Supercar Showdown is a straight-to-VHS film from 1986 comparing the Lamborghini Countach, the Ferrari Testarossa, and the Porsche 911 Turbo (930).
The film is peak ’80s, with synth backing tracks, classic period video effects, and some great on-road footage showing all three cars driving together as well as all the other ‘70s and ‘80s era cars on the road around them.
The film goes into a reasonable amount of detail on each car, particularly the rather unique Porsche. It includes an interview with the Newport Ferrari dealer about the sales performance of the Testarossa, an interview with the owner of the Countach who certainly seems like a character, and an in-depth interview with the owner of the Porsche.
The Porsche owner was a surgeon and had previously owned a number of fascinating cars, he was limited in his choices for a supercar as he’s 6’3 and ~250 lbs, meaning he simply wouldn’t comfortably fit into many supercars of the era.
With a total running time of 34 minutes this film is a must-watch for any ‘80s supercar enthusiast, which I think is probably all of you (and me).
The quality isn’t great as it appears to have been transcoded directly from VHS however for those of us who grew up in the era of VHS it’s kind of nostalgic.
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.
