If you were a boy growing up in the mid-eighties, there’s a 99% chance you had a poster of one of these cars on your bedroom wall. An entire generation spent sleepless hours, culminating into months and maybe even years, staring at 27″ x 41″ prints of these earthbound spaceships—all wide-hipped, vented, intake’d and wedge-shaped. Like me, you may even have had both on your wall, but you definitely had a preference. Which one you dreamt about as a 4th grader likely determines your adulthood allegiances as well. Are you a Maranello man or a Sant’Agata guy?
First up is the Countach, the car which arguably defines the word “supercar”. This particular example is a 25th Anniversary 1989 model, featuring a fuel-injected quattrovalvole version of the venerable Bizzarrini-designed V12, whose heritage dates back to the very first Lamborghini, the 350 GT. Wearing a rather fussy, but very period-appropriate body kit designed by none other than Horacio Pagani, it still evokes a feeling of childlike wonderment all these years later. It’s simply, wheeled insanity.
Next is the thinking kid’s alternative supercar, the lovely Testarossa. Though far more conservative in its approach than the outlandish Countach, it was still far from conventional. Equipped with a centrally-mounted, longitudinal 180° V12 that is commonly, though incorrectly, referred to as a “boxer”, it featured opposing pistons mounted to a common crankpin, in contrast to a true boxer which have separate pins for each piston, thus creating the “boxing” motion. The Redhead is said by many to be the sweeter of the two to drive, with light and delicate controls in contrast to the Countach’s truck-like interfaces—a more cerebral experience relative to the visceral and animal-like Lambo.
Which eighties poster exotic do you prefer?
1989 Ferrari Testarossa
Click here for the Testarossa details.
1989 Lamborghini Countach
