Official Countach Value Thread

It was Al's Car, he is the former owner of Lamborghini Bellevue (as of last month). He bought it years ago from a local lady in Seattle whos Hubby passed away. It has not run in years.

I would go further and say it was VERY VERY tired car...needs a lot of attention..

 

Im sure you're right. I gave it a minute look over and lost interest.

 

Yep. i agree. I spent a lot of time looking at this car (back in 2009) before I purchased mine. I have quite a few photos of it prior to them getting it running. The white leather was heavily cracked and there were tons of cobwebs under the car when it was raised up on a lift. I have shots of the underside. The heim joints were gone, CV boots splt open, surface rust on a lot of components and who knows how long it had been since it was started. As Roy mentioned it was owned by a widow and at one time (many years before Al bought it), Shannon and Pasquale went to look at it in her garage and there were boxes stacked all over it to the ceiling! Shannon said it took about an hour to clear the crap away so they could get inside!

Belleve Lambo's tech called me last year and picked my brain for getting the electrical boxes back in the trunk fixed like I did on mine.

I'll round up the photos and post for posterity.

Mike

 

Sounds like a perfect candidate for Joe and the gang,in Cali, do what they did to his DD, exhaust and all, hopefully the new owner got the same ide,and $$$ ,could be a beautiful end result,white,ond white, great combo

 

Will the project break even, when you add the total cost of the restoration to the price of the donor car ?

 

Ralf,

I see no incentive to do a full restoration on the car we are discussing http://www.rmsothebys.com/az17/arizona/lots/1987-lamborghini-countach-5000-qv-by-bertone/1691476, mainly for the reasons you suggest, but also for the reason that anyone who has a quarter million to restore a Countach would likely want to restore it to full European (non USA) spec. Following this logic, strictly-speaking, the dilemma they would face would be they'd basically end up with a modified car.

David's S1 on the other hand, purchased at the price it was, could not be a better prospect for a full restoration back to Blu Acapulco/Naturale. I hope the new owner does that and I'd be happy to help him if he does.

 

Joe,

I agree with both of your points.



I believe a red S1 driver, just sold in Europe for approximately 499K euros ?

http://www.**********.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=14509 (Including the magical wheels, it needed everything - including the kitchen sink). What a color combo. It was to die for. At the time, it was available for less than 25K.


Unfortunately, the last minute internal issues with the auction house concerning David's S1, may have hampered his ability to obtain top value for his vehicle. Buyers and owners will both see what they want to see with the final hammer price .









Blu Acapulco

 

What i ment to say was,restore it to your car standard reg quality, similar exhaust(wich is not a factory system on your car either) remove the bumpers wich was added at the factory due to the zip code of the reciver, but leave the fi as is, this way its factory original with ex of non original exhaust and the bumpers wich nobody wanted in the first place,with the exeption of Us goverment, weather it makes $ sense,i do not know,perhaps Dani in Europe will be the first to find out,what i do know is there is no qv,fi on the market to this standard,we might be inn for a surprise.perhaps more buyers out there find this a great alterative beeing you get the qv engine, and an extremely driveable car, time will tell.

 

You are a diplomat.

 

Understood & agreed, if one must restore, do it right, besides the money, its a challenging process and takes time, you might as well aim to have have no regrets after.

 

A mod will soon learn how to juggle balls while walking on a tightrope .

 

Joe,i know you would love to put this beauty back to its original intended glory,white on white,QV, all the right things,with ex of carbs in your oppinion,install your exhast,keep the fi, make it "new"
But it would have to be done on sombody elses.coin$,beeing you are not shure its $ correct/ready, wich is understanable.what a great opportunity, the perfect QVfi. As the german saying goes,you can agree,or you can be wrong😀😀😀😀😀

 

Update on the Series 1:

I can tell you first hand that the mystery is solved and the VIN on the rear frame rail is in fact on the car. The car has been resold to a true enthusiast and will be restored down the road to its original factory spec, but enjoyed as is for now. I can't think of a better home for an amazing car that has clearly been lovingly owned for many years and will be for just as many years to come by the new owner.

 

Wow. What a horrifying story.

Both of those Countachs were incredible.

 

ouch

 

Some high-grit sandpaper & a dental pick, and Voila!

 

Very true.

Thinking about this past weekend, my feeling is that the poor numbers come down to one thing: knowledge.

Even before the car went over the block, I was receiving texts showing the obscured rear frame chassis number. My feeling upon viewing the images I was sent, was, the number was there, simply speckle-painted over. This appears to have ultimately been the case.

But there wasn't enough time to perform a forensic test to see if the chassis number would reveal itself. By block-time, this question had created enough of an unanswered question to prevent potential buyers from really stepping up.

Perhaps this issue should have been addressed by the owner prior to the sale, by the owner or RM.

I know that if I inspected an LP400S and could not see the rear main frame chassis number, alarm bells would have been ringing in my head.

That said, we know that today's buyers are very knowledgeable, that's why they held back knowing its not normal to not see the number in that location.

The events have been a lesson for us all.

 

It is, what it is. This happens at non auctions as well. The bright side is you can rest assured that the car was picked up for more $$, proving further that it was a lousy comp for your car. I feel for David, but on the flip side he has the right attitude.

 

Correct. I don't think RM did anything wrong here. Per Dave's post, they gave him options and a decision was made. Actually it is good that dealers were there that were willing to take some risk so that it was not a catastrophe. Perhaps they didn't pay full retail, but at the end of the day it went to a good home so that is good for the Countach market.

Auction sales can be very rewarding and they can be disappointing; they also sometimes take some experience to navigate.

 

Summarizing the ordeal, I think the best is to learn lessons out of this. Everyone is happy in this case it seems but here is what I retain from this story and other auction stories:

1. Go auction if you MUST sell by a date otherwise go elsewhere.
2. Never price too high thern kill the reserve at the last minute. It may be ok for $10K but in the 6 digits figure, someone told the truth earlier here: a prospective bidder at $450K would not have registered for the auction to bid on a car listed at $700K with reserve. Loss of prospective buyer between hammered price and advertised price.
I am sure many of the posters here would have registered if the price advertised would have been $370K.
3. If there are too many questions in the air, then ensure they get addressed or pull out of the auction
4. If you want top price, advertise low with no reserve (car with issues) and put ads all over the place about it! I have seen it work

That is what i learned from this.

 

As many of you may or may not know, I had a very disappointing experience last year at auction.

The auction experience may seem exciting or tempting at first, but there are a million unknowns and you essentially have no control of the outcome.

If the auction house makes ANY mistake, there is NO going back... its live, its realtime and you are forced to a accept the result of a transaction that could potentially take 45 seconds...

 

After a twenty year hiatus I have been to two major auctions in the past year largely in a observation capacity. I have learned volumes by watching one of the contributors to this thread but the most glaring lesson is the one that not all Auction houses are created equal.
Many will accept any entry and run the car through with unrealistic expectations and hope there is a neophyte in the audience. Others are more selective and only accept cars with a good history and realistic expectations for the ultimate sales price.
It may be coincidence but I also feel must of the recent auctions had the same "menu".
Are marketing people choosing to sell only what they feel will sell to potential buyers and limiting what is offered at the better auction houses? Are these events carefully Choreographed? I was used to a very diverse selection of cars for sale but haven't witnessed such.

 

That is for sure.

I think it would not be out of place to describe the new owner as a Countach Connoisseur.