Guess who’s back?

Half a century after the original was revealed, Lamborghini has a new Countach

LAMBORGHINI IS CELEBRATING THE 50th birthday of the Countach with this reimagined version based on the Aventador. The Countach LPI 800‑4, to use its full name, is the latest model in the company’s ‘few of’ series and will be built in the same vein as the Sián FKP 37, from which it borrows its mild‑ hybrid V12 powertrain and carbonfibre chassis. A total of 112 units of the new car will be made.

The original Countach first appeared at the 1971 Geneva motor show as a concept, penned by Marcello Gandini, who was leading the Italian design studio Bertone at the time. It represented a step change in car design and refined the doorstop aesthetic that Gandini had dabbled with on earlier concepts such as the Lancia HF Stratos Zero of 1970. The difference with the Countach was that it would reach production, in 1974, with only the subtlest of changes.

So how do you even begin to reimagine a car as significant as the Countach? It’s something Lamborghini’s in‑house Centro Stile team has approached with varying degrees of sensitivity, aided by not referencing just one of the Countach’s many forms, but many. And the very first example of the new car, as pictured here, earns extra historical kudos for its Bianco Siderale colour – a nod to the white paint specified by Ferruccio Lamborghini for his own Countach LP400 S II in 1980.