Lucky bastard Tony sent in this letter and set of photos. I am very, very jealous of his toys! My daughter begged me to get a dunebuggy again (we had one when we lived in Mexico) when she saw his, but I really like his tube chassis Laser 917.
Having been a follower of your web site for a number of years, I thought I would take an opportunity to share with you some of my toys and a little history.
I live Northern California and have been into kit cars and dune buggies for many years and just recently had an opportunity to own/drive my dream car.
I was fortunate to find a rather well built Countach replica for sale at a very reasonable price in a nearby town. The Red Countach in the photos is built on a lengthened late model Fireo chassis with a fully adjustable coil-over shocks and aftermarket tubular front suspension. The engine is a 327 cubic inch Chevy connected to a 4 speed transmission. The pictures of this car do not do it justice, you would not believe the attention this car gets whenever it is out. I cannot think of a single trip out with the car that someone didn’t either want to have their picture taken with it or took a picture from their cell phone camera while I was stopped at a light or stop sign.
The car is horribly unpractical to drive on a regular basis and has blind spots that will drive you nuts. The car is so wide that you have to have a custom built platform from which to do even routine maintenance on the motor. Even cleaning the inside of the front windshield is a major task because the windshield is so raked back. I am not a little person by no means and not as flexible as I was when I was younger so getting in/out of this car is by no means an easy task either. For all the draw backs to this car, I would not have traded the experience of owning one for anything. The feeling you get from driving a car like this more satisfying than any inconvenience.
When I first got the car I told my wife I was going to have to loose some weight so I looked good getting in/out of the car. She pretty quickly reminded me that all I needed to look was married. Although she never drove the car and didn’t really want to, she enjoyed it too, mostly because when I drove it, it put me in a very good mood.
Unfortunately a planned future move forced me to have to sell the car which I did to a person back east. I have heard that the car is again for sale now at more than twice the price, I was asking for it. Hopefully it will find a good home someday. I look forward to owning another one when the time is right.
I will be working my Laser 917 which I have modified with a custom tubular frame, automatic transmission and stroked small block 350 Chevy. Not wanting to have to deal with a gantry, like you would need to work on the space shuttle, I am in the process of converting the car to open cockpit with a tilt back end for easy cockpit and motor access.
For right now my wife and I are just enjoying our street legal dune buggy for around town.
Tony
I don’t normally post videos here, but for this I’ll make an exception: If you thought getting in and out of a Lamborghini Countach was hard, don’t even bother trying to escape from a cheap-looking short-wheelbase Countach kit car! Sorry for laughing, but hahaha…
Speaking of Lamborghini Countach clones that aren’t really particularly accurate, but still have some level of charm, this Countess Countach (I think that’s what it is — the seller didn’t know, and actually thought it was a Panache variant) sold earlier this year for just under £2,000 in the UK. For now I’ve left this filed in “Mystery Cars” because I’m not sure if the ID is correct. There were a number of Countach copies called the “Countess” — this is of course not the high quality New Zealand based one!
More finished than the previously posted mystery car (and the same model), I’m definitely hoping that someone reading this can help ID this unknown Countach-inspired British kit car, also sent in by Joe Lee. It looks related to the Panache, and some people have suggested it could be a more recent version of that car, but I’m not sure.
Joe Lee sent me these pictures of an unidentified mystery Countach-inspired car out of the UK. If anyone knows what it is or anything about its history, please let us know!
Joe Lee sends in this collection of photos of various Countach-inspired — but definitely not replica — kit cars, most of them from the UK. Any help in identifying them is definitely appreciated!
Ok, so I wasn’t going to post, but then I saw this outrageously ugly “Lamborghini Countach style” kit car on eBay (#190231650810) and had to mention it. I’d say this easily out-uglies the simplified Countach, the Corbett Countach, and the recently posted British pseudo-Countach (and other oddballs like this DIY supercar). With an opening bid of $1,000 needed, my feeling is that the cost of getting this body shell looking decent is higher than it would cost to simply start from scratch. But who knows… to each their own.
Apparently it’s sitting on a tube chassis of some sort that hasn’t been completed, and may be set up for an Olds Toronado driveline. The seller bought it as is and it’s sat since — I guess they’ve come to their senses and are trying to dump the project, but I’d say it’s going to be a hard sell. The description says it was “molded from a Lamborghini”, but I don’t think there’s any chance of that. Pretty much every dimension is wrong.
Edit: This car has since been identified as a “Condor” kit car.
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