This white Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary Edition is undoubtably the most famous Lamborghini in modern cinematic history thanks to its memorable appearance in Martin Scorsese’s The Wolf of Wall Street alongside Leonardo DiCaprio.
The car is now being offered for sale in what could charitably be described screen-used condition, it’s been meticulously preserved in the same condition in which it last appeared on the big screen, and it’s now up for sale with a guide price starting at $1.5 million USD.
Fast Facts – The Wolf of Wall Street Countach
- The Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary Edition was introduced in 1988. It was the final evolution of the Countach line, which had been in production since 1974.
- The car featured extensive restyling by Horacio Pagani, who would later found Pagani Automobili. The restyling aimed to improve the car’s aerodynamics and cooling, but it also gave the car a much more aggressive look to appeal to ’80s tastes. Changes included new air intakes on the sides, a redesigned engine cover, new front air dam, and rear bumper.
- The most memorable example of the 25th Anniversary Countach was the white 1989 example that appeared in Martin Scorsese’s 2013 film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” based on the life and times of Jordan Belfort, played by Leonardo DiCaprio.
- The car would be written off for the film as it featured in a memorable scene with DiCaprio who attempted to drive it under the influence of Lemmons 714, the holy grail of Quaaludes. The car has been carefully preserved in the same condition it was in for this scene, and it’s now being offered for sale.
The Wolf of Wall Street
If you haven’t seen Martin Scorsese’s 2013 box office smash hit The Wolf of Wall Street I’d strongly encourage you to stop reading immediately as the following contains spoilers, and you’d really be much better off watching the time for yourself than reading any synopsis of it.
Above Video: This is the famous scene featuring the car in this article from The Wolf Of Wall Street,” as you can see, the car gets a little dinged up.
The film begins in the late 1980s with Jordan Belfort taking a job at a Wall Street brokerage firm. After the Black Monday stock market crash, Belfort starts his own firm, Stratton Oakmont, with his friend Donnie Azoff, played by Jonah Hill. They engage in pump-and-dump schemes, inflating the price of stocks and then selling them to unsuspecting clients – which makes them very wealthy, very quickly.
Belfort’s life quickly spirals out of control due to his drug addiction, affairs, and questionable business practices. His wife leaves him, and the FBI starts investigating his firm for securities fraud and money laundering. Belfort tries to cover his tracks and bribe federal officials, though his efforts are ultimately unsuccessful.
In the end, Belfort’s empire collapses. He is arrested and in order to reduce his sentence, he cooperates with the FBI, providing evidence against his colleagues. Belfort serves a reduced prison sentence, and the film ends with him starting a new career as a motivational speaker – a career he’s still in to this day.
The Lamborghini Countach From The Film
There are many memorable scenes featuring cars in modern cinema, but few can rival the appearance of the white 1989 25th Anniversary Edition Lamborghini Countach in The Wolf of Wall Street directed by Martin Scorsese, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Margot Robbie, and Matthew McConaughey.
In the film, DiCaprio (playing Jordan Belfort) has to get himself into the car and drive a mile or so to his house to stop a phone call. Unfortunately he’s has taken Lemmons 714, the holy grail of Quaaludes. This renders his body only partially functional and results in a hilariously incoherent call on the car phone, followed by what can only be described as a pin-balling-drive across town resulting in severe damage to the vehicle.
It will be up to the new owner whether they want to keep the car like this, or have it restored back into driving condition. It seems most likely that the car will be preserved like this, as much of its value comes from its use as the hero car in the film.
The decision to use an authentic 25th Anniversary Edition Countach in the film was somewhat controversial, only 657 of them were made and they’re highly collectible. The 25th Anniversary Edition Countach was released to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Automobili Lamborghini S.p.A. in 1988 and sold until 1990 when it was succeeded by the Lamborghini Diablo.
The first Countach was released in 1974 with avante-garde styling by Marcello Gandini at Bertone. For the 25th Anniversary Edition version of the car it was given a comprehensive restyling by Horacio Pagani with bold new body additions that brought it into line with the more ostentatious tastes of the 1980s.
It’s believed that this version of the Countach was the fastest, with a 0 to 60 mph time of 4.7 seconds and a top speed of 183 mph. Power was provided by an upgraded 5.2 liter Lamborghini V12 which was mated to a 5-speed manual transmission sending power to the rear wheels.
Two examples of the 25th Anniversary Countach were used in the film, the car you see in this article was the hero car and was on screen for 3 minutes and 11 seconds, it also sustained the damage from the Quaalude-fuelled drive across town. The other car was on screen for approximately 16 seconds in two shots and didn’t sustain any notable damage.
The halo car is now being offered for sale by Bonhams as part of their On the Grid auction in Abu Dhabi which is scheduled for the 25th of November. The car has a price guide of $1,500,000 – $2,000,000 USD, if that value range is attained it may very well be the highest price paid for a non-operational Lamborghini Countach in history.
As we saw in the “The Wolf of Wall Street,” these Lamborghini scissor doors are surprisingly hard to open when your arms aren’t working properly due to Quaalude ingestion.
It will then be up to the new owner what they want to do with the car, it will likely be placed on display in a collection in its exact current condition, but there’s a small chance it’ll be bought by someone who wants to restore it back to original, drivable condition – though this would likely anger the movie buffs.
The vehicle also comes with a director’s chair and a clapboard, both signed by the trio of Scorsese, DiCaprio, and Robbie, two original crew hoodies, and two DVDs of the film. If you’d like to read more about this unusual piece of Hollywood history you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Bonhams
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
