Lamborghini Miura
suspension.
The Countach didn’t just look different to the Miura. It was
radically new under the skin too. Instead of the Miura’s box section chassis,
the Countach was built around a tubular steel space frame. And while the V12
was retained, it was mounted longitudinally, instead of transversely. But
unlike most mid-engined cars, from the GT40 to the 458, which have the gearbox
mounted behind the engine, acting directly on the rear wheels, the Countach’s
entire drivetrain was turned through 180 degrees, like a 911 that’d been
shunted up the backside by an HGV.
It was 1974 before the car made it to production, now
sporting bigger air intakes to cool the hungry V12, and minus the concept’s
digital dash and periscope rear-view mirror.
‘We were learning as we went along,’ remembers Lamborghini’s
former test driver Valentino Balboni, of the Countach development process. ‘The
first cars were quite unstable because of the big power, poor chassis
stiffness, the weight distribution and the high-profile tyres. In fact those
early cars weren’t great to drive. The Miura was far better.’
By 1978, Lamborghini had it nailed. Drawing on experience
gained from building a Countach special for F1 boss Walter Wolf, it created the
LP400S. What the wide-bodied new car lost in design purity – and power, down
15bhp to 355bhp – it gained in presence. It also gained stability – those fat
arch extensions covered Pirelli’s legendary new 50-profile P7 tyre which, at a
massive 345mm wide at the rear, was 10mm wider than even the current
Aventador’s. Most came with the optional rear wing that further glued the rear
end to the tarmac. No matter that tests proved it actually cost 10mph of top
speed, making it significantly slower than a Miura. It looked like it added 30.
The V12 was boosted to 4.8 litres for 1982’s LP500S, but
it’s the 5000QV that appeared three years later which, for many, will always
define the breed. The Countach was over a decade old now, and don’t you just
know it as you slide beneath that door, always wondering how far your head
might roll should the strut breathe its last at an inauspicious moment. The
angular dashboard looks like something you might expect to find in one of the
Prova kit-car replicas you could have bought around the same time, the clutch
and gearshift disconcertingly stiff as you go to select a gear for the first
time.
Lamborghini Miura
headlights
A glance in the rear-view mirror reveals little about the
road, but much about the car, the view being filled with a huge hump on the QV
to cover the switch to downdraft Webers when the now 5.2-litre V12 gained its
four-valve (Quattro-valvole) cylinder heads. Ferrari’s Testarossa, a ground-up
new car introduced only the year before, made 390bhp. The Countach now put out
455.
Even today, in the context of a modern world so warped that
even hot hatches come with 350bhp, a QV feels quick. Really quick. Contemporary
tests recorded zero to 60mph in less than five Mississippis, and sufficient top
end go to cross the state’s 170 miles in less than an hour, having stopped to
fill the gargantuan 120-litre tank along the way.
More than simply fast though, the Countach feels angry, like
it’s tut-tutting at every fluffed gear change and early braking manoeuvre. And
the sound is something else altogether. When so many modern performance cars
have resorted to funnelling computer generated noise through their speakers,
what a joy it is to hear a brace of carbs sucking like they’re trying to ingest
the engine lid.
Lamborghini
Countach Rear Left Side View
