Sometimes you come across something so out of the ordinary that you literally boil with excitement, surprise and admiration at the same time. Something like a Lamborghini or a Ferrari from the 80s or 90s with supercharging always seemed to me something completely unrealistic. To buy a vintage Italian sports car without a couple of decades and throw almost all of Italy out of it – who would do such a thing, especially these days? In general, I dreamed of seeing this at the same time, and at the same time I never really hoped to admire such a miracle somewhere outside of arcade video games. I don’t know if you share my feelings when looking at the main character of this article, but I, comrades, was frankly stunned when I first saw this car. Personally, it seemed to me that I found something like a yeti or a unicorn. And yes, this is an original 74 Lamborghini Countach, not someone’s skillful assembly on the theme. It is she who is the icon of the 70s and 80s, the masterpiece of the wedge-shaped school of automotive engineering, the triumph of Bertone. However, it would seem that there is no American quarter-mile dragster. But not in our case.
Parachutes and wheelbarrow. It looks just as wild on a Lamborghini as it does on a supercharger.
I’ll tell you right away: As with most interesting and crazy projects, very, very little is known about our beauty. The owner is a man named Ted from Wisconsin. It is not known who he is, when he bought the car and why he suddenly decided to redesign it so radically. I found only two articles online that, in fact, repeat each other verbatim. And all that is written in them is a brief description of the technical stuffing of the car. Therefore, I can only retell it to you.
So, the engine. Where the Italian V12 went is unknown. But in its place was a large 7.4-liter Chevy supercharged 8-71 block with forged pistons with a compression ratio of seven and a half to one. It has an aluminum head, two 850 Double Pump carburettors from Holley, three cooling radiators (one in front and two smaller ones on the sides), and other nice little things like Eagle H-shaped connecting rods, Corvette disc brakes and stainless steel Manley valves. I’ll mention the double-key crankshaft separately – I’ve never written about it before. Although this is more likely due to the fact that in America such crankshafts are almost an everyday occurrence, so they are usually not mentioned in articles – a double key is installed on literally all engines with a capacity of more than eight hundred horsepower.
And yes, this Lamborghini has just such an engine. To be precise, 900 horsepower; twice as much as the Italian V12 produced. Apparently, apart from the French coilovers from Koni, the entire power and chassis of the car is entirely American. All that’s left of the Lamborghini is the body and the electrics – an alarm system, air conditioning, and heating…
Unfortunately, this is the end of the information about the car. Except that I personally would like to mention the front spoiler: it looks like an unusual detail. In the eighties, it was the most chic. If you watched the movie Cannonball Run in ’81, you may recall that the black Countach in that movie had exactly the same wing on its nose. And if you haven’t watched Cannonball Run, I strongly advise you to watch it. After all, such legends as Burt Reynolds, Farrah Fawcett, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis, and Peter Fonda starred side by side in the same film… and even the unknown Jackie Chan to anyone outside of China (unknown to anyone at that time, of course).
That’s it for me. We can only believe that in the future everything will not be so bad, and we will see something similar to this Lamborghini – or at least learn a little more details specifically about this car.
