A case of love it or hate it as two of the most famous ’80s supercars get blended into one
by Michael Fira, on LISTEN 04:17In the late ’80s, you most likely had either a Ferrari F40 or a Lamborghini Countach poster hanging on your wall. The likelihood of someone having both of these supercars hanging on his or her walls is slim simply because these were such different cars.
While the F40 was all about form following function, the Countach was the polar opposite as the over-the-top styling was not matched by either the driving experience or the performance. So, how do you feel about Abimelec Arellano’s attempt to blend the two into one?
More than just an F40 with flares
It's been 33 years since the Ferrari F40 was launched and 35 years since the world first caught glimpse of the Countach 5000 QV, arguably the most outlandish of the lot.
These two Italian wedges defined their era and have become cult classics in the automotive world, mechanical heroes of sorts that few dare to speak ill of.
Sure, it’s easier to come down and pummel the Countach for it’s a deceiving car. Clattered with vents and intakes, its tail is supposedly glued to the ground thanks to that delta-shaped rear wing. Then there are the wheels. the now-classic five-hole rims are hugged by tires so massive, Lamborghini had to glue huge, boxy flares to extend the width of the original Gandini design that couldn’t foresee the advent of tires the size of a coffee table. And all of that is what’s deceiving.
While there is a V-12 under the hood and you need to ungracefully slide through the tight opening created by the guillotine-like scissor door to get in, there’s not much to be cheerful about once there. Sure, the V-12 sounds great but the car isn’t that fast - at least not as fast as it looks - and it surely doesn’t handle too well.
On top of that, the controls are all over the place and the driving position is far from ideal. Add to that the litany of reliability problems often associated with supercars of that vintage and you get why the Countach is, perhaps, a hero you shouldn’t meet in the flesh.
The F40, on the other hand, has to be driven to be believed. While packing roughly 500 horsepower (yes, yes, the label says 470 something but that’s just a rare case of Ferrari not being boastful about one of its engines), less than half the oomph of today’s hypercars, the F40 drives like a kart.
A kart on steroids that's amped up on illegal substances but a kart nonetheless.
Nicola Materazzi came up with a design that lacks compromise meaning everything that’s there is there for a reason. With no BS to slow the car down, it’s supposedly able to reach 200 mph but even that doesn’t matter. What matters is that this 2,765-pound car from 1987 drives better than most modern cars. And it lacks driving aids or even the most basic safety features.
Digital designer Abimelec Arellano, or Abimelec Design on Instagram, thought it’d be a good idea to combine the visual insanity of the Countach with the more applied insanity of the F40.
The end result is a Frankenstein F40 with various Countach bits bolted on to it.
The body is that of the Ferrari but then you’ll see that the flares and the wheels are off the Countach. In the same way, the wing of the F40 is gone and in between its angled holding arms sits the V-shaped wing of the Countach.
Named the ’C0UNT4CH’, it should be the star car of all synth-wave or synth-pop videos ever and, while we can’t decide whether it should be powered by the Lambo’s 5.2-liter, 449 horsepower, N/A V-12 or the Ferrari’s 2.9-liter, twin-turbo V-8, it should definitely be fast.
Also, if we are to have a word on the design as a whole, we think the car should have more Lamborghini features added to it. For instance, while the artist hasn’t rendered an image of the ’C0UNT4CH’ with the doors open, we think the doors should be going up like on the real Countach and, similarly, the engine cover could be made to resemble that of the 5000 QV.
Lastly, how about some Countach lights in the front?
Source: Abimelec Design Instagram
