Convoy! Revisited

It didn’t start well. We couldn’t find rooms at any of Modena’s hotels. No matter: Phillips, as a valued Lamborghini collega and regular visitor, had been entrusted with a key to the apartment of Rene Leimer, one of the two Swiss businessmen who’d bought Automobili Ferruccio Lamborghini from its founder in 1974. A massive, cancelled order had plunged Ferruccio’s tractor company into a cash crisis; his way out was to sell his car company.

Leimer’s flat – roomy and comfortable but not swish – was in a village near the famous factory at Sant’Agata Bolognese, 20km east. It was two in the morning when we got there but a trattoria Phillips knew was still in full swing. Carlo, the owner, treated us like long-lost brothers and promptly put in train an excellent four-course dinner. Sated, two hours later we tumbled off to Monsieur Leimer’s beds, thankful that he was in Switzerland and thus spared the embarrassment of four uninvited guests.

At 10am Roger phoned the factory. ‘Ah Phillips’ – it was almost possible to see phlegmatic sales manager Ubaldo Sgarzi shrugging – ‘your cars? Perhaps this afternoon, perhaps tomorrow morning…’ None of us was surprised; we knew the form and it’d have been little different were it Ferrari, Maserati or De Tomaso: just be patient, go with the flow and enjoy the wait.

We sauntered over to Carlo’s for a leisurely lunch then piled into the decrepit Avis Fiat 131 that had brought us from Milan airport to trundle out to the long, modernistic Lamborghini factory adjoining the small farms on the Modena side of Sant’Agata.

It was Friday, so no Giampaolo Dallara, wizard engineer, mastermind of the Miura; part-time now. No Paolo Stanzani, his collaborator, who’d taken over as technical director then devised and led the Countach’s engineering; he’d left in 1975 after Ferruccio sold the company. And no Franco Baraldini, his successor, who’d been landed with the even more challenging task of running both engineering and the factory. He was in Munich updating BMW about the progress of Project E26, the mid-engined M1 that Lamborghini was developing and was due to build for BMW until Sant’Agata’s galloping financial woes stopped it fulfilling the contract.

Missing, too, was my friend Bob Wallace, the lanky, legendary Kiwi test driver and development engineer. He’d also bailed out in ’75, disappointed and disillusioned after Ferruccio’s exit fractured the magical Lamborghini-Dallara-Stanzani-Wallace partnership that had built an audacious company making remarkable cars. Bob went to Phoenix, Arizona, set up a workshop and became manna dal cielo for American Lamborghini and Ferrari owners.

Roger and David settled down in Ubaldo’s office to nut out with him how many Lamborghinis they might be able to obtain and shift in the UK in 1977. Steve, shopping list in hand, cornered the parts boss. I went mooching around the plant, pleased to have a chance to drink it all in for the fourth or fifth time.

Down on the factory floor, the third strike of the day was over and the erratic business of building Lamborghinis was underway once more. And yes, there was our Countach and there was the Urraco, ready and waiting.

But the Silhouette… around it clustered men and women painstakingly fitting the last bits and pieces and buffing and polishing its bronze-gold paint. They’d be there for hours yet. Like its sisters, the Silhouette was right-hand-drive and would look part of a matched set: for impact at Earl’s Court, Phillips had ordered all three cars painted bronze-gold.

There seemed no hope of our getting away before nightfall. Even should the fettling be finished, the cars had yet to be checked and ‘sealed’ by the customs man from Modena, an event that experience said was dependent upon his whim, his lunch and the weather. Better to shrug with the Italians and continue ambling around the factory.

I wove through the Olivetti milling machines to ogle all those intricate, glistening alloy castings being bored, drilled and trimmed to make blocks, cylinder heads, and transmissions. Most striking of all was the long Countach sump with its nine delicate full-length cooling strakes and its open port, which let the driveshaft run from the transmission ahead of the V12 back through the sump to the cast-in differential behind it. Stanzani had conceived this extraordinary layout to make the Countach’s powertrain as short, and thus able to be as centrally mounted, as possible.

I ducked around and under the four production lines, with Espadas and Urracos, Countachs and Silhouettes all in various phases of completion, their bodywork protected by big quilts, their undersides shining with new nuts and bolts.

Over to the dyno rooms, where the freshly assembled engines were run in, mile after bench-mile. I lingered, smiling, to watch the test drivers going systematically through their checklists for each finished car with the mechanics after completing their 50-mile circuit out on the road, with never a wheel or a rev wrong, and no pussyfooting.

Into the advanced engineering shop to talk to Umberto, the chief body-man who spoke English because he’d spent a decade in Australia before returning to Emilia-Romagna. Here he was, lovingly tending an early 350GT brought back by a fastidious owner for restoration.

And there, tucked against a wall, was the prototype 300bhp V8 Bravo with its breathtakingly elegant and economical lines. Alas, the path that Lamborghini had hoped would take it into production had petered out as the company lurched from one financial and industrial crisis to another.

Rene Leimer and his co-owner George-Henri Rosetti – who, I was told, had paid cash-strapped Ferruccio Lamborghini around £800,000 (roughly £13.7 million now) in 1972 for 51 per cent of his company; Leimer bought the remaining 49 per cent in 1974 for, it was said, around £450,000 (about £6.1m now) – could no more inject the extra funds needed for anything beyond a hand-to-mouth existence than Ferruccio.

That perilous state would continue, more or less, as the company lurched in and out of bankruptcy, and changed hands as often as Paul Jones dance partners at a village social, until 1998 when Audi stumped up a reported $110m (about £151m now) and secured Lamborghini’s future, at last.

As I wandered through the plant that Friday afternoon, the atmosphere, once so jovial, was now palpably sombre as anxiety overwhelmed optimism; Lamborghini was a dream everyone involved with, or cared about, could only hope would endure.

Eventually, as the plant grew quiet and the sun set, we clambered back into the battered Fiat and lifted our spirits by heading again for the genial Carlo’s before availing ourselves of the unwitting M. Leimer’s hospitality for the last time.

Next morning, God willing, the serious, uplifting business of ferrying three Lamborghinis back to London really would begin.

It started with the divine din of 28 cylinders, 12 whizzing cams, 14 sucking carbs and eight howling exhausts echoing off the cream factory walls. Phillips had tossed me the keys to the Countach and then taken off in the Silhouette in a flurry of sound and exhaust vapour, with David and Steve hot on his tail in the Urraco, which packed that same lovely 3.0-litre V8. It took me longer to settle into the Countach’s cabin, with its awkward entry and need to jiggle the inadequate mirrors to make the best of the daunting visibility. When I reached the factory gate they’d disappeared.

The gateman raised the barrier, I paused to check for oncoming traffic then eased on some revs, let the clutch out and started rolling. But just as the car straddled centre of the road the cold V12 coughed and sputtered. Static now, I stabbed the clutch in and pumped the throttle. The engine revived with a roar, the clutch came out hard and the beast was away with a chirp from the fat rear Michelins and a quick waggle of its tail.

By the time I’d caught the others filling their cars’ tanks at the garage further west along the Modena road I was alive with the thrill of sitting again behind the Countach’s outlandishly raked windscreen, with the little leather-bound wheel between my knees, the solid metal gearshift in its chunky metal gate beneath my left hand, and that 360bhp V12 singing inches behind my head. That first mile had brought it all back: the feeling of overt precision in a car with no purpose other than to spear down the road as fast as possible. Countach, indeed.

With our tanks full, we lit up again, rolled along the familiar road through Nonantola towards Modena and the Autostrada del Sole and swung north for Milano, the Alps, and on to France.

As we nipped onto the motorway, even mild throttle took us scampering past the still-sparse early Saturday traffic. We settled quickly into a steady fast cruise but, with the Lamborghinis feeling so eager, our pace steadily crept up until we were running at a clip that sent even the flat-out Alfas and Lancias darting aside as this extraordinary £52,000 [£486,000 now] convoy sprang into their mirrors.

What pleasure merely to conduct the Countach at that tame speed. It felt so composed; so decisive. The steering wasn’t so much heavy, just solid. Turn it with a thumb and forefinger, s-l-o-w-l-y, and feel the car alter course at exactly the tempo and degree you’d commanded. Nudge back and it returned to its heading just as precisely. No roll, nothing more nor less than you asked for. Feel too the messages patted into your palms. I watched the Urraco and Silhouette, a little way ahead, riding over ridges with their tails dipping in sync and rebounding so tautly. The feel of the Countach said it was dipping and rebounding even less. And yet its ride wasn’t uncomfortable, just firm and as finely-honed as every other aspect of this king of 1970s supercars.

We stopped for fuel and food. The first of many crowds gathered and stared, awed, at the cars. We swapped keys, and I drew the Silhouette. After the Countach, it felt softer, tamer; of course it did. I lounged in its tall seat and watched the Countach, with Roger at its wheel, snapping over the bumps in front of me, its tail barely bobbing.

And where Roger was accelerating mildly in the V12, we in the V8s, with their modest 260bhp at 7500rpm, had to prod them hard to try to keep up. With the LP400’s 290bhp/tonne to the Urraco’s 201 and Silhouette’s 214, there was no disputing which car was boss.

In bright afternoon sunshine, we swapped again. Roger removed the Silhouette’s roof, slid it behind the seats and slipped behind its wheel, David dropped into the Countach, while Steve and I led off in the Urraco. As we surged up the Aosta Valley towards Mont Blanc, I leaned out its window to try to grab some photos. And as I looked back, what a spectacle greeted me: a wide, straight road, mountains topped with snow rearing up on either side, and the soft light of the dropping sun glinting off the Countach and Silhouette’s golden shapes.

Not far from Aosta, we stopped for enough fuel to take us on into France. I changed back to the Silhouette and buttoned my coat. We were soon devouring the almost deserted autostrada. Even with the roof off at 140mph there was little buffeting. Mont Blanc loomed ahead; the sun was low and sinking fast, and the air was getting frigid. The heater, full on, warmed my legs and chest while my face froze.

But what an evening: flowing so quickly and effortlessly towards that iconic peak and discovering the Silhouette’s recently-introduced Pirelli P7s did indeed endow it with a new level of grip. Alone again in a driver’s car; a car with the grip to eat those bends and power to catapult past the trucks. For I know not how long I enjoyed perfect pleasure. I didn’t realise how cold I was until we stopped at the customs control at the entrance to the Mont Blanc Tunnel.

Paperwork done, we nipped into the tunnel and in close company, windows down, for 7.2 miles we revelled in the amplified chorus of those eight exultant exhausts singing in concert. With the Countach’s wail laid over the V8s’ growl, it was the longest and most spine-tingling mechanical symphony any of us had experienced.

I’d volunteered – generously, I thought, considering the delights of the descent ahead – to passenger again, with Steve in the Urraco. But as we began the run down into France I soon found a different pleasure: just watching the Countach and Silhouette ahead pelting down through the endless bends seemed almost as rewarding as being at the wheel.

There was scarcely a car on the long, quick autoroute up to the Swiss border, and we covered it at pace, the cars hardly seeming to work. Night was coming quickly, and we wanted to be within striking distance of the Mâcon-Paris autoroute before stopping.

After we paused for a swift coffee at a bar whose owner claimed that his front door was in France and his back door was in Switzerland, the Silhouette was mine again, and we covered the bumpy back roads taking us across the Rhône and on towards Nantua with the sort of ease that could be had only in proper grand tourers. It was at such times, with several hundred miles under your belt and the going getting more demanding, that you appreciated them most. They were so much in control; so much within themselves. Their reserves were your reserves.

Near Nantua, we found a quaint and quirky roadside hotel with a garage. It had Fawlty Towers overtones but we dined well and fell contented into bed.

At six the next morning we took off again. As dawn came up, we were romping joyously up and over four ranges, with barely a straight in more than 50 miles, before plunging to the mist-shrouded River Ain to then bolt across the flatlands to l’Autoroute du Soleil near Mâcon.

The Countach, with Roger at its wheel, reached it first. As Roger guided the golden beast onto the entry road, he flattened the V12 through the gears. In the V8s, we did our best to hold on, running on until they were flat, only to see the Countach still disappearing – into the unobstructed vision of a gendarme astride his motorbike beside the motorway.

He watched us come, swinging his head to log each of us as we zoomed past. In the mirror I saw him push the bike off its stand and ride after us, though he seemed in no hurry. A few kilometres on, we swung into a service area; and so did he. But he just parked his BMW R60/7 and wandered over with a nodded hello to peruse the cars. A whole van load of gendarmes pulled in. They too came over, along with another two motorbike cops. Word had spread. As we ate breakfast, through the cafeteria’s windows we watched them poring over the Lamborghinis.

And then the police watched us go. By the time we reached the motorway, we were all in full flight. None of the cops followed. We knew we were going to be all right, and for the rest of the day our speed was often around 120mph, with some spells at 140 and a few at a little over 160mph on the clock.

And thus we flowed along that grey, almost empty, band of road, disappearing north into a blue, blue morning. It was a big, wide-open feeling; soothing and warm. You felt relaxed, hands caressing the wheel, each car reaffirming its poise. It made you feel sharp; imbued you with an alertness lasting hundreds of miles at a time.

We ran on and on and it really was like a scene from a film, with first the Countach gliding out to pass a slower car and then peeling in, then the Silhouette, and then the Urraco.

Beyond Paris, on the stretch up to Lille, came a defining moment. I was riding with Roger in the Countach. We were running at around 120mph. In the mirror Roger saw a red Belgian-registered Jaguar XJ-S closing fast. Cold bloodedly, he changed down to fourth and opened the Countach up. It surged ahead and, precisely as the Jaguar drew alongside, we had matched its speed at 155mph. We went into fifth as 8000rpm came up, the throttles stayed open, and we left the XJ-S as if it were standing still.

When our speedo was showing 185mph, Roger lifted off for traffic and as we slowed I saw that the Silhouette and Urraco had passed the Jaguar too. The ignominy was more than its driver could bear. He steered to the inside lane and proceeded slowly. Even flat out, the Countach had felt solid, never twitching from its path, while behind our heads bellowed the majestic V12 in full cry.

After that, it was uneventful although the pleasure went on. I took over the Countach and revelled in the V12’s verve as we worked up to Calais on minor roads. I’d hang back as the lead Urraco, with its sightseeing passenger in the left seat, called the shots for overtaking, and then blast through in second or third to be repeatedly thrilled by the acceleration and the ease with which it could be used.

By five o’clock we were on the ferry. There was just the customs clearance at Dover – where the three insect-splattered gold Lamborghinis drew cheerily raised eyebrows and smiles even from blasé officials – and then the tame run up to London on the fraught roads of a misty Sunday night.

When we switched off, we’d despatched nearly 600 miles since our pre-dawn start. But none of us was tired. In the Countach, I sat stock-still for a few minutes and reflected. I would, I knew, forever be reliving what we’d experienced over the past two days.

And 50 years later I can still replay almost every moment of that extraordinary trip, in those dramatic cars, in my mind. Every mile was delectable but, if you ask, I’ll tell you that, admire those sweet little V8s though I did and impressive though they were, it was those in the inimitable Countach that I still treasure the most.

• How Bob Wallace developed the Countach

Clarkson on Convoy!

‘I’ve never forgotten that Car magazine piece about the drive back with the Lambos  [by Mel Nichols] For me, that was proper motoring journalism. And that was a man who understood how those cars worked, understood why they had those V12s, and the firing order written out on the top of the engine and so on, and made it live, and made the drive so that you felt, god, I wish I could drive a Lamborghini across Europe. I can still remember it. I can remember the pictures and everything.

It’s the most memorable piece of motoring journalism. PJ O’Rourke was pretty good as well. Pretty handy. But that one of Mel’s, I still think it’s about as good as it ever got.’

Jeremy was 16 in January 1977 when the story appeared.
Quote from Autocar’s ‘My Week in Cars’ podcast, 2026