One to Buy: Blu Tahiti 1976 Lamborghini Countach LP400
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When the prototype Countach LP500 broke cover at the Geneva Motor Show in March 1971, Lamborghini re-wrote the rules for production car design radicalism.
At this stage, the wedge design language pioneered by another Bertone design (the Alfa Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale-based Carabo) was still in its relative infancy and practically everything to have emerged from Europe’s top styling houses thus far had been conceived as pure concept art.
Somewhat inevitably, unforeseen technical challenges meant that the first Countach production cars did not emerge until spring 1974, but for the rest of the 1970s through to the late 1980s, Lamborghini’s scissor-doored flagship was arguably the most widely recognisable and universally desired sports car on the planet.
Today, it is the original narrow-bodied Countach, the LP400, that is most generally sought after on accout of its design purity and low production numbers.
One such example, chassis 1120172, is set to go under the hammer at RM Sotheby’s Miami auction between March 1st and 2nd.
Configured in the sensational colour scheme of Blu Tahiti over a Tobacco leather interior, chassis 1120172 was also specified with air-conditioning and two exterior mirrors. It was completed on December 22nd 1975 and dispatched to Canada.
The car’s first owner was Paul Marshall of Toronto who was a paraplegic and had hand controls installed. He retained it until the early 1990s, since which time it has resided with just two additional collectors and been restored.
