“When that movie came out, I probably went a dozen times to see it,” recalls Je Ippoliti, a Florida lawyer and owner of the Chatham Inn in Cape Cod. “I loved the whole movie, but it was that car [the Countach] that continued to bring me back. It looked like a spaceship.”
Ippoliti never dreamed he would see the Cannonball Run Countach in person. In 2004, he started the Celebration Exotic Car Festival in Daytona Beach, a charity event, with his brother. He had heard that the Cannonball Run Countach was owned by Ron Rice, founder of Hawaiian Tropic, who lived in Florida. Ippoliti networked his way onto the phone with Rice, who promised to have the car delivered to the show.
“When the car showed up, it was like seeing my favorite movie star,” Ippoliti says. “The person who brought it told me Ron was thinking about selling it. So I called him and said, ‘Look, I’ve dreamed about this car my whole life. I would love to buy it.’ That started a two-year negotiation. I bought the car and put it in a two-year restoration, which was done by Tony Ierardi.”
Ierardi, who restored the first DeLorean built, recalls: “Obviously we didn’t want it to look like any other Countach. It had to look exactly as it did in the movie, with the 12 exhaust pipes and the CB radio antennae. It was a big deal for me to get to restore it—just unreal. I’ve owned five Countachs and I still get chills every time I see this one.”
Lambo debuted the Countach model in 1974, the body designed by Marcello Gandini. The Cannonball Run car is a 1979 model, a coveted “low body” Countach, sitting two inches lower on its chassis than later cars. Even if it wasn’t a famous film car, this Countach would still be a rare example of what is arguably the most outrageous production vehicle ever built. The Cannonball car also wears the iconic—if ridiculous—front wing.
“Growing up, I didn’t know anyone my age who didn’t have a poster of that car on their wall,” says Ippoliti, who also owns an original Cannonball Run poster and Cannonball Run boardgame, made by Cadaco in 1981. (Oh yeah—he also owns the Diablo that appeared in Dumb and Dumber.) While the Countach was already a car-culture icon in 1981, it was The Cannonball Run that really made it a global superstar, Ippoliti contends.
What does he do with the car? “I drive it, take it to some shows. To me, it’s as wild looking as it appeared to me 40 years ago. A lot of people would say this is the most famous Lamborghini on earth, and I’d agree. It’s one of one. Any Countach is a rolling circus, but this one especially.”
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Emilio Gómez Islas
