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Reprint:REVIEW: MAKE UP | IDEA LAMBORGHINI COUNTACH LP400S(Part 3.) Leave a comment

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The dashboard is the typical ‘box’ we’ve seen on all Lamborghini models, as this is an early LP400S, the dashboard has three, round air vents at the front of the windshield, very nicely detailed on this IDEA model, they almost look like you can open the vents and turn them. If you look really closely into the dashboard pod you’ll find original Stewart-Warner dials, correct on early cars like this, later Lamborghini fitted Jeager gauges.

These early Countach models didn’t have electric windows, so the plain door panel shows a lever to manually lower the small portion of the side window, while on the central console you get two large, silver-trimmed vents and a collection of buttons in front of the gear lever.  The Countach was a five-speed manual with reverse locked out by a lever.  If you weren’t experienced in this system, it would take two hands to get a Countach into reverse gear.

The interior on this IDEA Lamborghini Countach LP400S is very nicely detailed, it comes with cloth seatbelts and the seats and dashboard look like tan leather, with the correct satin gloss, in this era the stitching was usually tone on tone, so there is no detail there, and the Raging Bull crest on the headrests wasn’t done by Lamborghini on these 1978 Countach S either, so it all seems rather period-correct inside this IDEA model.

If you look through the holes in these Bravo-style wheels you can actually see the disc brakes, and the silver calipers, again, in 1978 there were no carbon-ceramic discs, nor flashy-painted calipers.  Some owners might paint the calipers on their Countach, but from the factory these were silver. What did impress me on this IDEA model was the use of metal-air valves on these wheels, and some very nice, silver bolts on them, that’s an amazing detail I really appreciate.

The Bottom Line

So why didn’t I give this model a full 10 out of 10, and only a 9 overall? It didn’t catch my attention at first glance, and it was only while I was post-processing the photo’s I noticed the tires, and something looked odd to me. And then I found it … IDEA fitted nicely treaded tires on this model, and it is a Pirelli pattern, however, from the Pirelli P-Zero as seen on the Countach 25th Anniversary in 1988, ten years later. The 1978 Countach LP400S would have come with Pirelli P7 tires, later on, replaced with the newer P7R ones, but none of the 235 Countach S models ever left the doors in Sant’Agata between 1978 and 1982 with Pirelli P-Zero tires.

But I think I know what happened here, IDEA most likely confirmed their scale model against a real Lamborghini Countach S recently, either a 1978 or a 1980 model (or both), and they saw the tires fitted on this car today and these will most likely be P-Zero tires because the Pirelli P7 tires in 345/35 15 size are extremely hard to find today, so it probably isn’t a mistake, but in my eyes an oversight, some bad research, so I gave it a 9.

I do firmly believe these IDEA 1:18 scale models can compete with MR easily, and when I see other Lamborghini models from this manufacturer I will try to get hold of it for my collection, this first one pleasantly surprised me.

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