Countach, the ultimate supercar

Pic by Jens Lucking. That's me in the background at age 28 with my first Countach CLA12515 at Portman Lamborghini's service center, to the left of the Countach you can just see my Mercedes Benz 300 CE AMG Hammer, this is 1989, just before I traded the LP500S for the Downdraft.

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FWIW the plate is a play on the Countach's LP112 designation.

 

Not in the 80s, however when I purchased CLA12515 @ 2 years prior, the deal was that Portman Lamborghini would subject it to a full refurbishment prior to delivering the car to me, they replaced the original boxed muffler exhaust with a new Ansa F1 sport exhaust and took license to paint the innards of the tips red as a finishing touch.

Portman had a detail guy whose name escapes me but he worked on all the Countachs, he would regularly detail the car and clean out the innards of the exhaust tips keeping it red but after a day of driving they were sooty again.

 

I should clarify and say Ansa does have a tradition of painting the innards of the exhaust tips red, if you see images of cars ready at the Sant Agata factory from LP400 onwards they had red-painted tips. But this died out in the later 80s. Also, if you ordered a replacement exhaust from Ansa in the late 80s, the innards of the tips were unpainted. However, the units being made now are a continuation series with some small differences such as a bigger gauge insert pipe in the tips.

 

You have an original sport exhaust on your car, small-gauge insert pipes in the tips, wonderfully deep original sound, all the mineral fiber has probably blown out of the muffler tubes by now.

Witness the newer replacement Ansa unit exhaust tips with the bigger dimension insert pipes in the tips, a small difference but it does create a slightly different sound.

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Smaller dimension insert pipes in the tips for comparison, to my ear, I prefer the old units with a deep Basso Supremo sound and the induction whistle is amplified, sounds like an old 50s or 60s Formula One Grand Prix car.

Don't get me wrong, the new units are nice too.

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Here's HLA12093 with the current Ansa sports exhaust, we had no choice but to go to the new unit, the old one was rotten from the core out, it works just fine.

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The first time you hear it will be a special moment.

 

Please post images to show the 3 differences, thanks.

No just a young hard-working guy.

BTW I still had the AMG Hammer when I moved on to the red Downdraft which came with a wing which I promptly removed - see below.

That really was the era to have cars like these.

I know of only one person from that era 30-plus years ago who I am still in touch with who still has a Countach, that would be FIA GT boss Stéphane Ratel who has GLA12909, also his 2nd Downdraft.

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Jens Lucking took this image in the mid-80s from the Veltheim bridge crossing the A2 Autobahn in Germany, by waiting for Supercars to fly down the road at night, I hope this Countach LP500S was going as fast as it could go, sure looks like it.

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