Countach LP400 Vintage Photos

Whilst I was in my archives, I found a small treasure!

My former neighbor was the Chief Designer for General Motors on the 60s, the same man who ended up with the one-and-only GM Miura.

Anyway, in the spring of 1971, he took a series of never-before-published images of the Countach LP500 on the Geneva stand, and, he gave them to me @ 15 years ago. I will have my wife have these converted as well, but I may use them for an upcoming project I'll be doing with Valentino Balboni before I release them elsewhere.

I may have to visit my archives more often.

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Victor, you might enjoy this little piece of history.

As we know 1120300 (which is with my client in Hawaii) is supposed to be the last LP400.

But there is mention of a later LP400, 1120314, in the Registry.

Here is a source of that notion, a Western Union telegram sent by the factory's Sales Manager, Ubaldo Sgarzi, to USA owner Gene Boston in 1978, mentioning "1120314".

There are a few more letters which I am not at liberty to disclose, but what happened was that Gene Boston ordered a very late LP400 (supposedly 1120314), which never showed up. In a furious exchange of letters, the factory claimed it had met an untimely demise in testing, and Gene demanded a replacement. As you can see, they tried to pacify Gene with an early LP400S S1, which they ended up taking over a year to deliver - he didn't get it till the spring of 1979.

The telegram's "Please believe us, we are doing our best" speaks to the desperate financial state-of-affairs @ Sant Agata at the end of the 70s. Did he become the 5th Countach S customer in the world as they promised? I think you know the answer to that one.

In fact, the works was so broke that Sgarzi advised Gene Boston to arrive at Sant Agata with cash to pay for the wheels from Campagnolo, because the factory had been unable to pay that supplier in recent times. He duly did this, arriving at Santa Agata to warm greetings like the proverbial savior, and the next day after being paid, Campagnolo released the wheels which were fitted to the car, it was test driven, and Gene took it away on EE plates. I have posted the images of the collection of this car at the factory in April 1979 in the Countach thread. Gene drove it as fast as he could to Frankfurt, put it on a Lufthansa 747 and flew it to LAX in California. I purchased 1121034 from Gene @ 14 years ago.

The obvious questions are:

- Did 1120314 really exist?
- If so, did 1120314 get rebuilt into 1121034?

I will tell you one thing, 1121034 definitely had some undeniable LP400 features

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The numbering originally used by sales department, later amended, just continued on after 150/1120300 with 151/1120302 etc. This means that 157/1120314 mentioned in your telegram was actually 157/1121014 and 167/1120334 was 167/1121034.

 

Very interesting, so perhaps Gene Boston should have received 1121014? (which together with the last LP400 1120300 and 1121016 all went to Steve Dypvik!)

 

The consignment dates of 157/1121014 and 167/1121034 are a year apart but since I do not know the date of the telegram or its contents I cannot comment further. Meanwhile here is an image of 1120314 and the six other missing LP400...

 

Regarding #1121034:
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I first posted that document from my files almost 10 years ago in the Countach thread, note the price and the delivery status.

The consignment dates make sense as Gene told me the factory made him wait @ "a year" after the date promised.

As regards the six missing cars, I had my doubts

 

Time flies but it was five years ago. Post 14469 on page 579.

 

I see I did post about the car in 2007 @ 10 years ago, but left this document out, I guess my memory can no longer be trusted!

I purchased 1121034 @ 14 years ago, that much I do remember!

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A couple of comments if I may:

- I think Gene Boston's story and the telegram combined helps underscore that 1120314 did not exist.

- 1121034 which I owned was built as the only LP400S S1 I know of with LP400 rain-vents still left in a flat roof (see below).

- 1121300's owner is happy to hear his car is likely the last one, and it still looked beautifully original when my wife & I visited it in recent times.

- Regarding production numbers in the 60s & 70s, as I wrote in my Miura book, I subscribe to the school of thought of legendary Road & Track Editor, the late T.C. Browne who famously said: "There are lies, damned lies, and then there are car manufacturer's statistics".

- All fascinating stuff.

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We inspected 1121030 very carefully recently (below), and the roof is the main clue that it was made out of an LP400, and it has some other smaller LP400 features also.

I owned 1121034 for a few years, and the the roof is the main clue that it was made out of an LP400, although to a lesser extent than 1121030, and it has some other smaller LP400 features also.

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On 1121034, the suspension was all parallel links, but besides the roof's obvious LP400 features, there were subtle traces, one may have been the handbrake lever type, I'll have to review my file and confirm.

On 1121030, there is no trace of anything but red, and again I'll have to check the file regarding the engine lid prop (which is what I assume you mean).

 

Hello I've been searching for the chassis 1120040 for 2 years now. That car was initially sold to Lebanon and I'm actually trying to get information on that car. Anyone knows what happened to it ?

 

Is there any way you could put me in contact with that person ?

 

this thread delivers!

very interesting stuff

i do also agree the number of LP400 is 150 maximum and not the mitical 157
i do also think the real number for LP400 and LP400S made is less than the quoted amount

 

Agreed.

But as you can see, there is documentary basis as stated by Sgarzi himself to suggest that there might have been 157 cars, as opposed to many other claims made about these cars on the basis of nothing but thin air.

 

And one assumption was that 157 Chassis were ordered and some of them were used to build LP400S. With the financial situation the factory was in those days everything was possible.