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Comment by dotancohen | Hacker News Reader

  > Ferruccio Lamborghini was primarily interested in building comfortable, quick and stylish GT cars

I agree with you about "quick and stylish GT cars", but "comfortable" is not a word that I'd associate with the only Lamborghini I know. The Countach was very uncomfortable, both to sit in and also to ingress and egress. The pedals are not in line with the seat, the sill is as wide as a moat, and there is no visibility behind the door, even the mirrors are near-useless.

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Yeah, Countaches are definitely not comfortable cars. As I mention later in the comment, the original intentions of Mr. Lamborghini were somewhat at odds with what Lamborghini the company became famous for after the success of the Miura and the Countach. The engineers that Lamborghini hired to make his luxe GT cars were more interested in building racing cars. Mr. Lamborghini gave them room to experiment, and they built a uncompromising, racing-inspired sports car in the Miura. This led on the the even more successful Countach. Good thing too, as the Lamborghini GT models (350 GT, 400 GT, Islero, Jarama, Espada) were never really luxurious or well constructed enough to compete with the likes of Mercedes and Jaguar. So Mr. Lamborghini's willingness to compromise and follow his engineers' vision of making radical, uncomfortable sports cars probably saved the company. They managed to limp along with the Countach design almost to the 90s. Meanwhile, the GT models that Mr. Lamborghini loved were out of production by the end of the 70s and are all fairly obscure today.

I see, thanks. And by the way, I never understood the Urraco. I've never actually ever seen one, but from what I've read I had never understood why the car existed until you mentioned that it was poised against the 911. Thank you.

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