Can You Believe That The Lamborghini Countach LP500 Has Turned 50?

Lamborghini is celebrating the 50^th anniversary of the Countach’s debut, which sent shockwaves to the automotive world when a bright yellow prototype made its first appearance at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show.

The Lamborghini Countach LP500 prototype was revealed at ten o’clock in the morning in the exhibition booth of Carrozzeria Bertone. Over at Lamborghini’s stand, another legendary model was revealed at the same time: the Miura SV. It’s fair to say that 1971 was a great year for Lamborghini.

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The reveal of the first Countach prototype was so successful that Lamborghini had to accelerate its development from prototype to production in order to satisfy customer demand.

Responsible for the iconic body lines is none other than Marcello Gandini, then Design Director of Carrozzeria Bertone. Gandini also decided to use the scissor doors instead of traditional ones, a feature that would characterize every V12 Lamborghini from that point onwards.

The prototype Countach LP500 was a much different car than the ones that entered production; for starters, it was based on a platform frame, instead of a tubular chassis, was powered by a one-of-a-kind 5.0-liter V12 engine that featured air intakes with a shark gill design, and had electronic instruments in the cabin.

The origin of the name ‘Countach’ lies in the dialect of Italy’s Piedmont region. Prior to its debut, the prototype was hidden in a shed for agricultural machinery on a farm during its final stages of assembly. When a farmer discovered the prototype sitting in that shed, he exclaimed in amazement “Countach!” – a word in Piedmontese dialect expressing wonderment. Gandini became aware of the farmer’s reaction to his prototype and decided to use ‘Countach’ as its name.

Lamborghini’s Countach project, internally named LP112, had legendary engineer Paolo Stanzani put in charge of its mechanical development. The production Countach LP400 eventually debuted three years later, in 1974.

As for the fate of the prototype Countach LP500, it was used by the company’s chief test driver Bob Wallace for every possible kind of road test. The prototype was later fitted with a more reliable 4.0-liter V12 engine for those tests but its career ended in early 1974 when Lamborghini used it for the crash tests necessary for homologation of the production cars and eventually was scrapped.