Lamborghini Countach - A simple build

[Chuffy70]

As a kid my brother Dale had his cabinet full of spaceships, but in the midst of them all was this lone car - The Lamborghini Countach.

Its sublime and futuristic design stuck with me all through my childhood and whenever possible I would buy Matchbox and other toy cars of this beautiful automobile.

I have never made a model of the Countach before, so I thought as a little side project from my main builds I would give this a spin.

This is not a tutorial on this build, but my take on how I did it, some parts of this build are not photographed, but hopefully they will give you a better idea on how it looks than the website. - There are pictures on the site its from, but believe me they lack any informative instruction.
***MODEL DESIGNER AND WEBSITE ON THE CHASSIS***

Meet the Parts - Just two sheets - as per my usual, I had these blown up onto A3 paper


Simple parts first - floor pan and oddly coloured axles


Tyres and wheel arch



Tyres and the inside wheel hub were fairly easy, but I hate anything round, best to do these first and get them out of the way!


Middle top roof section, rear light cluster, rear underside, exhaust shroud and exhausts


The middle roof section was easy, also the little exhausts - the rear undersection was an absolute nightmare! More on that later


Upper rear back plate


With no idea where to start on the body, I plumped for attaching the rear lights panel to the upper rear deck - held with a peg to ensure everything lined up I glued from the middle outwards


Rear engine cover


With some careful dry fitting I added the bottom of the rear engine cover to the rear section


MORE ITALIAN AUTOMOTIVE FUN TO FOLLOW SOON....

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

You off to a great start on this project. I am looking forward to seeing how it will turn out!

 

[Revell-Fan]

Cool stuff! I'm looking forward to seeing the "troubled areas".

 

[mijob]

Thats a great start and the car is an iconic.

 

[Chuffy70]

You off to a great start on this project. I am looking forward to seeing how it will turn out!

Thanks, and so am I

Cool stuff! I'm looking forward to seeing the "troubled areas".

cheers, and really, you want to see all the horrible!?

Thats a great start and the car is an iconic.

She certainly is that... a real head-turner!

 

[Chuffy70]

Righty, lets plow onwards...
As I had started without any reference, like a fool I thought I knew every inch of this car, but the mind can't quite remember everything!
So a quick search trough my stored boxes, I found this little gem - a tiny Countach.
Not much use, but a least I found all my toy Lambo's


The sides are a simple affair, but the fold lines on this print are almost impossible to see.


Wheel bays are a simple affair and fitted without any issues.


A call to my brother Dale, and I asked if he could find my old model kits at the old' homestead.
Two un-built Fujimi Lamborghini's were brought round - these were very detailed kits for their day and much better reference than I could find on the web - plus all my Lambo books were too heavy for my brother to carry, must make an effort to go and collect them!





The front wheel-wells went in nicely too



One side with both bays in, it was time to put the door opening in.


Back-end madness Part 1 - I must have folded, glued - un-glued and folded it inside and out, but I just couldn't get it to fit.
S with large amount of swearing, I just thought bollocks to it glued in the best I could... We'll see how this turns out later!


Front bumper parts, and the under-nose section


The little air vents fitted nicely


Top, middle and bottom


Rear vents, these fitted nicely too, just like the front underside ones



...AND THAT MY FRIENDS IS IT FOR TODAY...

TUNE IN AGAIN TOMMORROW FOR MORE CAR-NAGE!

 

[Chuffy70]

Onwards Supercar lovers!

More head scratching on the rear underside, resulted in frequent swear words, but no-one will see it other than a few of you guys, so I just joined the lefthand side to the rear wheel arch.


Wing mirrors, crease fold and done (no pics-sorry!_


Top half of the engine cover


Cut and creased


Rear air intakes an quarter panel windows


Front half upper - careful to pick out crease marks.


Top recessed roof panel, for those who don't know - the black square represents the rear view periscope as it was called.


Front half formed, and looks not too bad...


Front underside, spacer and light section complete.


Underside of roof


Top part of engine cover added to the leading edge front of the leading edge


Underside/front spotlights added to sides


Underside front assembly fitted


Engine top cover fitted at this moment to the four black slatted cover first, then onto the body parts.


Test fit to so how things are lining up - all was within 0.5mm, which was acceptable to me


ALL FOR NOW, MORE BULL LATER...

 

[mijob]

Great job my friend.

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

You are doing a great job on this project!
The only advice that I could give, would be to paint the edges to match the colour of the parts, prior to assembly. This will give a more "finished" look.

 

[zathros]

Get some Black paper and follow the shape of the Windshield Wiper, and fabricate one. It will add much to the car without much effort.

 

[Chuffy70]

Great job my friend.

Many thanks, always appreciated

You are doing a great job on this project!
The only advice that I could give, would be to paint the edges to match the colour of the parts, prior to assembly. This will give a more "finished" look.

When I build models just for myself and ones I have never built before I tend to paint my seams/parts at the end of the build - if they are for friends or family a more professional approach is taken, which I'll do them as I go along.
Constructive help always welcome R.B, but all is in hand my dear fellow.

Get some Black paper and follow the shape of the Windshield Wiper, and fabricate one. It will add much to the car without much effort.

Duly noted Zathros, I'm not putting that 'much effort' into this, if I do another one (the Miura looks tasty) then I will consider some laminations & pimping

 

[Chuffy70]

Racing along with another installment

The top of the engine cover mated very well to the roof section, nice and clean.


The back side pod air intakes required a double bend, zig zag if you will.



For gluing the top of the body work down there was no order given, multiple dry runs were made and the decision was as you have seen - mount the engine cover to the roof section, then work along the edges.


Working from the back to the middle, I stopped short, just above the door handle


Next was to work from the front of the car and meet at the middle where I had stopped previously,


The result was pleasing to my eyes, very impressed it went so smoothly.


Front of the car was next up


A couple of little issues, but nothing I'm fussed with, job done


The roof seam, with skinny strips either side of the rear vents all fitted together and the quarter panel window with lower vent were fitted from underneath
(*NOTE I HAVE LEFT THE BOTTOM PANEL/CHASSIS OFF - AS THIS WILL BE THE LAST PIECE TO ADD)




UNTIL TOMMOROW, WHERE WE WILL CANNONBALL INTO ANOTHER SESSION

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

This is really coming together nicely!!!

 

[Chuffy70]

Well, we are on the home straight here to a somewhat so-so finish, but enough of that misery, read on.

The doors have no ends to them, So rather than paint the inside black, I just blanked them off.



The rear end was now looking if the poor owner couldn't reverse, and I was truly fed up with trying to sort it out,
Maybe I'll print this piece out again and have another look, but there are other models to build and no one will see this rubbish work.


Truly abysmal!


With the top all finished it was time to install the floor pan, but this was too wide at the front and back.


A couple of millimetres were taken off either side an all was well.


Floor in and the oddly coloured axles were added - painted black before I put the wheels on.


Now all that was left was to fill the gap where the rear was not touching the floor.


"mind the gap!"


Just added a blank over the hole and trimmed and painted. Out of sight and out of mind.


Last parts on, were the top vents, you can't mix these two up!


A few licks of paint on all the seams was the last thing to do


One of the quirks of the finished piece was the sides would pop in, but they were just as easy to pop back out again.


The finished raging bull!



Whilst I enjoyed the build, the back rear-underside really did elude me as to how it was supposed to be.

I might have another go some day, but there's other things to do, but it was an interesting build and my first go at a car model.

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

All in all, it looks good! For being your first time at building cars, you did a GREAT JOB!

 

[Chuffy70]

All in all, it looks good! For being your first time at building cars, you did a GREAT JOB!

Kind words bud, real world objects are harder to capture as we see every piece which is wrong - it goes to my local model club tomorrow evening for more intense scrutiny "yikes!"

 

[Rhaven Blaack]

Kind words bud, real world objects are harder to capture as we see every piece which is wrong - it goes to my local model club tomorrow evening for more intense scrutiny "yikes!"

I wish you the best of luck with it!

 

[Revell-Fan]

Great work! The car looks very nice!

 

[Chuffy70]

Great work! The car looks very nice!

Thanking you, much appreciated

 

[mijob]

Verry nice building thread and your ride looks great.