Italy,

Stefano

 

here you cannot find a mint 3.2 speedster Turbo Look for less than 100 K euro: three years ago they were 60 k euro.

 

Stefano, that was already done in Germany.
They took a LP400 and give it the look of the LP500, Pictures can be found on Inet.
Of course this is not a real recreation, only a simple lookalike.

 

I did not sell my car! it was a friend' car. It has been for sale since 8 months: did not find a buyer at an asking price of 160 k euro, and now in a week it found one at 180 k euro. Interest is growing up around Countach. I do not think it's still easy to sell one at full price, but out there it's full of people that wants one.

ciao

 

I know its not your car my friend as we had spoken about the white 5000s before. The owner sent me a few pictures.

Ciao.
Rob

 

yep. not only the worthless $ helped but the demand has definitely picked up. the market is bare dry and the ask in europe has gone sky high.
I just dont understand how the euro can sustain that high level against the $, but given the scarcity of decent cars available at a decent price, I can understand the demand backlog.

 

Well not only a look-alike, they had for sure to change the radiators and other things in the engine bay, but the rest of the body was really like a LP400.
https://www.google.ch/search?q=lp400+ingolstadt&safe=active&rls=com.microsoft:de-ch:IE-SearchBox&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=SosFU-ftEbCQywOE3IGADg&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1023&bih=889

I personally can't understand why the owner had a genuine LP400 butchered to something which is not fish nor bird.

 

There are many fantastic Countach in the USA. But there are a lot of scraps too: i do not want to offend anyone, but i think that an average Italian Countach is in better conditions than an average USA Countach. I repeat: i do not want to offend anyone, just my opinion, and not referred to any of the excellent car i saw here and on Lpower.

ciao

 

Oh, Rob, i had forgotten of that, sorry.

There is another one white-white 5000S here in Italy, and in better shape than that, with less miles, even if it hasn't a brand new engine like this one just sold.

ciao

 

Yes sir, Red with white pin stripping and white interior, a mechanics nightmare on the interior, I was always getting it dirty. Brian if I can find more I will post them for sure.

 

the one with the side skirts?

 

I am indeed offended! After speaking with an attorney about a lawsuit, I am willing to accept your Countach as settlement. That should take care of my offendedness!

 

I have a bad damaged Countach model 1:24 somewhere. Is that enough for your attorney?

ciao

 

Before the inter-net i'm sure it could be pretty difficult on US owners to get parts
and service, especially with such Great support from Lamborghini (cough), so they had to make do and mend a little. I guess owners should have just parked them forever instead. Interesting to finally learn that all of them here are junk though.

 

Ha!

In 2005, I met a gentleman in New York who had a number of very low mileage cars of all makes. He had a 1984 Countach, white/red, carbed, with under 3000 miles. The driver's door paint was all cracked under the gloss. He said if it didn't sell soon ($60,000), he was going to send it to his brother in Italy. Have you ever seen such car in Italy?

 

WELL,.... looks like this side of the pond only has better Countach models.(laughing)

 

No, i haven't, I'm sorry. But i think his brother is very happy now.

ciao

 

Thanks!

 

Don't know if this has been posted yet or not.....

Lamborghini Countach 5000S - Unik mulighet! 1984, 19 619 km,

I think this converts to about $280,000.00 US

Mike