After the groundbreaking Lamborghini Miura stunned crowds at the 1965 Geneva Motor Show with its mid-mounted transverse V-12, it was hard to imagine how designer Marcello Gandini might surpass it.

But, in 1971, he did it again with the outrageous LP 400 Countach.

It predicated the angular style typical of the 1980s, ten years in advance.

The four litre, V-12 generated 375 horsepower, enough to push the car to 180mph.

Upwards-hinging ‘scissor doors’ proved a magnetic attraction.

The Countach was the stuff of schoolboy dreams, and it evolved constantly: adding vents to aid engine cooling, fender flares for wider tyres, and safety bumpers for the American market.

A total of 110 early ‘periscopo’ models were built between 1974 and 1977, with a novel prismatic mirror arrangement to overcome the paucity of rear vision.

(Seventy-seven additional examples of the LP 400 were then produced with more conventional mirrors.) The 400S was introduced in 1978, with bumper flares and an optional...