Lamborghini celebrates the Countach’s 50th birthday with a special
To start with the heavy news: no flip-up headlights for the new Countach. It is (unfortunately for the enthusiast, fortunately for the pedestrians) still forbidden to fit pop-up headlights on new cars. The good news: it’s a hell of a new Countach. Officially he listens to the name Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4. Only 112 are made – a reference to LP112, the internal code name of the original – and they cost more than $2.3 million each. And they’ve all been sold already.
The rear lights already reveal that the Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4 is actually a Sián at the bottom, which in turn is a thoroughly rebuilt Aventador. The engine is a 6.5-liter V12 that delivers 780 hp, supplemented by a 48-volt electric motor that throws another 34 hp and 35 Nm. The combined power is 814 hp and goes to all wheels. The ‘I’ in LPI therefore stands for ‘Ibrido’, Italian for hybrid.
The performance of the Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4
Numbers, you want numbers! But of course. With the info above you can imagine that they will not be childish. The Lamborghini Countach goes from 0 to 100 in 2.8 seconds. It does 0 to 200 in 8.6 seconds, and its top speed is 355 km/h. It weighs 1,595 kilograms dry, which equates to 1.95 kilograms per horsepower.
The design of the Lamborghini Countach LPI 800-4
The design is a mix of new and old. You immediately recognize a Countach by the low nose with the square elements, but also certainly by the white paint and the angular wheel arches. The air scoop on the side has been enlarged and therefore looks modern. The shape of the rear lights is typical Countach, but with the modern minimalist lamps. The hood on the back has a kind of old school slats in the well-known hexagonal shape.
Is the car special enough to be called Countach?
That’s an important question. Probably no other Lamborghini is cited more often than the Countach – it was one of the original poster cars. Even well into his retirement, he once again became one of the protagonists in The Wolf of Wall Street. You know the scene. Perhaps a converted Aventador is a bit too irreverent. Maybe it should have just been called ‘Aventador Cannonball Run’. Or ‘Aventador Ludes Edition’. Doesn’t take away from the fact that it’s a cool thing to see.
But what does Countach actually mean?
Most Lambos are named after fighting bulls from Spain. However, the Lamborghini Countach disrupts this tradition. the exclamation ‘contact!’ is a positive expletive in Piedmontese and means something like ‘all mighty’ or, perhaps more appropriately, ‘consumption’. The original designer Marcello Gandini picked up the term from a Piedmontese handyman who worked at Lamborghini at the time. The spelling was modified to ensure correct pronunciation in other languages, and so the name was born.
