The Lamborghini Countach LP400, the car is at last ready.

Format : 750 x 432

Size : 111 Kb

The Lamborghini Countach LP400.

A lot of work still had to be done before the Countach could go into even limited production. The show car was only a prototype and the engine that was installed into it blew up on the first tests, the car could be saved but the engine needed too much work to be made reliable enough for production, so they returned to the 4.0-Litre unit. As with the previous Miura, the engine cooling was another major problem, with the horizontally Format : 600 x 400 Size : 104 Kb mounted radiators, the engine immediately overheated. So they had to change the entire cooling system, switching to vertically mounted radiators, but they now grabbed air through two scoops and two NACA inlets behind the doors. Other outside changes were the installing of an effective windshieldwiper system with one big wiper and a smaller one, and a rear view mirror was put on the bodywork. A change that was less well visible was the raised 'bumper point' to reduce the nose slope, because at high speed the steering became very heavy. But apart from these changes the LP 500 was right to start with, the car was very fast, looked stunning and offered superior handling over the Miura SV. On the 1973 Geneva Auto Show, the first LP400 Countach prototype was shown, painted in a bright red and with a black suede interior. It showed the air intakes and the NACA ducts and had the 4.O-Litre engine installed, on the inside the digital gauges were removed and the periscope rear view mirror was also abandoned. After the show closed, Bob Wallace used this car to perform various hard road and track tests. These tests led to a second LP400 Countach, which now used the completely tubular chassis. Driving lights were now built into the front bumper, together with air intakes underneath it for the front brakes and the installed windshieldwiper was the same as on the actual production cars, while the first, red prototype used two wipers. This dark green with brown upholstery Countach was shown to the public on the 1973 Paris Auto Show. This specific prototype was used to construct the 'Master model', a wooden construction which the panel beaters used to form the body panels on. However some small changed were still made, the body was made 13 cm longer, and the curvature of the rear mudguard was raised a few centimeters. During the autumn of 1973 the first production prototype was constructed entirely in the Lamborghini factory, this car featured the final side window arrangement using three pieces of glass instead of Format : 750 x 397 Size : 137 Kb the previous two. Also the final interior styling was carried out, now the dashboard was equiped with American Stewart Warner instrumentation. This first production prototype was finished in a bright yellow with a natural brown upholstery, the dashboard was covered with a dark brown suede. This car is featured in the factory folder (see illustration) and was shown on 1974 Geneva Auto Show. It took the development team three long years to convert the LP500 into a salable car, but by this time, while the first LP400 Countach was shown on the 1974 Geneva Auto Show, Ferruccio Lamborghini sold his company to the Swiss Georges-Henri Rosetti and Rene Leimer. The future of Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini didn't look as bright as the yellow Countach, but it is this single model that kept the company alive. The first production Countach left the factory on April 11th, 1974 and was delivered to a customer in Milan.

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