Old Top Gear 1991 - Lamborghini Countach 20th Anniversary

ever since I began on Top Gear I've wanted to do a road test of one of these its Lamborghinis 140 mile an hour LM double o2 Colonel Gadhafi's got one you know anyway just when the opportunity presented itself they went and stopped making it so I've been forced to spend a couple of days playing around with their cars instead it's been hell sheer hell you can do something for love you can do something for money but there's nothing quite so satisfying as doing something out of spite were it not for spite one of the greatest legends in motoring might never had existed senior Ferruccio Lamborghini didn't like Enzo Ferrari and to smite him he set about making a better car now most people thought he was being a bit of a ninny but when he came up with the new aura they didn't anymore now they've been mid-engined racing cars before that this little baby was a first this was a mid-engined road car and what an engine 3.9 liters v12 a lot of carburetors 380 horsepower now all that equates to a top speed of a hundred and eighty miles an hour if you could keep the front wheels on the ground and naught to 60 in five seconds in the 1960s now in those days you could use that sort of power driving the Miura today is evocative nostalgic back then it must have been just damn good fun but then came the 70s complete with new pants and glam rock and to complement them perfectly the Lamborghini Countach now remember in 1971 everyone was driving around in Mach 2 for Tina's this was as big a leap forward as the Harrier Jump Jet was from the horse throughout its long 19 year life the Countach kept pace with technological change evolving from this the four liter LP 400 into this the anniversary completes with a 5.2 liter 48 valve v12 and looks that could turn the head of even the most dedicated motoring dunderhead now that's just not the nastiest car I've ever driven because obviously I've been in an S Micra but it's damn close it's a bit like driving a washing machine only the visibility is worse you can forget all about that letterbox they dare to call a rear window because you can't see anything out of that there's no rear three-quarter vision and the door mirrors wobble like hell I'm not joking Daryl Hannah could be sunbathing topless on the boot and I wouldn't have a clue but what I hear you ask is it like to drive well the answer comes in two parts because on the open road it's impossible and around town it's even more impossible the problem seems to be that the pipe cleaners which stick out of my torso masquerading as arms and legs are simply not up to the job of turning the steering wheel or just as importantly pushing the clutch pedal down it was however not designed as a town car the boot isn't even big enough for a packet of biscuits it was designed to go fast and it does that rather well so well in fact that if you push the loud pedal all the way to the floor it scares you to death 6 turning it's gonna call me Oh do the day then there's the style which let's face it is more Paul Gascoigne than Edward Fox if this was food it would be an ice cream sundae with a sparkler stuck in the top if it was music would it be rock and roll they don't get me wrong and blab the Countach was made I'm glad the world is still capable of such an outrage also glad I don't own one but most of all I'm glad it's now been consigned to the history books this is one it's called the Diablo and it's the fastest car in the world in Italy it's been officially clocked at 206 miles an hour but don't for one moment think I'm going to try that here what I am going to do is demonstrate just how fast the Diablo accelerates this is the Castle Combe racetrack in Wiltshire that is a Golf GTI and this is the difference between a fast car and a Lamborghini well that was something else but how did it do it well the Gulf's got a 1.8 liter four-cylinder engine this has a 5.7 liter v12 the golf develops 112 horsepower this develops nearly 500 the golf goes from nought to 60 in about 8 seconds this dusted in four then again the golf does 30 mpg and this doesn't but nevermind the performance the best bit is that unlike the Countach I can actually fit inside I can also operate the controls and most important of all I can see out which is useful when you're going quickly the question is could you really push this thing to its limits and would every 19-year old male with a moustache that looks like an earwig kindly stop nodding now please because my bet is you couldn't it doesn't matter though because what we have here is nothing more than a toy it's just that at 157 thousand pounds it's a few runs further up the ladder from a train set this is a man this is a man you

Channel: celticmadliam

Views: 733,697

Rating: 4.8751221 out of 5

Keywords: old top gear, 1991, Lamborghini, countach, 20th anniversary, jeremy clarkson, tiff needell, Chris Goffey, william woodward, season 14, episode 13, supercar, classic top gear, v8, fast, BBC, epic

Id: 6F13d1LFlXc

Length: 8min 38sec (518 seconds)

Published: Mon Oct 04 2010