From the December 2022 issue of Car and Driver.
Wide, wedgy, and outrageous, the Countach wasn’t the first Lamborghini, but Marcello Gandini’s jaw-dropping design created the archetype the company has followed ever since. No new Countach could ever match the original in terms of the awestruck reaction that greeted the vehicle, named for a Piedmontese expletive uttered at the concept car. Which is why Lamborghini’s decision to produce a new Countach, the LPI 800-4, seemed dangerously close to heresy. The question is: Can the LPI 800-4 compare as an experience?
To answer it, we drove the LPI 800-4 alongside a historic Countach from Lamborghini’s own collection. This 1990 25th Anniversary Edition is the final original Countach built, and it’s normally exhibited in the factory museum. With just 6000 miles, it’s practically box-fresh. As the last version of the first Countach, it’s the most appropriate example to match with the new car.
Park them next to each other, and the differences are at least as obvious as the similarities. The LPI 800-4 Countach sits on the Aventador’s platform and shares its carbon-fiber tub. Years of evolution make it bigger in every plane. Yet there is also a visual kinship across the decades, with the LPI 800-4 clearly an homage rather than an attempted replica.
Mitja Borkert, Lamborghini’s design director, was able to riff on themes from throughout the Countach’s long life. There’s an LP5000S-like front end (despite the absence of pop-up headlights), hexagonal wheel arches, and raised air intakes reminiscent of the mid-’80s Quattrovalvole. According to the principles of modern car design, the new Countach features better proportions and more harmonious details than the clad-and-straked 25th Anniversary. But the older car is the one you can’t stop looking at.
In performance, it isn’t even close to being close. The LPI 800-4 gets the brawniest version of the Aventador’s magnificent 6.5-liter V-12, along with the supercapacitor hybrid system used in the Sián hypercar. The car drives like a turned-up Aventador, as the all-wheel-drive system delivers massive thrust with assurance. The closer the engine gets to its 8700-rpm limit, the angrier and more savage it becomes. While the electric motor’s modest 34-hp contribution is indiscernible from the V-12’s 769 horsepower, its torque does smooth the single-clutch automated manual’s gear changes, which are far less brutal than in the Aventador. Like every other modern Lambo, the LPI 800-4 has selectable drive modes, with the punchiest Corsa setting making it feel impressively wieldy on the small, tight 1.3-mile Autodromo di Modena we used for photography.
By comparison, the original Countach is woeful. The cramped cockpit is uncomfortable, and all but the shortest pilots will find their head grazing the roof, even with the seat in its lowest and most reclined position. It hails from a period before ergonomic considerations in supercars, and the driving position is heavily offset toward the center of the car due to the intrusion of the front wheel well. The footwell is so packed with its three pedals that there’s nowhere to put a resting clutch foot. The dogleg gearshift features a foldable tab to prevent a first-to-reverse flubbed shift; in a good indication of the cabin designers’ priorities, it sits ahead of a huge ashtray.
Rated at 449 horsepower, the old car’s V-12 is quieter at startup than the LPI 800-4’s and idles with a carbureted wuffle. U.S. Countaches as early as ’83 models got Bosch fuel injection to meet emission regs, but European models stuck with six Webers until the end. The throttle pedal is light, and response is immediate and keen. The engine pulls cleanly from low down and with impressive vigor as revs rise. It sounds great too—much softer than the newer car, with valvetrain clatter audible over the exhaust.
Yet everything else is just so much hard work. The clutch is a leg-press machine set to Lou Ferrigno. The unassisted steering is so heavy at maneuvering speeds that turning the wheel is painful. Even once the car is moving, tight corners bring it back to full Hulk weighting, and in Autodromo’s tight corners, few of the apexes are even grazed, let alone clipped. Between-corner speeds are limited by stopping rather than going, and the brake pedal’s mushy responses impart none of the confidence you’d want when pushing a valuable supercar on a tight track. Does it have ABS? Our chaperone, Mario Fasanetto, who started at Lamborghini in 1985 building Countach engines and today is the company’s chief test driver, just laughs.
The team in Sant’Agata never designed the Countach for the track, and it shows. The car is vastly better on roads, especially fast highways from the days when European limits were either nonexistent or largely discretionary for supercar owners. The 25th Anniversary’s claimed 183-mph top speed was likely just Ferrari baiting—the top speed we observed in a 1983 Countach 5000S was 160 mph. But even traveling at the lower velocities of the tamer 21st century, the Countach has the solid, planted feel you want for serious cruising pace.
Reaching a mountain road gives the modern car another chance to prove its dynamic superiority. The Strada Provinciale 26 near the Modenese village of Samone is a quiet road that combines hairpins and scenic views. It’s a backdrop that draws all the local supercar makers (we’ve previously been here with Ferrari and Pagani, as well as Lamborghini). But the Countaches have it to themselves today. After the vein-popping workout of the 25th Anniversary model, the new car feels lighter and more agile than a V-12 Lamborghini has any right to.
The original Countach is one of those cars that is awesome both despite and because of its flaws. Justifying its divinity requires the sort of tortuous logic that corrupt medieval priests would employ to render the unholy holy, and even one of the less loved versions of this unarguable icon still offers an unforgettable experience. By contrast, the LPI 800-4 feels too good—too well-engineered and slick to be a true successor to such a flawed gem, regardless of the new car’s handsome design. It’s a Countach, but it will never be the Countach.
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Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
