Countach Downdraft 1985 to 1988.5

The aluminum hood is not the "Middle East version" per se, it's simply the aluminum hood as used for LP400/LP400S/LP500S that happened to also be used on some QVs that went to certain jurisdictions, such as the Middle East, to conform to local transportation authority mandates.

There's no ME part number for the aluminum hood, it's just the early version of hood, I think someone specifically wanted an aluminum hood as they had plans to bolt an aftermarket wing to the front of the car, as shown by 2 cases of cars with front wings and aluminum front hoods, very reasonable observation. Again, I have inspected quite a few Fuelies over the years and all the ones I have seen had Kevlar hoods.

I think what happened here is the factory supplied them with the car (which explains why they are listed as an extra), and Portman then put them on the car when it arrived in the UK from Italy, either way, those side skirts are non-Lamborghini aftermarket units favored by tuners such as Koenig Specials etc. as already pointed out by Raymond.

 

The front wing was fitted post-production, here in the USA.

 

Lloyds Bowmaker was a Finance House owned by Lloyds Bank and UDT a Point of Sale Car Finance company, interesting to see as I recall most people paid cash for these back then as they were less than 100k GBP.

The stated engine number is wrong though, somebody at Portman didn't bother to check and just re-stated the last 5 of the VIN, the engine number is 4 digits and doesn't correspond to the chassis number.

Probably the cost for Portman's driver Charlie to drive the car back from Santa Agata and subsequent transfer from EE plates to UK registration.

IMO it's almost impossible to say on a car that's 5-plus years old (when your dad bought it) whether the side skirts were fitted in March 1987 in Italy or a month later in April 1987 in the UK, I'm fairly confident these aftermarket units were fitted at Portman Lamborghini Service center pre-delivery by Del Hopkins who might still remember this.

These aftermarket side-skirts were used by Koenig https://www.lambocars.com/countach-koenig-specials/ who actually used several styles of side skirts for their custom modified Countachs, and prior to the QV they were used by others besides including Max Bobnar https://wearecurated.com/1980-lamborghini-countach-lp400-s-turbo-for-sale/ et al, I recall these units being around from 1980 onwards.

 

A quick scan of my notes and I see that the same type side-skirts were also dealer-installed by the likes of Emilianauto, Achilli, Nastasi etc. (prior to the factory designing and assembly-line installing it's own units which we call the 88.5 cars). In Canada the the concessionaire Carrier used a supplier called Ardev based in Ontario at the time and delivered some cars with these on. The point is, these non-Lamborghini aftermarket skirts were not installed at Sant Agata, they were dealer-installed after the cars reached their market destinations.

The same basic principle applies to front wings, they had nothing to do with Nuova Automobili Lamborghini SpA in Sant Agata, they are aftermarket pieces fabricated and installed here in the USA.

By the way here's proof Koenig used these skirts or a variation thereof in the 1980s.

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June 1986, F1 pilot Rene Arnoux's Downdraft and Miura at Sant Agata, this was after his Ferrari F1 days.

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Are you saying now you want me to find you a Miura SV?