Countach LP5000 QV.
A 1985 car that had not seen proper mechanical service since 1994. Eleven months to undo three decades of well-intentioned neglect.
Our Countach client has been with us since 2013. Twelve years ago he asked Marco to drive the car. Marco said: "Not until we service it." It took another decade for the client to agree.
The LP5000 QV had been in the client's garage since 1991, when he bought it from its second owner in Greenwich, Connecticut. It had accumulated 23,400 miles at that time. Between 1991 and 2024 it accumulated another 6,800 miles — and in those 33 years, the car received exactly one major service, in 1994, at a shop in Fort Lauderdale that is no longer in business.
What the client has been telling himself for three decades is a version of the story most Countach owners tell themselves: the car starts, it drives, it's low-mileage, it doesn't need anything. And from a certain angle he was right. The 4.8L V12 was in excellent condition for its age. The car had never been crashed, never been resprayed, never been improperly repaired. But mechanical systems don't measure time in miles. They measure it in years, and specifically in years that hoses and seals and rubber bushings and wiring-harness insulation and fuel-system components and every other organic material in the car have been slowly, quietly, aging.
In September 2024, the car developed a fuel leak. Our client called Marco. Marco drove to Boca, looked at the car, and said what he'd been saying for eleven years: if you want to drive this car — not just own it, but drive it — you need to let us service it properly. This time, the client said yes.
Build specification
A Countach is not a Ferrari. A Countach is an artisan artifact.
Every Countach was hand-assembled at Sant'Agata by a small team of fabricators whose main skill was coaxing a fundamentally cantankerous race-derived powertrain into a road-driveable package. The cars were never designed for mass manufacture. Part tolerances are loose. Factory service intervals are theoretical. Wiring harnesses are routed by eye rather than by drawing. Carburetor jetting was tuned by ear on the dyno and stamped with a mechanic's initials.
This matters enormously for restoration and service work. You cannot assume any two Countaches are mechanically identical, even within the same model year. You cannot assume any replacement part will fit without adjustment. You cannot order a factory-spec fuel line and trust that it will route correctly around the headers. Every mechanical intervention on a Countach requires period-appropriate skill — the kind that was scarce in 1985 and is considerably scarcer now.
We have one Countach client. Which means the shop has a Countach on its floor roughly once every four years for a scheduled visit. We're not pretending to be Countach specialists — we're not. But we've serviced this car for twelve years, we have the complete service history in our binders, and we've built a working relationship with Polo Storico Lamborghini in Sant'Agata for factory-correct parts supply. That's enough to do this work responsibly.
The carburetor question.
Modern Lamborghinis all run direct injection. The Countach LP5000 QV runs six Weber 44 IDF downdraft carburetors that Marco describes as "the most beautiful and the most frustrating thing you will ever see under a hood." They are mechanical masterpieces — each carb has its own float chamber, its own idle circuit, its own accelerator pump, and all six need to be balanced to within 1-2 CFM of each other for the engine to run correctly.
Rebuilding a bank of six Webers takes one experienced technician roughly 60 hours. The float chambers need to be cleaned ultrasonically. Needle valves need to be measured and replaced. Idle and main jets need to be matched. And after all of that mechanical work, the carbs need to be synchronized and tuned by ear on a running engine — which requires a technician who can hear a 1-cylinder lean condition in the exhaust note, balance it with a mixture screw adjustment, and then re-verify on the dyno.
Marco did this work personally, twice. The first sync was in September 2025. The second was in October, after we noticed a barely-audible lean stumble at 4,200 RPM that we couldn't diagnose over three weeks. Turned out to be a hairline crack in the accelerator-pump diaphragm on cylinder 4. Replaced, re-synced, problem resolved.
Eleven months, five major phases.
The Countach build was less granular than our restomod work because the car was structurally intact — the work was mechanical and systemic rather than structural. Five phases, each a major system.
Receiving, complete fluid audit, system documentation
Car arrived on December 3, 2024 via enclosed transport from the client's Boca home (a distance of roughly 35 miles; we could have driven it, but we don't move a Countach under its own power for a first intake). Full receiving inspection over two days. Every system photographed and cataloged. Fuel-leak diagnosis: source identified as a cracked rubber fuel line between the fuel pump and carburetor bank — a 40-year-old rubber hose that had simply finished its service life.
Complete fluid audit: engine oil was clean but tested as chemically aged (acid number high), transmission oil was original 1994 service, differential fluid black and contaminated, brake fluid boiled tar-dark, coolant the color of tea. No fluid in the car was in serviceable condition. This set the scope for the mechanical-reset approach.
Full removal, assessment, and carburetor bank rebuild
Engine removal on a Countach is non-trivial. The body-off-chassis design means the engine and transaxle come out as a unit through the rear with the body rolled forward on stands. This took three technicians two days and involved documenting the exact routing of every hose, wire, and line against the factory drawings (which Polo Storico provided us with a period-correct copy).
Engine on the stand for six weeks. V12 bottom end was in excellent condition — no bearing wear, no rod knock, compression within 3 PSI across all 12 cylinders. Top-end received new valve-stem seals, new timing-chain tensioners, new cam covers gaskets, new spark plugs, new ignition wires. Carburetor bank removed and fully rebuilt — six Weber 44 IDF carbs, each disassembled ultrasonically, cleaned, new needle-valve assemblies, matched jets, new accelerator-pump diaphragms, new float-bowl gaskets.
Complete fuel-system rebuild, cooling, drivetrain
Every flexible line in the fuel system was replaced — factory-spec rubber hose (not modern braided, which doesn't look period-correct) sourced through Polo Storico. Fuel pump replaced with new-production OEM unit. Fuel filter cleaned, fuel-tank interior inspected via borescope (clean, no rust, no sediment). Fuel injectors are not present on this car — the Webers are mechanical.
Cooling-system rebuild: new radiator (aluminum replacement — the original copper-brass was failing at the seams), new hoses throughout, new thermostat housing, new water pump. Drivetrain: transmission oil change, differential fluid, drive-shaft U-joint inspection and regrease, clutch hydraulic fluid. Brake system full flush with Pentosin DOT 4 Super, all rubber lines replaced, master cylinder rebuilt.
Re-install, initial tuning, carb synchronization
Engine-back-in took two days with three technicians. Every hose, wire, and line routed per the factory drawings. Initial fire-up was on August 14, 2025 — 41 years to the day since the car's factory production date, which the client pointed out was "probably a coincidence." Engine started on the third crank. Idled rough for the first two minutes as the carbs cleared, then settled.
Carburetor synchronization performed on our in-house chassis dyno over the following two weeks. Marco balanced all six throats to within 1 CFM, set mixture screws by cylinder-by-cylinder EGT reading, and tuned the jetting for Jupiter's summer air density. Final tune: smooth idle, clean pickup, no flat spots, factory-spec power curve within 3% of the 1985 production specification.
Accelerator-pump diaphragm, final tune, delivery
During our month of post-tune road testing, Marco identified a barely-audible lean stumble at 4,200 RPM that hadn't appeared on the dyno. Three weeks of diagnostic work — ignition, timing, fuel pressure, carb float levels, vacuum leaks — before we isolated it to a hairline crack in the accelerator-pump diaphragm on cylinder 4's carburetor. Replacement diaphragm sourced from Polo Storico (4-week lead time), installed, resynced, problem resolved.
Delivery on November 22, 2025. Full documentation binder — 89-page service log, every Polo Storico invoice, carburetor sync data sheet, pre- and post-service dyno traces, fluid baselines for future service planning. Client drove the car home. Reported afterward that it's the best the car has run since he bought it in 1991.
Four notes on servicing a Countach.
These are the things that matter for the next Countach we service — ours or otherwise. Four working observations from eleven months with one of the most mechanically distinctive cars ever produced.
The only correct parts source
Polo Storico Lamborghini is the factory's heritage division in Sant'Agata. They hold original tooling, period-correct parts inventory, and — most importantly — the institutional knowledge to tell you whether a part you're ordering is right for your specific chassis. Every part we ordered for this build came through Polo Storico with a factory certificate of authenticity. The certificates live in the build binder. They matter for future provenance.
> POLO STORICO · SANT'AGATA · LEAD TIMES : 2-8 WEEKSForty hours of skill, not forty hours of work
Marco spent roughly forty hours tuning the six Webers. This wasn't forty hours of turning bolts. This was forty hours of listening — engine running on the dyno, mixture screw adjustment, exhaust-tone analysis, iteration. Carburetor tuning is a dying skill. The next generation of Lamborghini technicians will not know how to do it, because all modern Lamborghinis run electronic fuel injection. We're documenting our process for future Apex technicians.
> TUNING TIME : 42 HRS · METHOD : EAR + EGT · DYNO : IN-HOUSE CHASSISPeriod-correct over modern-improved
We deliberately used factory-spec rubber hose throughout the fuel and cooling systems, even when modern braided stainless alternatives would be functionally superior. The reason is aesthetic and philosophical. This is a 1985 Countach preserved to 1985 factory spec. Braided stainless hose looks wrong in a period engine bay. It signals to any future inspector — potential buyer, concours judge, insurance appraiser — that the car has been modernized. We preserve the look. We replace the rubber when it ages.
> SOURCE : POLO STORICO · REPLACE : EVERY 15 YEARS OR AT FAILUREDon't rebuild what doesn't need rebuilding
The V12 bottom end was in excellent condition after 40 years of intermittent use. Compression was strong, bearings were clean, cylinder walls showed no scoring. A less experienced shop might have suggested a precautionary rebuild — "it's out anyway" — for another $28,000 in labor. Marco specifically recommended against it. An original factory bottom-end has provenance value and a factory-quality assembly that aftermarket rebuilders can't replicate. If it's not broken, do not fix it.
> COMPRESSION : 165-168 PSI ALL CYLINDERS · BEARINGS : CLEAN · WALLS : NO SCOREBack on a proper service schedule for the first time in thirty years.
The delivered car is back on a proper maintenance cadence for the first time since 1994. Our three-year plan calls for annual fluid inspection, carburetor balance verification, and a full fluid change at 5,000 post-service miles (which will take the client roughly three years at his current driving pace).
We also built a fluid-baseline log: every fluid's initial condition, its Chemical aging trajectory, and the expected service interval for each given the car's use pattern. This gives us early-warning data on any system that starts aging faster than expected — a leaking seal, a developing coolant issue, a fuel-system anomaly — before it becomes a visible problem.
The 1985 build-plate signature is now in the binder. Marco photographed it during teardown — a small hand-stamped set of initials on the clutch bellhousing, signed by the Sant'Agata technician who assembled the car forty years ago. The client didn't know it was there. It's the kind of small detail that makes Countach ownership different from owning anything else.
Delivered with
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