This popped up in our social feed and we knew you had to see it. So sit back, hit the play button. and turn up the volume. Then play it again and send it to your friends. We’ll wait.
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We can tell you where. The clip starts on the westbound on-ramp of the Foothill Freeway (also known as Interstate 210) at Campus Avenue in Upland, California. We can also tell you that you’re looking at a glorious 1989 Ferrari F40 via an iPhone affixed to the dash of an equally sensational 1986 Lamborghini Countach. When? A few weekends ago, when the weather was particularly nice and the roads mostly empty due to California’s Safer at Home recommendations. As for the people behind the wheels? Well, that we can’t tell you, as part of the conditions for sharing this video. But if you’re familiar with car culture, especially the Southern California scene, you might know the owners.
1986 Lamborghini Countach
We can talk about the cars, too, as shot by Focus ‘N Fire Photography. The Countach is vintage 1986 and a 5000 Quattrovalvole model. It is powered by a longitudinally mounted 5.2-liter, 48-valve V-12 with six, dual-barrel downdraft carburetors. This makes it exceptionally unique, as most North American Countach examples of this vintage came with Bosch electronic fuel injection (which apparently made them less powerful). Speaking of power, in stock trim, carbureted 5.2-liter Countachs made somewhere in the neighborhood of 450 horsepower. Back in the day, we tested a fuel-injected 1990 Countach and it went from zero to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds and ran the quarter-mile in 13.3 seconds. For that performance, you could expect to pay around $150,000 (about $320,000 today) for a similar Countach in the late ’80s or early ’90s, and that would have been a pretty solid investment. Consider that a cherry, black 1990 Countach 25th Anniversary edition is currently on offer for just shy of $800,000 (it has just 84 miles).
With a tubular space frame, composite body panels (including Lexan side and hatch windows on some models), and a 2.9-liter (2936-cc) twin-turbo V-8 engine, the Ferrari F40 was the epitome of “race car for street” in the 1980s. And it had the numbers to match, as we profiled back in 2013. Thanks to its 478 horsepower and 474 lb-ft of torque (shocking numbers at the time) and estimated 2500-pound curb weight, Ferrari claimed the F40 could hit 60 mph in under four seconds on its way to a top speed of 201 mph. Cost? Well over $400,000 in 1989 dollars, or roughly $850K today.
What we love about these two accelerating briskly onto a wide open freeway is not just the Bianco chasing Rossa Corsa visual, but the sounds. The Countach’s wide-open throttle howl flares the nostrils, especially as the F40 keeps pulling away. And who doesn’t crack a smile at the sound of the Lamborghini’s horn? Ah, hell, watch it again.
Lamborghini Countach studio images by Michael Shaffer, miscellaneous Ferrari F40 images from file.
