Lamborghini Countach

The Lamborghini Countach (pronounced KOON-tahsh) is a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive sports car built by Lamborghini between 1974 and 1990. It belongs to a series of exotic vehicles from the Italian design house Bertone, which helped make the sharply angled "Italian Wedge" shape popular. That wedge style first appeared publicly in 1970 on the Lancia Stratos Zero concept car. The Countach prototype, called the Lamborghini LP500, debuted at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show.

The Countach name was later reused in 2021 for a limited-production hybrid-electric model based on the Sián, known as the Countach LPI 800-4.

**Design and development** Ferruccio Lamborghini started the Countach project to replace the Miura. The Miura had been widely praised after its 1966 launch, but by 1970 it faced newer rivals like the Ferrari Daytona, and its design was aging. Chief engineer Paolo Stanzani and his team began work on the successor in 1970 under the project name "LP112." Stanzani worked with test driver Bob Wallace, assistant engineer Massimo Parenti, and Bertone designer Marcello Gandini.

Stanzani and Ferruccio Lamborghini agreed the new car needed a mechanical layout for maximum performance, plus a body that was both aerodynamically efficient and visually bold—the same principles that had made the Miura a commercial success. Although Lamborghini preferred comfortable grand tourers, he saw the market value of a more uncompromising sports car like the Miura and allowed Stanzani’s team to push further with the LP112 project. The resulting Countach kept the Miura’s rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout but added many new engineering and styling ideas. Lamborghini’s engineers fixed several Miura flaws, including poor high-speed stability, lift-off oversteer, limited maintenance access, uneven weight distribution, and cooling problems caused by the transverse engine.

After a year of intense work, the first Countach prototype—the LP500—was shown at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show. The team then spent three more years refining the radical prototype into the production-ready LP400 Countach, which arrived in 1974.

**Name** The Countach name came about in late 1970 or early 1971, early in the LP112 project. Most Lamborghini car names before and after refer to bulls or bullfighting, but Countach broke that tradition. It comes from the Piedmontese word *contacc* (pronounced [kʊŋˈtɑtʃ]), an exclamation of astonishment.

Designer Marcello Gandini explained the origin: while working nights on car show vehicles, the team joked around to stay cheerful. A tall profiler who made locks and spoke mostly Piedmontese often exclaimed "countach," meaning plague or contagion, but used to express amazement or admiration—like "goodness." Gandini jokingly suggested calling the car Countach. He asked Bob Wallace how it sounded to an English speaker, and Wallace said it in his own way. It worked. They wrote the name and stuck it on. Gandini noted that a young coworker may have actually suggested it first, but this is the true story.

Lamborghini used alphanumeric designations to distinguish Countach models. "LP" stands for *longitudinale posteriore* (Italian for "longitudinal rear"), referring to the engine’s orientation and placement in all Countach versions. For the prototype and early production cars, "LP" was followed by a three-digit number for engine displacement: "400" for 3.9-litre engines, "500" for 4.8- and 5-litre engines. So the first production model was the Lamborghini Countach LP400. As with the Miura, the letter "S" (for Sport) was added for later high-performance variants. This system changed with the 1985 LP5000 Quattrovalvole (also called the 5000QV), which had a 5.2-litre engine. The LP- prefix was dropped entirely for the 1988 25th Anniversary Edition, also known as the Anniversary.

**Styling** Marcello Gandini of Bertone styled the Countach. His earlier design for the Miura had been a commercial and critical success when it debuted in March 1966. After the Miura, Gandini experimented with a more angular, geometric style in concept cars for Lamborghini, Alfa Romeo, and Lancia. The 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo and 1970 Lancia Stratos Zero were direct styling predecessors to the Countach. Like the Countach, both were wedge-shaped, mid-engine designs.