1988.5 Lamborghini Countach LP5000 QV Highlights of this Car -Factory Electronic Climate Control -Factory Gold Wheels The Countach was styled by Marcello Gandini of the Bertone design studio, the same designer and studio that designed the Miura. Gandini was then a young, inexperienced designer – not very experienced in the practical, ergonomic aspects of automobile design, but at the same time unhindered by them. Gandini produced a striking design. The Countach shape was wide and low (42.1 inches (1.07 m)), but not very long (only 163 inches (4.1 m)). Its angular and wedge-shaped body was made almost entirely of flat, trapezoidal panels. The doors, a Lamborghini trademark first started with the Countach, were scissor doors: hinged at the front with horizontal hinges, so that they lifted up and tilted forwards. The main reason is the car’s tubular spaceframe chassis results in very high and wide door sills. It was also partly for style, and partly because the width of the car made conventional doors impossible to use in an even slightly confined space. Care needed to be taken, though, in opening the doors with a low roof overhead. The car’s poor rear visibility and wide sills led to drivers adopting a method of reversing the car for parking by opening the door, sitting on the sill, and reversing while looking over the back of the car from outside. The Countach’s styling and visual impression caused it to become an icon of great design to almost everyone except automotive engineers. The superior performance characteristics of later Lamborghini models (such as the Diablo, or the Murcielago) appealed to performance car drivers and engineers, but they never had the originality or outrageousness that gave the Countach its distinction. The different impressions left by the various Lamborghini models have generated numerous debates and disagreements over what constitutes “classic” or “great” automotive design (elegant looks and style, versus technical and engineering superiority).
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Location: Ontario, California, United States
