In the heady days at the heart of the gasoline era, when the world’s greatest engineers strained to tease as much horizontal speed as possible from fire itself, there was one car that inspired dreams in millions who would never even see one in person. Fewer than 2,000 were ever sold across 16 years of production. But for each actual car that rolled out of a dealership, there were probably tens of thousands of posters that went home with inspired teenagers.
It was called the Lamborghini Countach. Built from 1974 to 1990, it redefined the shape of cars. In its final form, it managed a 0-to-60 mph time of 4.7 seconds.
The end of the gasoline era seems to be in view. Those same engineers now play with lightning and get more horizontal speed out of it than they ever got with fire. There’s now a Kia hatchback with a lower 0-60 mph time than the fastest Countach. The quickest electric cars get there in less than half its time. And there is no true poster car for the beginning of the electricity era.
It’s about time for one. If anyone can inspire dreaming like that again, it’s probably the inheritors of the team that did it last time.
They’re going to try. Lamborghini has announced the return of the Countach name.
We prefer to report on cars most of our readers can afford, and this is almost certainly out of reach for all of us and most of you. But, if history is our guide, the new Countach will appear in few driveways, but millions of phone backgrounds. So, let’s indulge each other.
The original made its public debut as a concept car in 1971. Half a century later, its descendent will appear at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance (read: very expensive car show) next week.
The press has little to go on before the car appears. Lamborghini posted a video to Twitter this week showing the brief, distant glimpse above. It sent journalists a teaser image of the car covered in a white sheet, showing a distinctive Lambo silhouette. An image reportedly posted to Lambo’s customer-only app showed rear vents like the classic Countach of old. It also referred to the car as the Countach LPI 800-4.
In Lamborghini’s usual taxonomy, that suggests a hybrid model, with something approaching 800 horsepower and all-wheel-drive.
We’ll bring more after Pebble Beach.
