While the movie poster showed the Countach S in red, the actual car in the movie, chassis number 1121112, was a black 1979 Lamborghini Countach LP400 S, originally delivered to SEA Auto, the Lamborghini distributor for Rome, Italy, who almost immediately had the car exported to the United States of America. This black over mustard yellow Countach S ended up with her first owner in Florida, a close friend of Hal Needham and the latter would make this Countach unforgettable, this Raging Bull was set to make history.

Back in the early Eighties, the speed limit in the United States of America was set at 55 mph (or 88 km/h), which isn’t much, let’s face it, so Brock Yates gathered a number of car enthusiasts to race across the US from East to West in the least amount of time naturally, that meant breaking the speed limit just about constantly, but police enforced the limit rigorously, so the drivers had to be inventive on the roads between downtown Manhattan in New York and a marina on the Pacific Ocean at Redondo Beach in California.

This illegal race caught the attention of Hollywood screenwriters who saw an interesting opportunity to put together a fictional plot where famous movie actors of the time would compete against each other behind the wheel of some of the most iconic cars of that era, and with a release date of June 1981, what car would be more iconic than the Lamborghini Countach, more so the latest model, the LP400 S with her wide wheel arches, massive rear wheels, the big rear wing, and those iconic, upward-opening doors.

This black Lamborghini Countach S was a 1979 model, so when filming began on the Cannonball Run, this car was virtually still brand new when the owner ‘lend’ her to Hal Needham who was directing this movie, but they decided the factory original Countach wasn’t wild enough for the movie, so they modified her adding a spoiler to the front with additional lights, probably for more visibility during night-time driving.

But they didn’t end there, remember this was an illegal race, and while cell phones were first made as early as 1973, they didn’t become popular until the 90s, so racers would use CB radios to communicate with each other, hence the addition of three massively long antennas to the Countach, and to make that famous V12 engine really loud a total of 12 exhaust pipes were fitted for the movie in which actress Adrienne Barbeau would regularly use her ‘assets’ to get out of a ticket.

Even while the movie was being recorded, the car changed hands, Ron Rice, the founder of the sunscreen brand Hawaiian Tropic loved this black Countach S so much he bought it from the original owner in a heartbeat and would hold onto this iconic supercar from Sant’Agata for the next 23 years. In comes Jeff Ippolitia, a Florida-based attorney and long-time Lamborghini enthusiast who started the Celebration Exotic Car Festival in Daytona Beach in 2004, who remembered seeing The Cannonball Run several times to admire the Countach.

For his charity event, Jeff wanted to have as many interesting cars as possible, and he found out Ron Rice lived in Florida, it took some networking but Jeff got Mr. Rice on the phone and convinced him to get his black Lamborghini Countach LP400 S out of the garage and onto the show grounds, which is where Jeff learned the car might be for sale so he got back in touch with Ron Rice and after some lengthy negotiations the famous movie car changed hands, only to be put through a two-year restoration by Tony Ierardi.

Ierardi stated “Obviously we didn’t want it to look like any other Countach. It had to look exactly as it did in the movie, with the 12 exhaust pipes and the CB radio antennae. It was a big deal for me to get to restore it—just unreal. I’ve owned five Countachs and I still get chills every time I see this one.”

As this is a 1979 Lamborghini Countach LP400 S, we are talking about one of the early ‘Low Body’, or Series 1 models, these rare cars sit about 2 inches lower on their chassis compared to later Countach S models, but this isn’t an S model with the periscope roof, and while very few Countach were fitted with that big wing on the front, this will forever be a rare car, a one-of-one famous movie car.

Ms. Diane Parker, Vice President of Hagerty Drivers Foundation states: “We help to shape the future of car culture by celebrating our automotive history. We provide programs and financial support in three focus areas: Car Culture, Education, Innovation. Every September, we celebrate automotive culture with our event where we showcase historically significant automobiles on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. Since 2009, 29 vehicles have been added to the National Historic Vehicle Register, a program created in partnership with the U.S. Department of the Interior and Library of Congress. We are now very proud to announce that our car no. 30 is the 1979 Lamborghini Countach LP 400 that starred in the 1981 movie ‘The Cannonball Run’“

Let’s go back to 1981 and enjoy this compilation of appearances of this black Lamborghini Countach LP400 S in The Cannonball Run, starting with the impressive opening scene:

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About 25 years after the last Countach left the production line in Sant’Agata these cars still turn heads wherever they go and this customized Lamborghini Countach LP400 S is no exception. This car actually had a Vortech charger installed on the massive V12 engine, this means the Vortech charger compresses air by forcing it into the engine using two closely fitted longitudinal screws, the blower is actually directly coupled to the engine, therefore it does consume a little horsepower to operate, but the output gain easily overcomes this.

An exact power output for this car is difficult, it does pump out 429 Bhp at a pressure of 0.45 bar, which is the limit to comply with the laws in Switzerland, however when running at 0.8 bar the power output is a staggering 523 Bhp, unfortunately at that pressure setting the car is no longer street legal in Switzerland so the owner keeps it running at 0.45 bar. Furthermore this car no longer has carburetors as the owner fitted an electronic fuel injection and two Motec Computers for the motor-management.

Note that the exterior and interior were also slightly tuned, this dark metallic car has a bright red interior, to get the interior to the same level as the engine tuning, the standard seats were removed and replaced by two Alcantara covered racing type bucket seats complete with four-point Sabelt seat belts.

The steering wheel was also replaced with a nice red one, covered in the same Alcantara, while the gear knob is now a Momo Fighter type unit, last but not least the pedals were removed and nice looking aluminum ones were installed, to finish the interior the door panels were covered in red leather with magnificent Carbon Fiber inserts.

Even a standard engine needs enough cool air but a charged one like this needs even more oxygen to keep it at normal working temperatures, therefore the owner had a very nice touch added to the car, the engine cover has been replaced by a new one that looks very much like the later Diablo Jota type one, with two air intakes feeding air directly onto the blowers that have been installed.

At first this magnificent piece of automotive artwork had standard wheel, but later on the owner changed these for the stunning custom ones seen on my photos (taken in 2001), fully chromed three-piece 17 inch units with a truly awesome rim width at the rear axle, front wheels are 9×17 inch with 235/40 tires covering special Alcon Race type disk brakes, while the massive rear wheels measure a whopping 13×17 inch and are shed with 335/35 tires, just like on the early Diablo models.

Also note the special aluminum fuel cap installed on this Countach as a final touch, all in all a very nice looking car that some may consider uninteresting because it is no longer standard, but if nobody ever modified anything on a Lamborghini Walter Wolf would have never given us the Countach S-Series.

This specific Countach is extremely quick and very easy to drive, the engine tuning is not overdone so driving and maintaining it is still rather easy and the engine has performed several thousands of kilometers without any problems whatsoever …

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The first car (nr.188) was finished in a bright red, with a black interior and was delivered to an Italian customer, but the second, finished in a brilliant Bugatti light-blue, with a natural leather upholstery with gold colored wheels and pin striping became the famous Walter Wolf Countach.
This specific car, nr. 202 was recently restructured by the factory and it still wears these original colors.

These two cars would in fact be considered to be the prototypes of what later would be developed into the Countach LP400 S production model.

The LP400 S was the first revision of the Lamborghini Countach, the differences between the LP400 and the LP400 S were not only visible on the outside, although that is where they were most obvious, but the entire suspension geometry had to be redone to cope with the very wide rear wheels.

Walter Wolf could actually be held responsible for the LP400 S to be launched by Automobili Lamborghini, he had two of his cars equipped with a custom built 5.0-Liter engine, just like the one Bob Wallace blew up in 1971. But what was more important, he also had wider Pirelli P7 tires installed on these cars, and had the complete suspension geometry redesigned by Dallara to be able to mount these massive wheels.

When he bought his third personalized Countach, he convinced Lamborghini SpA to take a look at commercializing ‘his’ modifications. But they didn’t follow the Walter Wolf ‘treatment’ completely, the wide Pirelli low-profile high-tech P7 tires were adopted, now mounted on new five-hole telephone-dial rims, as seen on the Bertone’s Bravo show car, the rear ones were 12 inch wide over a 15 inch height.

To be able to fully use the extra grip of these tires, Dallara had to return to Lamborghini SpA and completely redesign the suspension of the Countach, because of the massive width of these tires it was necessary to keep them as horizontal as possible on the tarmac at all times.

To complete the exterior changes, four large fiberglass wheel arch extenders were installed, the front ones connected by a deep chin spoiler, while the rear wing wasn’t available at the start of the LP400 S production, it was a popular option later on.

Note that the 3rd Wolf car, which was used as the Geneva car show, didn’t have the rear wing during that show, it was mounted later, after he took delivery of the car.

Demand for the LP400 S increased and also the rear wing seen on Wolf’s cars became a highly requested item, later Lamborghini SpA was forced to offer it as on option on the Countach, at first it was a large wing mounted on two vertical fins, later two end plates were added at the outer limits of the wing.

All these appendages, together with a slight decrease in engine power to 352 Bhp, to make the Countach easier to handle, made the LP400 S slower than the LP400, therefore Lamborghini decided to keep the LP400 in production along with the new S-type.

It is noteworthy however that some LP400 S models still had the original LP400 engine with 375 Bhp the original Weber carburetors with the high lift camshafts and higher compression, without any emission equipment, while later most cars imported into the United States had to be ‘federalized’ and power dropped even further to 325 Bhp.

All the special tacked-on items made the bodywork less aerodynamic, but the Countach now looked even more aggressive, ready to tear the road to pieces with it’s ground-hugging front spoiler and the widest tires in existence (345mm width still remains the widest available, even today) mounted at the rear.

The suspension was later raised three centimeters, because most customers damaged the deep front spoiler, hitting the sidewalk with it, also during the 1981 production run, the wheels were changed to a simpler design, which would be used right up to the LP 5000 QuattroValvole, note however that the first 24 cars had magnesium wheels, which in the late Seventies were about US $ 2000 each, afterward the wheels were made of aluminum, which were actually a lot cheaper than the exotic magnesium ones, the suspension was modified with new shock absorbers, way Assauto.

At that time the dashboard was also changed, and bigger Jaeger instrumentation (the LP400 used Stewart Warner ones) was installed, the speedometer now started at 20 km/h instead of 40 km/h as on the earlier ones, also different steering wheels were mounted during the LP400 S production.

The roof was raised another three centimeters on the inside, starting from chassis nr. 1121312, to improve the comfort of taller driver, but still nobody taller than 180 cm would fit into the tight cockpit, the tunnel in the roof, which the LP500 used for its rear view mirror, was actually removed and provided these three cm extra space.

The accelerator pedal became hinged from the top and the handbrake lever was moved to the right of the driver.

On the 1979 Frankfurt Auto Show, a silver-gray Countach was displayed with new, rectangular rear view mirrors, which would be installed on several cars. Next to this car was a turbo-charged V-12 engine, but it was actually only a mock-up, it was never functional, and the Lamborghini factory never produced a turbo-charged Countach.

Also note that the moment the LP400 S was available for sale, the demand of the original LP400 dropped dramatically, and a new demand was unintentionally created by Lamborghini SpA, several owners of the original LP400 Countach requested to have their car turned into an S-series look alike, now here things start getting complicated, some LP 400’s got the front spoiler and wheel arch extension, but not the expensive wheels and different suspension, while other LP400’s were ‘retrofitted’ with the entire S-series options.

The factory was also persuaded by several wealthy customers to convert brand new LP400’s into the LP400 S model, complete with front spoiler, wheel arches and massive rear wheels with the special setup suspension. You might wonder why? The answer was simple : these cars still had the 375 Bhp engine as mentioned earlier, so these would easily outperform any ‘original’ LP400 S on the open road.

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