Agent47 Posted July 6, 2022 Posted July 6, 2022 The risky thing about making any reboot is getting it wrong – screwing it up so badly that you tarnish what everybody remembers they love about the original. And so to the Lamborghini Countach. A car whose name in Italian roughly translates as ‘crikey, look at that!’, and quite rightly. The original Countach of 1974, Lamborghini’s second mid-engined supercar, was one of the defining cars of the late 20th century. If you had been asked in the ’70s, ’80s or even ’90s to describe what a supercar was, you would have been explaining rakish looks, latent aggression, a low roof, that the engine was probably in the middle and had at least eight but probably 12 cylinders and that the top speed started with a two or T thereabouts. You would have been describing a Countach. So famous is it that as recently as last year, one was inducted into America’s National Historic Vehicle Register, effectively a Hall of Fame for vehicles that define America, which includes only 30 cars. Specifically, it was Countach chassis number 1121112, a 1979 LP400S in black with spoilers front and rear, as used in the film The Cannonball Run. Starring Burt Reynolds and anyone else who was famous in 1981, it was a fictional story but inspired by real events, illegal 1970s races “from sea to shining sea”, from the east of the US to the west. The film didn’t universally go down well. Celebrated critic Roger Ebert said it was “an abdication of artistic responsibility at the lowest possible level of ambition. In other words, they didn’t even care enough to make a good lousy movie.” Well, fine, mate, but, you know… critics. Audiences thought differently and it made a shedload of money. So here to revive it (of a fashion) are me and photographer Luc Lacey, in an east-to-west dash of Britain on its own Route 66, the A66. And we’re in another evocation: the new Countach, a mid-engined V12 supercar with a 221mph top speed, of which Lamborghini is going to make just 112 examples. What do people think of it? The answer depends on who you ask. The Countach’s form “can hardly be improved, but some details can be developed, keeping the basic concept intact”, says Stephen Bayley, co-founder of London’s Design Museum. On seeing the new car and the original together, he says: “Fifty years of history face to face and icons of their time, whose distinctive style and extraordinary performance have earned them their place in the automotive elite.” Link : https://www.autocar.co.uk/car-news/new-cars/new-lamborghini-countach-epic-uk-road-trip-reborn-icon
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