Bet You Didn’t Know…
We all know of Lamborghini and its knack for making cool cars that look retro and futuristic at the same time. For over 50 years people have been collecting, racing, and dreaming of these beautiful machines.
Lamborghini has had an incredible hand in how car culture has been shaped and how we enthusiasts look at cars.
There is one car in particular that has captured the attention of everyone and it has continued to do so throughout the decades.
But first….a little background.
in the early 1960s, a man named, Ferruccio Lamborghini made his living maintaining and selling tractors. With the market for tractors and farming equipment so high during those days, Ferruccio made a killing.
So in celebration of his fortune, he bought a few V12 Ferraris.
Now we all know that Ferrari and Lamborghini are arch nemeses. It’s like the Joker to Batman, General Zod to Superman, Ulysses Klaue to Black Panther, and the Assessor to Miles Morales.
They’ve never been able to get along, but here is the founding father of Lamborghini buying Ferraris. Don’t get your panties in a bunch, because this is the beginning of the beginning.
Back to the story.
So he bought his Ferraris, and they were great! One problem.
The clutch in the cars constantly failed and getting them fixed -obviously- cost him a lot of money.
Ferruccio worked on tractors, so he knew his parts and his way around cars, so he did a bit of digging. Turns out the clutch was much too small to handle the torque of a V12 Ferrari and being the awesome dude he was, he improvised.
As I mentioned, tractors were his thing and so he took a clutch from a tractor -yes, a tractor- and slapped on the Ferraris.
It worked like a charm.
Ferruccio had found the solution to Enzo Ferrari’s dilemma and being the cool and nice dude he was, he went to Enzo himself and said: “Um yeah, your cars’ clutches are way too small, so what I did was put a tractor clutch on your car. Dude, it worked. Your welcome!”
Okay, that’s not what he said word for word but you get the gist.
You would think that Enzo would shower him with compliments and gratitude, right?
No, the dude rejected him. Matter of fact what he said was “Let me make the cars. You, stick to making tractors.” But in an Italian accent.
Now that doesn’t sound right. If some dude comes and solves a problem for you, you should be grateful. Not in Enzo’s case.
Ferruccio was furious and so he vowed that he would make a better car than Ferrari.
Pretty bold claim if you asked me, but he did what he had vowed to the world to do, and he kept doing it car after car.
The world has never been the same.
True to his word, Mr. Lamborghini put the Lamborghini Miura out into the world in 1967. Literally, every supercar after that copied the Miura’s formula which was a Mid-Engine, RWD (rear-wheel drive), and a V12.
The Lamborghini Miura had a top speed of 171mph making it the fastest car in its era.
Unfortunately, the Miura was a murder box on wheels. I’m not joking
Early Mid-Engine cars were well known for their unnecessary and unprovoked spinning and the Miura was not at all exempt. If anything it was one of the worst.
While most would see this as an absolute fail, Mr. Lamborghini saw it as an opportunity to make a car better and more efficient in every way.
And so he went back to work, rubbing his success and awesomeness in Enzo Ferrari’s face. Lamborghini’s head engineer, Paolo Stanzani was able to find the problem with the uncontrollable spins, saying that weight distribution was to blame.
Unsurprisingly… He was right.
After the Miura’s huge success, Mr.Lamborghini assigned Paola Stanzani and Marcello Gandini to create a concept car that would blow everyone away.
In a non-homicidal way.
And so, because Paolo and Marcello were working so hard on the assignment, Marcello moved in with Stanzani.
Can you imagine having a roommate that won’t get tired of your rants about cars?
The life.
Soon after, the Lamborghini LP112 was born. Albeit not the best name for a car but its looks totally made up for the name. It was retro while modern.
And it had butterfly doors.
Now, when Marcello and Paolo unveiled the LP112 prototype someone in the room shouted “COUNTACH” which is a swear word in an old Italian dialect that means: HOLY S —
Ferruccio knew that the “LP112” was kinda a sucky name and so he said “Yep, we're gonna call it…the Lamborghini Countach” Pretty much tricking everyone into swearing whenever they say the cars name.
The new car was talked about throughout the world, but the inside is just as beautiful as the outside.
The engine of the car had a 4.9liter, 440hp, V12 engine, 5-speed manual transmission, and four-wheel brake discs.
Like a boss, Ferruccio Lamborghini said, “Freak you Enzo, I’ma do it better.” and he did.
But to close out I thought you should know…
That you said Holy S — three times already, just from reading this article.
Shame on you.
