Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary | Spotted
One of the very last Countachs ever made - one of the very lowest mileage, too
There are some cars that everybody knows. Doesn’t matter if they don’t know where their dipstick is or when their tyres were changed, they’ll know some cars. You know the thing: a 911, a Mini, a Beetle, a Range Rover, the Ford Fiesta. The icons big and small. And there’s one more we’d add to that list: the Lamborghini Countach.
Alright, maybe not everybody would know it’s a Countach. But they’d know it was a Lamborghini. After the relatively dainty Miura this was the car that really established Lambo as the purveyor of mad, bad, unabashed supercars. Doesn’t matter if you know the Countach from Wolf of Wall Street, from Top Gear, or from car magazines. Everyone knows a Countach. Everyone, by and large, loves a Countach as well.
Its significance in the Lamborghini story is now being reflected in values. Supercars this wild, with manual gearboxes and nat-asp V12s and tyres as wide as they are tall, won’t happen again. If you’re 50 now, you were born at the same sort of time as a Countach; if you’re mid-30s you were born at the end of production. This is still the supercar for a lot of people, because it was on sale for so long (Lambo couldn’t replace it until the Chrysler cash), and now there’s a clamour for the best ones.
The early, very pretty Periscopos have been in demand for a while, but now they all are. As this is PH, you’ll probably know it as a 25th Anniversary, launched in 1988 to mark Lambo’s quarter century. For a while derided as the Countach that jumped the shark, all spoilers and silliness, it’s now being viewed in a slightly different light. Not just because Horacio Pagani worked on the composite bits and Sandro Munari helped on the chassis. But because the best Lamborghinis always come at the end of the production run; late Huracans and Aventadors even were very different beasts from the first ones. So with all the learnings from QV, 5000 S and so on, this should be the best of the bunch.
Especially as it’s barely been used. As a 1990 car, it’s one of the very last Countaches to leave Sant’Agata; the very final one, driven on PH in 2022, was chassis 12085 - this is 12031.Though ordered new in the UK, this Countach spent the first quarter century of its life in Japan, where it covered just a few hundred kilometres. Since then, and in the UK, it’s had just two more owners and not very much more driving. So here we have an unrestored Countach with barely 1,000 miles on it. Even by Lamborghini standards, that makes it a very special thing.
Crucially, too, money has been spent in recent years, so hopefully the stuff that can seize up through little use is in good order. To this day nothing will quite draw a crowd like a Countach, especially a red one. And if LHD is a bit scary for the UK, it makes this one perfect for a European road trip. The ideal thing for a factory visit, perhaps…
SPECIFICATION | LAMBORGHINI COUNTACH 25TH ANNIVERSARY
Engine: 5,167cc, V12
Transmission: 5-speed manual, rear-wheel drive
Power (hp): 455@7,000rpm
Torque (lb ft): 369@5,200rpm
MPG: 12.6mpg
CO2: Lots!
Year registered: 1990
Recorded mileage: 1,791km
Price new: c. £90,000
Yours for: £575,000
Of interest is the price. I was expecting £750k+. I know that prices of classics are softening, but I had always thought that this was confined to cars from the 60s and older. Clearly not.
Last point on this car - I wish it was the classic cream leather inside, rather than the black.
Of interest is the price. I was expecting £750k+. I know that prices of classics are softening, but I had always thought that this was confined to cars from the 60s and older. Clearly not.
Last point on this car - I wish it was the classic cream leather inside, rather than the black.
My ideal spec:
Of interest is the price. I was expecting £750k+. I know that prices of classics are softening, but I had always thought that this was confined to cars from the 60s and older. Clearly not.
Last point on this car - I wish it was the classic cream leather inside, rather than the black.
My ideal spec:
That 25 anniversary version makes you question the taste of horacio pagani. I love the 80s but this is a good example of the dubious fashion trends of those days.
Of interest is the price. I was expecting £750k+. I know that prices of classics are softening, but I had always thought that this was confined to cars from the 60s and older. Clearly not.
Last point on this car - I wish it was the classic cream leather inside, rather than the black.
My ideal spec:
I too never liked the Anniversary car with all the extra tat, that seems to be there just to differentiate it from the earlier cars, not to make it better as such.
That said, there is an orange one around London that never fails to draw a crowd and with every passing year, I'm less critical of the Anniversary design now. Sure, if you ever parked next to an earlier car it would be outshone..but how oftern do you ever see 2 Countaches together?
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