Thursday, April 10, 2008

MYTHICAL: LAMBORGINI COUNTACH

The Lamborghini Countach was a mid engined sports car produced by Italian automaker Lamborghini from 1974 to 1990. The design of the Countach popularized, but did not pioneer, the wedge-shaped, sharply angled look popular in many high performance supercars. The "cabin-forward" design concept, which pushes the passenger compartment forward in order to accommodate a larger engine, was also popularized by the Countach.

The word countach (pronounced ˈkun.tɑʃ) is an exclamation of astonishment in the local Piedmontese language - generally used by men on seeing an extremely beautiful woman. While the term is often considered untranslatable into English, it is essentially equivalent to the British lager lout verbalization "Fwwaaaa", or it can also be considered the verbal equivalent of aWolf Whistle.

The Countach name stuck when Nuccio Bertone first saw "Project 112" in his studio. The prototype was introduced to the world at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show. Most previous Lamborghini car names were associated with bulls and bullfighting.

In 2004, Sports Car International named this car number three on the list of Top Sports Cars of the 1970s, and it was listed as number ten on their list of Top Sports Cars of the 1980s.

The Countach has been discontinued for 18 years and still enjoys a massive fan appreciation.

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