Archived Road Test
From the December 1983 Issue of Car and Driver
You shouldn't have this car. Nobody should have this car. That's obvious from what happens to people when they are exposed to it. On the freeway, fellow motorists tuck into your blind spot, watching from where they can't be seen, all expression shocked right off their faces, powerless to do anything but stare. It's the same slack-jawed gape you'd get walking down Fifth Avenue with Pia Zadora, were she all dressed up in about eight yards of Saran Wrap. You wouldn't be the focus of attention by any means, but the straights would all be wondering what, exactly, kind of bad boy you are, anyway.
This is a bad boy's car, and everybody knows it. When you surface from the depths of its cockpit and put two feet on the earth's crust, folks with any sense back off a couple paces. They don't know what you might pull next, but, as far as they're concerned, just being seen at the wheel of such a thing is prima facie evidence that you're a regular traveler beyond the borders of good judgment, good sense, and good taste. Nobody on a mission from God would arrive in such a conveyance. It's too much: too low, too flat, too many slots and scoops, too much power in the engine, and too much rubber on the road. Wretched excess is what it is, and God would never commit such an affront—which leaves only one other guy, the big bad boy himself. So hide the women and the kids. There's a Lamborghini Countach 5000S on the loose, looking for heads to turn.
Actually, this is quite a significant automobile, a real world-record holder, number one on the planet's most-shocking-car list for ten solid years now. Production started late in 1973 and has continued ever since, never exceeding the 120-car-per-year limit of manufacturing capability, and it's been interrupted only by the factory's periodic lapses into bankruptcy. And those occurred before the Mimrans, a French family of enormous wealth, brought their resources to bear on the liquidity problems in 1981. Now, it's assumed, Lamborghini is well enough financed—and, more important, well enough managed—to ensure a continuing supply of these angry, slotted Countaches to automotive extremists everywhere.
It's a tough job, as Lamborghini's bumpy history will confirm, but somebody has to do it. Somebody has to be the farthest out in this already far-out corner of the car market, cater to that fringe element for whom too much is never quite enough. Lamborghini deserves to remain in operation purely on the basis of tactical wretched-excess superiority. Not only has the Countach been the flat-out farthest-out car on the market for ten years (which is like forever and a day in the extremism business), but it is so far out that all the others have conceded the market. Its continued presence has caused Lamborghini to be perceived as a company that will stop at nothing. Whether the Countach sprang from the everyday creativity of Lamborghini on the go or whether it was an outrageous bluff, the effect is the same: all the other exoticar makers have been intimidated back into the middle of the road.
Such easily appreciated extremism is what makes it the bad boys' Mailgram. You flash your Countach (pronounced Coon-tash by the importer), and everybody gets the message. You've got the speed of a telegram at a zillion times the price ($99,500). The speed means you can get a lot of people flashed in a day, too. Bad boys are always claiming to have the Fastest Car. This is an argument we are unable to settle for the time being, but we do have some significant observations on top speed. Although the U.S. importer has certified the Countach and plans to bring in at least 75 per year starting in January, there were no certified examples ready in time for our testing. Our driving was done in a six-Weber European-specification car rated at 368 hp at 7500 rpm; the U.S. version is said to have a torque curve at least as strong, but its power trails off above 6000 rpm to a peak of 348 hp. In any case, the Euro version maxed out at 150 mph—fast, but certainly not out of the range of Boxers and good-running 930 Porsches. Unbolting the optional (at $5500) wing from the rear increased speed to 160 mph with only a very minor loss in directional stability. Not ordering the wing has to be the cheapest speed secret in the world.
