Countach Downdraft 1985 to 1988.5

Fantastic contributions, I havent seen any of these before, thanks for sharing!

 

Its no secret that the men at Sant Agata firm the period regard the Fuelie Countach as a compromised car imposed on them by USA emissions mandates and "not our best work" in fact, at least 2 people directly involved in building those cars have let me know unsolicited that they are a bit embarrassed by these cars, and stated it's no surprise they have to be modified to be acceptable today. With all due respect, that's not a slam, its simply a truth. Last I mentioned the Fuelie subject to Valentino, he rolled his eyes, and we moved on to another subject , thankfully.

You can see how paranoid the members of the FOC (Fuelie Owners Club) are

 

I hire Valentino to inspect & drive cars, no agenda, just business.

You are utterly clueless as to which Miuras & Countachs Ford & GM owned, you rellay think GM were the only ones @ Detroit that purchased Lamborghinis? And you really think GM never used Ford's facility @ Romeo, Michigan? Again, you are just assuming via your magazine collection, no independent corroboration whatsoever, empty guesswork, the hallmark of the legendary Allan Lambo.

My conclusions about the significant superiority of the Downdraft over the Countach do not come from Valentino per se, it comes from 30 years experience with the cars and the people connected to them.

You on the other hand blatantly lied about what Valentino said, and you should be ashamed of what you did. he denies you said what you posted, period.

The rest of you post is meaningless nonsense, fueled by the fact that you are just bummed that you don't own a Downdraft!

Yo Allan, forget milk & cookies, you are drinking way too much cheap whisky and smoking too many bad cigars, believe me it’s nothing to be proud of nor does it impress anyone, all that stuff does you no good, instead, I suggest you should join me on a quick 2-mile dawn run, that’ll clear up your mind a bit as most of your post makes no sense.

Speaking of running, I typically run a mile in @ 8 mins, nothing special but pretty good for an old timer like me, anyway, and I’ve timed that by stopwatch & mile-marker. It’s all true, I swear! My friend (and 6-time World Boxing Champion) Ray Leonard who knows something about roadwork didn’t believe me, so I ran the mile on the electronically-timed treadmill in our gym, and, what do you know??!! 8 mins again! WOW. Can it possibly be that the stopwatch is accurate? Hey, with my square shoulders I am not very aerodynamic, but one time on the TM I even saw 7 mins and 56 secs, I admit I removed my shirt for that one

Ray says Happy Holidays, and Stella the dog says are we done with the pointless Fuelie vs Downdraft debate which isn't even a debate so I can start cleaning this car?

Please do yourself a favor and be healthy, you can think more clearly and therefore make more sense when you post, there really is not much of a comparison worth getting all twisted up over.

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FLA12831 looking fantastic, one of the nicest original Downdrafts extant.

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This one just for Allan Lambo - will you feel better if I say my Countach is exactly the same as yours?

Or even that yours is better?

Whatever you need to hear or believe is fine with me, especially during this festive season

Happy Holidays!

Stay healthy.

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Raymond, can you tell me if the plate on the spare wheel is original?

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Thanks for the clarification, it's a cool piece and Chris was very insistent about carefully removing it and re-applying it when the car was restored.

We have the front of the car apart whilst we replace a steering component - which arrived from Italy today in just 3 days.

 

John, I would love to see the Alpine stuff and note your Downdraft's chassis number - although I have a feeling I have it noted somewhere, I recall when you first purchased the Downdraft and called me to tell me about it, I think the first thing you did was a long road trip if I recall correctly. I recall too when you drove it on the drag strip for that film documentary. I also recall you & I talking @ 20 years ago about how the Ferrari guys would laugh at us when our Lamborghinis would break down - my how times have changed, all the significant Lamborghini deals I do via Private Treaty are to major Ferrari collectors who are now slowly discovering the allure of classic Lamborghinis! Congratulation on the Downdraft again, I'm sure that car thanks you many times over.

 

Actually, I’ve had the Fuelie vs Downdraft conversation with Valentino @ least 4 separate occasions, one of which was witnessed by Ben Bertucci, Chris Dugan and Cam Leuschel, and as any of those gentlemen will confirm, no points were made in favor of the Fuelie

The last time I had a conversation with Valentino was actually just tonight (Italy time), as we discussed a certain Miura SV and a famed Countach Downdraft which belonged to a good friend of his (F1 World Champion Keke Rosberg), point being I know him well enough to discuss any topic at any time.

Valentino is a very diplomatic guy and doesn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, and knowing you are a Fuelie owner, of course he was trying to be nice to you, but still, he is adamant he never said FIA is meaningless (everyone knows that FIA Homologation can be a collectible plus and it's materially proven with many makes & models), nor did he ever say the Fuelie makes more power at any range. In fact when talking freely amongst people some of whom he has know for the best part of 30 years, he is direct about his feelings as shared by even the former CEO of Lamborghini that the Fuelie Countach is a bit of an embarrassment to them, a compromised car that they’d rather forget about. As long as you want to keep bringing this up, I'm happy continue to repeat the received consensus, but what really matters is this has become well-received in the market and amongst enthusiasts & collectors

That said, your staged dinner photo with Valentino is simply a shameless & desperate attempt to somehow gain a shed of credibility for your week attempts to disparage the Downdraft because you don’t own one, a real low, even for you

Since I'm on holiday, I have all time in the world for you, but the truth is, nobody really cares much about what you say to try to discredit the Downdraft (which you have said in the past that you’d love to own) because you have little credibility in the community, like a child who cries Wolf all the time, at some point people just stop paying attention. You are not a market influencer, not a model specialist, not an acknowledged historian or an authority on any aspect of the current appreciation for these cars, and as such your armchair protests with whisky-in-hand have little relevance to anyone seriously enthusiastic or contemplating ownership of these cars What independent recorded research and well-received published material have you produced that has helped the community advance their knowledge of the cars and the people behind them over the last 20-30 years? Zip. Having a magazine collection upon which to make random assumptions doesn’t count

As regards GM, a good friend of mine is the retired Chief Designer from the 60s & 70s, and I sold his Miura 3186, the ex-GM Miura. Another client is a retired Ford CFO. The point is, between those two, I actually know that both companies received Countachs both personally sanctioned by Lamborghini SpA’s CEO Patrick Mimran. Patrick himself personally confirmed this to me, as he had ties to Detroit and ended up selling his company there. I also know from the 2 gentlemen from GM and Ford that GM sometimes used the facility at Romeo, Michigan. By the way there was a third Downdraft that went to the USA around the same time those 2 cars were sent to Detroit as also sanctioned by Patrick Mimran, do you know what color car that was, who it went to and why? No doubt you are clueless.

You have a long history of being an internet drama queen, complete with pink cowboy hat (one only has to Google “Allan Lambo” to see for themselves on every forum from Ferrari to Lamborghini to Mercedes to GTR to Corvette and more besides https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/sp-blows-allan-lambos-slr-and-he-tries-to-cover-it-up-to-get-warranty-done.181466/) and since you put your big-shot wannabe lifestyle on the internet on display in the public domain as an extension of your, er, persona, one can hardly fail to notice, as such, identifying an online poser is hardly 'stalking'. I see a lot of things out there. Hey, please drink all you want, it probably explains why you always seem to have an axe to grind, but don’t worry one bit about me falling and breaking my face, I’ve got strong legs from all that Countach pedal-pressing over 30 years (or the running, not sure which), besides, I’m not the one drinking all that cheap whisky

As for the Fuelie vs Downdraft conversation, in reality it’s as silly as the one staged 40 years ago by the guys who claimed that the 250 GT and the 250 GTO were essentially the same thing, or that the 911 S and the 911 RS were the same thing. We can see how that worked out over the years and it doesn’t take a genius to know that material & tangible differences end up making all the difference.

Happy Holidays and enjoy our new IG of cars we have been fortunate to be involved with, sorry no big-shot wannabe drink & smoke images here, just cool cars https://www.instagram.com/joesackeyclassics/

Meanwhile back to folding the laundry, also boring, but at least the view is acceptable

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Your LP400S had one of the nicest original interiors I have ever seen.

Let me know if you ever come to California.

Meanwhile here is your countryman trying out a client's F50!

Did I tell you Valentino likes Ferraris also? Like many of us he is not stuck on just one marque, but, something strange always happens when Valentino drives a car, the speedo becomes inop

I'm hoping to get him to drive the GTO back-to-back with the Downdraft and tell me what he thinks.

Happy Holidays.

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Sometime in early 2018, there will be a cover feature in Octane magazine, and I hope to announce the actual publication date in due course.

Meanwhile, a few pics to tide us over the Holidays (sadly, with the formatting on this site, the resolution is not even close to the originals).

The second pic is father-and-son in action.

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Thanks for the trip down memory lane, fabulous.