This car, Lot 244, sold for $577,000, including buyer’s premium, at RM Sotheby’s Coral Gables, FL, auction, on February 28, 2025.
Few cars have made as much of an impact on the automotive world as the Lamborghini Countach. It doesn’t matter where you are or what you are doing — driving a Countach will always put you on center stage. The design, still futuristic more than 50 years after being seen for the first time, can’t pass unnoticed. Even if you are trying to be invisible, the effect is much like entering a club with Margot Robbie on your arm and hoping not to be seen.
The Countach stormed the Geneva Motor Show in March 1971 where it was first shown. It was an “idea car,” created by the same people who in 1966 launched the Miura, aiming to see if the world was ready for such an amazing stylistic revolution. “With the Countach,” remembered stylist Marcello Gandini of Carrozzeria Bertone, “we left behind all the rounded shape of the 1960s, bringing to the world the wedge shape that will trademark the 1970s.” It would take three years of hard work for the “dream team” of young engineers Giampaolo Dallara and Paolo Stanzani and test driver Bob Wallace to finalize the product, formally named Countach LP 400, with production beginning in spring 1974.
The Wolf of Bologna
Lamborghini customers are often dreaming of something more, and in 1978 client Walter Wolf, a Canadian wealthy enough to run his own Formula 1 racing team, desired a better Countach. He hired Giampaolo Dallara, who had just quit Lamborghini to open his own engineering firm, to create something special and incredibly fast. Dallara took full advantage of Pirelli’s just-launched low-profile tire, the P7. “The benefits of the P7s,” said Dallara, “were not only the lower shoulder that allowed much better grip with the tarmac, but their bigger sizes that allowed much bigger disc brakes too. From a technical perspective, the increased grip forced another revolution, as the full suspension and brakes systems had to be optimized to better cope with the enhanced performance.”
But wider tires generate another issue: the necessity to fit them on the car. Wider fenders were also needed. “Don’t forget that the Wolf Countach was supposed to be a special car, a customer’s one-off,” declared Engineer Paolo Stanzani, Dallara’s right-hand man since the early days of Lamborghini — and the man who took over when Dallara left. “So, to fit the new tires, we simply added some profile to the wheelarches.” Then that iconic rear spoiler entered the scene and the result was amazing. So much so that customer requests for “replicas” of this supposed one-off flooded Lamborghini. The trademarks that would propel the Countach into legend were all there, remaining until July 4, 1989, when the last specimen left the production line.
Best of the breed
Among the several series of Countach, the 4.8-liter 5000 S and 5.2-liter, four-valve 5000QV are considered the best. They still provide the pure style of the early cars (lost in the later series of the QV and on the 25th Anniversary model) but, compared with earlier versions, provide more cockpit space. There are some very useful extra centimeters of ground clearance from the front spoiler to the hard tarmac, and of headroom for the driver. Besides that, they are amazingly fast and are equipped with bulletproof mechanicals.
Our subject car, a two-valve 5000 S delivered on June 1983, is now wearing a yellow-on-black color combination. This is a period-correct color scheme, available when the car was new, but is not original to this particular car. The auction catalog states that the car was originally supplied in “black on black.” But the Lamborghini build sheet reports the car to be delivered in red on red to the famous EmilianAuto of Bologna dealership.
The catalog also states it is one of 321 units manufactured, but the Lamborghini museum’s reference book reports 323 5000 S units manufactured. Besides the above, the car shows minimal use with just 19,000 miles, along with certified maintenance records that are often neglected on lower-mileage cars. This should leave plenty of hassle-free miles for the new owner.
A bull market?
Now the usual question: Was it a good purchase? Yes, definitely. Not only because it was a decent sale price, but because this is a solid car, complete with the iconic rear spoiler. If the color combination is too much, the original red (or black?) is just a paint job away.
To me, this series of Countach is still undervalued, and I believe that they will regularly reach the symbolic million-dollar mark in quite a short time. They are rare, reliable, fantastic to drive, incredible to look at and are an important part of sports-car history. And we can’t forget that today’s Lamborghinis are, from a stylistic perspective, still clearly referring to this historic model in their main design traits.
