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LAMBORGHINI COUNTACH
The Lamborghini Countach was a supercar produced by Lamborghini
in Italy. The first prototype emerged in 1971, and production
lasted until 1990. It did not pioneer but did popularize the
wedge-shaped, sharply angled look popular in many high performance
cars since.
The word Countach is an expletive of astonishment in the local
Italian dialect, and somehow the name stuck. The word is somewhat
akin to the American expression, "Holy cow!" All previous
Lamborghini names were associated with bullfighting (Ferruccio
Lamborghini being an aficionado of the sport).
In 2004, Sports Car International named this car number three
on the list of Top Sports Cars of the 1970s, and it was listed
as number ten on their list of Top Sports Cars of the 1980s.
The styling was by Marcello Gandini of the Bertone design
studio. Gandini was then a young, inexperienced designer-not
very experienced in the practical, ergonomic aspects of automobile
design, but at the same time unhindered by them. He produced
a quite striking design. The Countach shape was wide and low
(42.1 inches), but not very long. Its angular and wedge-shaped
body was made almost entirely of flat, trapezoidal panels.
There were curves, notably the smoothly coke-bottle wing line,
but the overall appearance was sharp.
The doors, a Countach trademark, were of a 'scissors' fashion-hinged
at the front with horizontal hinges, so that the doors lifted
up and tilted forwards. This was partly for style, but just
as much because the width of the car made conventional doors
impossible to use in an even slightly confined space. Care
needed to be taken, though, in opening the doors with a roof
overhead.
Drag, however, was quite poor for such a sleek-looking car-but
looking fast was more important to Lamborghini.
Power was by a Lamborghini designed and built 60° DOHC V12
engine mounted longitudinally in a mid-engined configuration.
For better weight distribution, the engine is actually 'backwards';
the output shaft is at the front, and the gearbox is in front
of the engine, the driveshaft running back through the engine's
sump to a differential at the rear. Although originally planned
as a 5 L power plant, the fist production cars used the Lamborghini
Miura's 4 L engine. Later advances increased the displacement
to 5 L and then (in the Quattrovalvole model) 5.2 L and four
valves per cylinder.
The Countach utilized a skin of aircraft-grade aluminum over
a tubular space-frame, as in a racing car. This is expensive
to build but is immensely strong and very light. The underbody
tray was fiberglass.
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