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Man hand-builds Lamborghini Countach, from scratch, in his own basement
- tlrobinson 18y ago"Once he finished the car there was one itsy-bitsy problem; the fact that the faux Lambo was built in the basement meant that there was no conventional way to take it outside of the house..." That's some extreme lack of foresight...
- SwellJoe 18y agoFor a dude who builds a super car, by hand, mostly by himself, it is merely a technicality.
- tapostrophemo 18y agoCool...still, I couldn't help but think that having to cut a large hole in the foundation to get it out showed something of a lack of planning and foresight. :-(
- viae 18y agoIt's actually possible to do this with 1st generation Camaros (1967-69). Someone thought ahead and saved the original tool and die casts before GM destroyed them. Some googling will find you sources for parts: from frame and body to seats adn trim. From what I've read, it costs somewhere in the realm of 12-20k. Not bad for a clone of what is the most fantastic American muscle car to ever be made with modern reliability.
- jmtulloss 18y ago12-20k + how many man hours? More for me, all this programming doesn't help my mechanical skills :).
- jcromartie 18y agoAssembling a batch of nice fresh parts is a lot easier than you think. Unless you have to assemble/rebuild the whole engine by hand, you will probably spend more time waiting for the paint to dry than you will putting it all together.
- tapostrophemo 18y agoNot necessarily; ever put together one of those Saga electric guitar kits? I've spent maybe 5-10% (out of maybe 15-20 total build time) tweaking and adjusting, finding they didn't drill all the holes in the right places, etc.
- sown 18y agoThere's a company (http://www.ultimasports.co.uk/canam/index.html http://www.ultimasports.co.uk/canam/index.html) that sells kit super-cars. According to them it takes 40 - 80 hours to put together what is essentially a car that is 95% as good as some Italian machine but at 10% of the cost. Not bad considering what you are getting.
- dougp 18y agoThat's someone who doesn't let anything, including his basement, get in his way.
- okeumeni 18y agoIs that wood?
- nuclear_eclipse 18y agoThe wood is only there while fashioning the sheet metal for the body. The wood was then removed and replaced with the frame and suspension from a Corvette.
- nickb 18y agoCheck this out: http://www.kiengineering.com/Inventory.html http://www.kiengineering.com/Inventory.html This is his site and has bigger pics. You'll see how he used the wooden frame.
- notaddicted 18y agoAfter seeing the movie tomb raider I became obsessed with Lara Croft and hand built a detailed model in my basement. I think I'll keep it down there.
- fawxtin 18y agoat least give us the formula for it.
- zacharypinter 18y agoThis could serve as a great example of illustrating the difference between theft and copyright infringement. Theft would be stealing somebody's Lamborghini. Copyright infringement is building your own. The standard argument against copyright infringement is that Lamborghini lost a sale by him building his own. However, how likely is it that he would have bought a Lamborghini if he could not build one?
- antiismist 18y agoI'm not sure that this is a great example, because it muddies the difference between trademarks, copyrights, and patents (i.e. there may be issues with all three here, and maybe the biggest issue is on the trademark side).
- micks56 18y agoI agree. Copyright protects original works of authorship. A car is not an original work of authorship. A picture of the car is... And I agree about trademark being the biggest issue, perhaps coupled with infringement on design patents held by Lamborghini. No matter what this guy has an extremely strong personal use defense. He has zero effect on the market and is not distributing.
- hugh 18y agoA car is not an original work of authorship. A picture of the car is... Why not? A car is a sculpture which just happens to be banged out of sheet metal instead of carved out of marble. Admittedly it's hard to think of a Toyota as a sculpture, but a Lamborghini is definitely one. And a damn lot better looking than most of the sculptures you'll see in galleries.
- micks56 18y agoGood point. I stand corrected. Lamborghini and Toyota would have valid copyrights in their design, even if the Toyota is relatively boring. Personal use defenses still stand however...
- vaksel 18y agoif I was hand building a car from scratch I'd try for something a little bit more exotic. Fiero kit car Coutnachs are all over the place(not really, but its a pretty common kit). Personally I'd go for something like an F50, because the kit cars for those usually look like ass because the dimensions are way off since the donor cars are shorter. But still huge props from the guy, it probably took him 5-6 years to finish this(unless he was doing it full time)
- dangoldin 18y agoThe post says 17 years - definitely not an easy feat.
- vaksel 18y agoah..makes sense that its not an F50 then...they were around from 95-97, so they weren't around when he started. F40s were around since 87, but I bet the behind the scenes prep work for the Countach took him a couple of years too so they were probably not around as well.
- jchor 18y agoThat's so badass! This car has always been one of my favs.
- noonespecial 18y agoTo me the coolest part would be the ramp and the new door in the basement. Ordinary Ken slips down to the basement of his ordinary suburban house and, like the bat cave, a Lambo comes roaring up out of the secret lair! Sweet.
- rrhyne 18y agoI think this is kind of a shame. The guy has insane amounts of motivation, insane skills, and even funding for his project, yet he makes a copy of something else. Seems all he was lacking was a great original idea.
- joubert 18y agoThat is one ugly car. Bad taste. I would rather build a Porsche 911.