When Ferruccio Lamborghini decided that the brand needed a new bull in the bullring, his chief designer, Marcello Gandini, scrapped the blueprints for the Miura’s soft lines and developed sharper styling. more sharp – ‘Italian Wedge’, the first car with scissor doors or ‘Lambo’ doors.

The prototype was named LP 500, but was quickly renamed ‘Countach’ – an exclamation of wonder in the Italian dialect.

This 1973 Countach LP 400 is the earliest surviving prototype created to develop the Countach model. This car was painted red with a black interior and debuted in March 1973 at the Geneva Motor Show.

The car was repainted green (Verde Medio), light blue interior (Verde Chiaro) and displayed at the Paris Show, then Frankfurt and Earls Court, London.

This is the Countach photographed for the first Countach brochure, published in CAR Magazine, UK, in 1973 and used as the main model for all subsequent Countachs.

After the car’s launch, it was bought by Rene Leimer, a shareholder holding 49% of Lamborghini’s shares, and shipped to Switzerland. In 2000, this Countach was discovered in a warehouse in Switzerland, where it had been stored for many years. Automobilei Lamborghini acquired the Countach in 2004, 30 years after its first ownership.