Between Gandini And Pagani, Who Designed The Many Countach Revisions

Gandini said after Pirelli finally developed the tires the " countach finally became the car he designed ".. and that he preferred it to the early, clean design..- kind of ironic the early ones ended up being worth the most (although i think a mistake by early investors set the market). Anyway, his comment alone doesnt answer your question fully but does support the idea it may have been him. Someone should ask him while he is still alive.

 

Walter Wolf & Dallara are very much responsible for the Countach we recognize as the Countach.

Wolf commissioning Pirelli and Dallara designing the accomodating suspension. I’m sure that other important individuals were involved as well.

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Gandini said that (interpreted through his daughter) to me.

He was saying that the Countach could or should have been the more aggressive car from the start, in Italian parlance simply saying that the evolved design really was successful and suited the car's theme or character.

He didn't say he preferred the later car over the LP400 per se though, he was simply making a design observation, in fact he signed the dash of our LP400 1120110 at that time.

As we know the market sets itself so I wouldn't say there was any mistake by investors, LP400 are pretty rare, and the pure original shape is coveted by many people, both then and now.

Unfortunately I never asked him what other aspects of the Countach he designed, per the OP's questions, so I really don't know.

 

Correct, as Wolf told me directly, he hired Dallara to turn his LP400 into a performance Countach with parallel linked suspension just like his F1 car had, and to make the project work, he also commissioned Pirelli to develop a P7 variant for the car.

Lamborghini SpA took this inspiration into the LP400S, LP500S and QV.

 

Great question and great thread!

I would love to know more about the spat, engine cover, even wing design.

Especially the move from round spats that more or less followed the lines of the original LP400 during the first attempts with Dallara and the P7 to the more squarish and "designed" ones of the last Wolf car and the first production LP400S.

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I can also think of an influence of Marc Deschamps, who replaced Marcello Gandini at Bertone in 1979 and was already involved with Bertone in 1972. He penned the Renault 5 Turbo which also had front squarish spats:

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Who influenced who? What was the part of organic development and what was the part of design or re-design?


Another interesting sub-subject would be who designed the side-skirts from the very first single-strake ones to the end-of-production Quattrovalvole ones to the last Pagani 25th anniversary. One these I would hint no Marcello Gandini's influence.

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I believe the side skirts for both the 88.5 and the 25th were designed by Horacio Pagani.

Sorry I can't help, as I said above, when I met Marcello Gandini, unfortunately I never asked him what other aspects of the Countach he designed, so I really don't know.

I have been made to understand that he designed the spats as used for the 1978 Countach LP400S & onwards, but I can't verify anything.

 

Yes.

 

I don`t like this sde skirts at all. Sorry to say but IMHO it ruins the lines of the car. Viasually it became to "heavy" in the middle section.