March of 2021 marks the 50th birthday of the immortal Countach. If that makes you feel old, well, it should. To say that the Lamborghini Countach had an impact is sort of like saying J. Robert Oppenheimer was good with chemicals. The Countach was a design and performance explosion that basically re-wrote what a sports car could be and set a new benchmark for what was cool enough to put on a poster.

Ain’t Noise Pollution . . .

I think it’s fair to say the Lamborghini Countach was the first supercar. It was more than a sports car, both in performance and more importantly, in terms of design. Before the Countach, even very high-performance sports cars looked conventional. Sure, you could tell a Ferrari Daytona was fast, but it was elegant, refined, and conservatively thought out. It was classical music. The Countach was rock and roll.
It was, at first glance, all flashy and show-off lines and “look-at-me” features like those scissor doors. The reception from seemingly everyone was, “You can’t be serious"” But the Lambo crew from Sant’Agata – designers Marcello Gandini (Bertone), Paolo Stanzani, and driver engineers Valentino Balboni and Bob Wallace – were as serious as a flying hammer.

50 years ago, at the Geneva Motor Show, the world was introduced to the Lamborghini Countach. At 10 a.m., in the exhibition space of Carrozzeria Bertone, this yellow Countach LP 500 prototype made its first public appea...