MITJA BORKERT, DIRECTOR, LAMBORGHINI CENTRO STILE
Were you nervous before you showed the design to Marcello Gandini?
“Like a young boy! For me, Marcello Gandini is the greatest. I was happy when he liked the car, and he has said that he likes that I’m taking his philosophy into the future – that I’m studying his designs. For me, his style remains the ideal one.”
Stephan Winkelmann is on the record as hating retro design, so what was his reaction when he discovered this project was under way? “Let me say that the work began before Stephan, but we have finished the car with Stephan. If he didn’t like it, it wouldn’t have happened… Most of the work was done in the lockdown period, which was a huge complication: I was in Germany, I had designers in Sant’agata and others in the south of Italy, South Korea and the US. There were lots of online meetings and 3D printing.”
How do you pay homage without creating a pastiche? “I always hear the retro discussion, but in my opinion if a designer is doing it in a good way, a true modern interpretation, it’s absolutely fine, and the Countach is this. I was in love with the 2005 Ford GT – a car that I’m really lusting for. Then at Porsche, I worked on the 917 Concept, the 904 Living Legend and the 911 Safari. They were celebrating the past with a modernistic approach. When I went to Lamborghini, I had this idea of doing a Countach, inspired by this philosophy of celebrating the past without being trapped in it.”
Did you have a picture of the original Countach on your bedroom wall as a child? “No! I was born in East Germany, so there was no Countach, no Porsches, nothing like that. Seeing a
Mazda or a Citroën BX was as exotic as it got. I grew up behind the Iron Curtain. My brother would bring me Hungarian car magazines when he came back from military service, and I would cut out all the pictures and make my own car catalogues. But there was never any Countach. The first Lambo I remember was the LM002.”