Lamborghini Countach
The Lamborghini Countach was a mid-engined sports car produced by Italian automaker Lamborghini from 1974 to 1989. Its design popularized, but did not pioneer, the wedge-shaped, sharply angled look popular in many high performance sports cars. The "cabin-forward" design concept, which pushes the passenger compartment forward in order to accommodate a larger engine, were also popularized by the Countach.
Style
The Countach was styled by Marcello Gandini of the Bertone design studio, the same designer and studio that designed the Miura. The Countach shape was wide and low (42.1 inches), but not very long. Its angular and wedge-shaped body was made almost entirely of flat, trapezoidal panels. There were curves, notably the smoothly coke-bottle wing line, but the overall appearance was sharp. The doors, a Countach trademark, were of a 'scissors' fashion-hinged at the front with horizontal hinges, so that the doors lifted up and tilted forwards. This was partly for style, but just as much because the width of the car made conventional doors impossible to use in an even slightly confined space. Care needed to be taken in opening the doors with a low roof overhead. Aerodynamics were still unfortunately unable to match the sleek looks of the car.
The Lamborghini Countach used a skin of aircraft-grade aluminum over a tubular space frame, as in a racing car. It was expensive to build, but was immensely strong and very light. The underbody tray was fiberglass.
The Lamborghini 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.
Mechanics
The rear wheels were driven by a traditional Lamborghini V-12 engine mounted longitudinally with a mid-engined configuration. For better weight distribution, the engine is pointed 'backwards'; the output shaft is at the front, and the gearbox is in front of the engine, the driveshaft running back through the engine's sump to a differential at the rear. Although, originally planned as a 5-liter powerplant, the first production cars used the Lamborghini Miura's 4-liter engine. Later advances increased the displacement to 5 liters and then to 5.2-liters with four valves per cylinder.