Lamborghini recently brought back the Countach name to a modern, Sian-based hybrid supercar loaded with stylistic references to the wedge-shaped automotive icon.
For any purists who decried that revival as a bastardization of a classic, Lamborghini has meticulously remade a prototypical Countach concept that’s as authentic as it gets.
As the rear-engined Miura was undergoing updates in the last half of its life cycle, the Countach LP 500 was introduced as an “idea car” at Geneva in 1971. The successor to the world’s first supercar featured a radical mid-engined layout and the angular form that would become a signature of Lamborghini design.
Automotive outlets went bonkers for it, publishing the period equivalent of viral photos that circulated worldwide. But after three years of development, the LP 500 was sacrificed in crash tests in 1974, shortly before Countach production began.
So where did this “new” Coutach LP 500 come from? According to Lamborghini, a “classic car aficionado and important” (read: rich) customer asked the Italian marque’s Polo Storico restoration division to make an LP 500 from scratch.
A 25,000-hour-long process began with a gathering of available photos, documents, sketches, and consultations with experts.
“The collection of documents was crucial,” said Giuliano Cassataro, Head of Service and Polo Storico. “There had been so much attention paid to all the details of the car, to their overall consistency and to the technical specifications.”
Lamborghini Just Recreated The Original Countach Prototype
Lamborghini first remade the LP 500’s platform chassis, which is very different from the production version’s tubular chassis. Various “modern technological instruments” were used to design the body, but a “batallrista” actually beat it out with traditional sheet metal shaping techniques.
The “Giallo Fly Speciale” yellow color was also recreated after being carefully identified through archival searches. Polo Strico even went so far as to completely rebuild mechanical components when restoring original parts was not possible.
Only the Pirelli tires, which wear the LP 500’s original tread pattern, employ a modern compound.
“The Countach reinvented high-performance cars,” said CEO Stephan Winkelmann. “Bringing the reconstruction of the first Countach to the concept class of the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este, in the year we are celebrating the 50th anniversary of this model, is something extraordinary because it allows us to admire the legendary 1971 LP 500 in person for the first time in so many years.”
