Lamborghini Countach: Everything you Need to Know | Up to Speed

- Before you continue, go ahead and hit the Like button. (bumping fist) My life is defined by numbers and the more numbers I get, the better I feel. (drum roll intro) (car zooms) It's the V12 Vixa that bothered Ferrari for almost two decades. They said normal doors, no way, let's make them go up. It is the most famous supercar the world has ever seen. So put on your '80s Ray-Bans and get ready to

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to catch up at the Lamborghini Tome Tower Show. (video game music) - Thanks to Factor for sponsoring today's video.

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with Factor. Head to go.factor75.com/donut120 and use code DONUT120 to get $120 off your order. Now I'm going to eat some of this. (logo theme song) (logo beeps): Lamborghini and Ferrari are like oil and water, locked in eternal competition. And the story of the Countach is the story of Lamborghini's failure to beat Ferrari in the face of constant financial struggles.

They weren't good at being a company. Sorry, we have an underdog story here, ladies and gentlemen, a supercar underdog story. And it all started in the early 60s. Ferruccio Lamborghini made a fortune selling tractors. He then bought some Ferrari V12s to celebrate. He loved the end of it, but his grip kept slipping away from her. Now, Ferruccio new machines, as I said, he was a tractor man. The clutch was too small to handle the V12 torque. Ferruccio looked out of the corner of his eye at an entire room full of tractor claws scratching his head and thought, "Hey, why not?" That's right, the guy put a tractor clutch on a Ferrari.

The best thing is that it worked. But, as good a guy as he was, Ferruccio figured Enzo Ferrari would appreciate some friendly mechanical advice, you

know

, from one machine man to another. Boy, was he wrong? Enzo snubbed him several times. When they finally met, Enzo said something that would change the sports car world forever. He said, "Let me make the cars. You keep building the tractors." (Ferruccio growls) At that time, Ferruccio promised to build a car better than Ferrari. The best high-

speed

road car the world has ever seen. The crazy thing is that he did it.

And then he kept doing it. Supercars literally didn't exist until Lamborghini launched the Miura in 1967. It was the first, and virtually every supercar of the 20th century copied its formula, okay. Mid engine, rear wheel drive, V12 horn. (car beeps) This car was incomparable in its beauty. Many people say it is the most beautiful car ever built. He has some damn eyelashes. It went 171 miles, making it the fastest production car in the old damn world. The Miura was an incredible car, but it had given Lamborghini a bit of a reputation for killing its customers, which is not a reputation you want to have if you make something, maybe poison.

Early motorized cars were famous for spinning without warning. And this first car was no exception. Lamborghini saw this problem as an opportunity to develop a new car that was better than the Miura in every way. Lamborghini's chief engineer, a guy named Paolo Stanzani, boiled the problem down to weight distribution. The Miura's drivetrain was mounted transversely in this manner, causing most of the weight to fall on the rear of the car. He thought that if he mounted the engine longitudinally this way and placed the transmission between the seats this way, the weight balance would improve and make a much less homicidal supercar.

Now, Ferruccio liked the sound of a less homicidal supercar and the Miura placement project was underway. Meanwhile, the guy who designed the Miura's sexy body was releasing crazy concept cars on the car show circuit. His name was Marcello Gandini. He was the head designer of your and my favorite Italian design house, Bertone. Maybe Gandini would like to design a crazy production car. Yes, he would do that a lot. He was so interested in the idea that one of his spaceship cars could go into production that he moved in with Stanzani, so they could design and engineer the car together.

Can you imagine what that was like in that house? Just summer nights, drinking wine from juice glasses, eating melon and serrano ham, talking about supercars and spaceships. It's the dream, really. Now, this was the result of all those nights. Lamborghi's LP112 machine. It's more like the name of a calculator than a space car. And luckily, the striking appearance of the LP112 inspired something better. (bulb beeps) When Bertone presented the LP112 prototype to Ferruccio Lamborghini in early 1971, someone in the room shouted "Countach," which is a swear word and an old Italian dialect that roughly translates to holy (beep).

Ferruccio liked the sound of the Lamborghini Countach, so they pursued it. Holy (beep), this is the Lamborghini, holy (beep). It's a perfect name for the car. Because when they debuted at the Geneva Motor Show that same year, the entire world was like, holy (bleep), aliens did this? Was it the grays or the reptilians? Watch the doors open. This may not be a real car, but it was a real car. It had a motor in

everything

. The newly renamed Countach LP500 had a 440-horsepower 4.9-liter V12 engine, a five-speed manual transmission, four-wheel disc brakes, and pretty much all the other things that make a real car a real car. .

Lamborghini couldn't afford to build a prototype just for the show. At that time they were on the verge of bankruptcy. Once again, they are not good businessmen. Thus, the LP 500 arrived on Italian roads during three years of brutal research and development, just after the Geneva Motor Show. Then it came to a bloody end with a crash test barrier to meet charging rules for the production car. Thus, the car that debuted in Geneva was also used in the crash test. But sadly, Ferruccio Lamborghini sold his dream car company to a rich friend in 1972. Lamborghini has changed hands a million times.

We made a video about it. It's one of my favorites, check it out. I'll leave the link down there. It's sad that he had to sell it, but the transaction gave the company the money it needed to launch its new supercar in 1974. The Countach LP400, check this out. It has eliminated all the so-called supercars of the 70s from the map. Is it like you see this map? This is my damn map. And you guys need to put it down, or I'll take you down! So they did it. It was a crazy mix of cutting-edge technology, futuristic design, and old-world craftsmanship.

The car's tubular steel chassis was hand-welded and weighed less than 200 pounds. Each aluminum panel was shaped by men with hammers and patience. And its impressive 3.9-liter, 8,000 RPM V12 was built by one man from start to finish. All of this was good for reaching a record top speed of 179 miles per hour. Now, meanwhile, in Marinello, Ferrari launched its first mid-engined road car badged as a district horse, the 365 GT4 BB. BB for Berlinetta Boxer, baby, boxer, because it had a 380 horsepower 4.4 liter flat 12 engine, which is weird and cool. I guess they sound like three Subarus. Ferrari's performance figures were almost identical to those of Lamborghi's machine.

But Lamborghi's machine hit all those metrics in this regard. - Oh yeah. - Put the two cars side by side, and the 365 is the obvious NPC. Three years after its production, no one has been able to take the top speed crown from the Countach, nor match its visual voodoo. That doesn't mean they were just relaxing in the jacuzzi, drinking wine from those little glasses. No, not all the time, just some of the time. But sometimes they also worked on improving the Countach to defend the crown. So when Pirelli released some revolutionary low-profile performance tires in 1975, Lamborghini modified the car to make them fit.

They had to adjust the suspension a bit and, more importantly, added these flared fenders to accommodate the wide kickbacks. This changed the Countach's presence a lot. It was no longer just a spaceship car. It was an extremely aggressive spaceship. Now, all this work came about in the search for a Canadian Formula One team owner with a sickly name, Walter Wolf. (wolf howls) He loved wide tires. He loved flares, but he thought the car was missing something very important. A big honking spoiler. Lambo engineers told him that the car already generated a lot of downforce at the rear and that adding a spoiler would only reduce it.

But he just looked at them with a stone face, like a damn wolf. He said, "Do it." And they said, "Will you give us money?" And he said, "Oh yeah, I'll give you a lot of money. He owned an F1 team." So Mr. Wolf took his big-wing Countach to almost every F1 race in the world in 1976. People saw it and said, "Shit," and I'll remind you that's the name of the car. And in 1978, the second generation of the Countach, the LP400 S, debuted with wider tires, beefy fenders, and an optional spoiler that did nothing more than reduce the car's top speed by 15 miles per hour.

Plus, it looks pretty good. The 400 S even received more attention than the OG Countach. This thing set the little, little, little pants on fire in the motoring world. A car guy in New York read about this, his pants caught fire. And he had one imported for illicit purposes. He was going to use it to win an illegal street race across the United States. Little race called Cannonball Run. Long story short, some automotive journalists were angry about the incredibly high national speed limits of 55 miles per hour and took action in 1974. And they wanted to prove that a good driver in a good car could use America's interstate highways like the Autobahns. .

So, they drove from New York City to Los Angeles, non-stop, in record time and wrote about their success. Then people started showing up in modified cars to challenge them every year. And Cannonball Run became an annual underground race. We did a whole podcast about it. Do you know we have a podcast? If you didn't do it, we will do it. Check it out wherever you listen to podcasts. It's called Past Gas. It is apparently the second most popular automotive podcast in the world. And the seventh leisure podcast, the most popular. (laughs) I'm coming for you Dupe, let it go!

Eventually, Hollywood caught wind of Cannonball Run and turned it into an absolutely crazy car chase movie. It came out in 1981, just like my sister. And this was the first thing that appeared on the screen. A 1978 Lamborghini Countach, or this moment here when the door opens, not out. When a woman in spandex spray-painted the speed limit sign, America said, "Yes, yes, yes, put that car on a sign (bleep)!" You act like America has never seen a car that looks like this before, remember? This was before the Internet. Back then, if you weren't in an absolutely crazy car chase movie, you didn't exist.

This scene with the Spandex lady and the spray paint, yeah! This scene turned the Lamborghini Countach into a pop culture phenomenon. Within a year, every child in America bought a Countach poster at this classic book fair, but they also got goosebumps. The Lamborghini Countach was so popular that it basically became a meme. It was everywhere. Here's one in Rocky. Here's one in Walker Texas Ranger. Here's a fake one on It's Always Sunny. But look, here's another one about fucking Arthur. And here's one, of course, in The Wolf of Wall Street. By the way, that's a real Countach.

Now, the studio could have saved a lot of money by destroying one of the thousands of Countach replicas in existence. But little Marty Scorsese said, "No, let's destroy the real one." At this point in the timeline, the Countach had set the entire world's pants on fire. It made Lamborghini a household name to the point that those not in the businessautomobiles called each wedge-shaped car Lamborghini. And thanks to Lamborghini, wedge-shaped cars were everywhere in the '80s. Now, okay, I want you to pretend you're Enzo Ferrari, okay? Walking, I don't know, let's say Chicago, okay. Drinking a little wine in one of those little cups, eating serrano ham and a little melon.

And someone pulls up in a bright red Ferrari 512BBI. It's your fastest and most refined road car yet. Alright, you're excited about it. Now you see how a crowd gathers around him and you can't help but smile. - That's a mine. - Then you hear some idiot from Chicago say, "Wow, that's a nice Lamborghini." There are no sunglasses in the world big enough to hide those tears. You turn to walk away, then a kid says, "No, that's a Ferrari, it's not that fast." And then boom, you shit your pants. (break wind) You're so fucking sad. Just evacuate all that melon and prosciutto.

It freezes before it even hits the ground. Then you slip and stay stuck to the ground. Pretty embarrassing, right? Well, that actually happened in 1984. Something had to be done. (sobs) And that something, was the 1984 Ferrari Testarossa. Now, as far as pop culture icons go, this mother effer is the only car that could perhaps compete with a Countach. They look sickly. I'm thinking about getting a tattoo of one. Testarossas were everywhere, okay. Here's one in Rocky. Here's one in Miami Vice. It was fast? Yes, it was fast! It had a 4.9-liter fuel-injected 12-cylinder engine that produced 390 horsepower.

It can go from zero to 60 in five seconds, Jack! It peaked at 181 miles per hour. That's a cover job for a pound. 181, what does it mean? Following the money. Is that faster than a Countach? No, it wasn't faster than a Countach, it was the same! Lambo abandoned the reinforced third evolution of his hero car when Ferrari was still working on the Testarossa. The 1982 LP500 rated 15 fewer people than the Ferrari, but matched its top speed from 0 to 60. Now, I should point out that the Countach was about 10 years old when the Testarossa dropped. (car booms) A car that was new in every way.

The Countach was truly ahead of its time. But in many ways, the Testarossa was simply a better car. I mean, I'm not thinking about getting a Countach tattoo on my arm, am I? On the one hand, this is much more aerodynamic. As slippery as the Countach looks, and now, we have to admit, that guy looks pretty slippery. It's not very slippery, just barely slippery. A Chevy Astro Van is not very slippery but it is more aerodynamic than a Countach. Google it, okay, Google it. Go to Google and type, is the Astro Van more aerodynamic than a Countach, the Enter?

What does it say? Click on the link? No, that's an advertisement! (sighs deeply) What does he say? Look, unfortunately Lamborghini knew that the Countach's aerodynamics weren't great, but since they were almost constantly on the verge of bankruptcy, they simply couldn't afford to fix it. By the late '80s, Lamborghi's machine had taken the Countach as far as it could go without a complete redesign. The last big performance increase came with the 85 Countach LP500 Quattrovalvole, and it was a big increase. Its first people went from 375 to 455, zero to 60 dropped to 4.2 seconds. And the top speed was 183. The crown of the fastest production car was still firmly in place, which is surprising.

Somehow, this motley crew of tractor drivers and enthusiasts had managed to keep their hand-built supercar at the top of the automotive pyramid for over a decade. When you consider how strapped for cash they were, you begin to realize how surprising it really is. Financial stability finally came when Chrysler bought Lamborghini in 1987. The guys wisely decided to use that money to develop a replacement for the Countach. It must have been an emotional decision. The Countach had become the heart and soul of Lamborghini. I mean, for a lot of people, it still is. But they were almost the styles of the 90s. (laughs) They were changing, honey.

Aerodynamic engineering was on the rise and Porsche had set the record for fastest production car with its monster 959. It was time to take the Countach into the countryside and (shoot) shoot it in the head (beep). On July 4, 1990, a metallic silver Countach rolled off the production line and passed a sign reading "Gratzi Countach," which roughly translates to "Thank you, saint (beep)." This was the last Countach ever made. Holy (bleep) indeed. (upbeat music) - Hey, do you want to do better this year? Well, listen up, pasta arms. Donut just released the ultimate gym outfit and I'm here to show you how to get it ready to make it work.

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