Dear Mr. Vack,

When I was 20 years old, my father owned a Miura SV from new, and I saw the first pictures of the Countach LP 400. I was absolutley stunned!!! I knew that the day will come, when I 'd earn enough money to own one. In 1997 -with the SV in MY garage after my father passed away in 1977- I bought a perfect original example of the LP 400 and was still stunned after all this years!!

There are some points in your story I disagree with:

1. The chassis of the Miura flexes a bit with sometimes very bad effects: at high speed the rear bonnet will dislocks itself due to this flexing. Quite a lot of Miuras suffered very serious damages by this. Perhaps in the U.S. you don`t drive your cars as fast as we do here in Germany on our high-speed-Autobahns to have any experience with this Miura faults.

2. At high speed the front lifts a bit due to bad aerodynamics at the front. The steering becomes "light".

3. Quite a lot of Miuras had fire in the engine-compartment due to the carburetor lay-out on the engine.

4. The engine is very good but the con-rods are weak. I had engine overhauls on both cars with the same results on with the rods. The cams also wore out fast.

5. The LP 400 has a far better chassis than the Miura resulting in better handling qualities! The LP 400 was the only Lamborghini with an adjustable magnesium suspension and this improves the whole handling far better than to the Miura or Ferrari 512 BB/i! The only better suspension I know on a 70s car is in the BMW-M1 I own!! Wallace claimed the Michelin XWX-tyres were always the weak point on the LP 400. He is right in wet conditions but I can`t see this in the dry!

6. The steering in the Countach is a delight and gives a real "cart"-feeling!! In the Miura the steering is not as good! Even the M1-steering -and this car was designed as a race-car!- is not as good as in the LP 400!!! We compared both cars 6 months ago on the BMW-test track and the test-drivers from Munich (they are the best!!) were highly impressed by the steering qualities of the Lamborghini!

   I drive my early Countach 10,000 miles a year -and broke down only once! After all this years I sold the Miura last year to a very well known collector here in Europe (of course for tons of money -world record price for a standard SV!!!-) who chased my car for 10 years!

But neverless both cars are state of the art in automotive history and are the Lamborghinis of all Lamborghinis!!

Best wishes
Walter Bäumer -Germany-

And we answer:
I can only say that I must defer to the experts. We certainly envy Walter's experience. Remarks I made about the Countach were relative to the later LP500s.--ed.