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Lamborghini Countach

The Lamborghini Countach is a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive sports car produced by the Italian automobile manufacturer Lamborghini from 1974 until 1990. It is one of the many exotic designs developed by Italian design house Bertone, which pioneered and popularized the sharply angled "Italian Wedge" shape.

The style was introduced to the public in 1970 as the Lancia Stratos Zero concept car. The first showing of the Countach prototype was at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show, as the Lamborghini LP500 concept.

The "Countach" nameplate was reused for the Sián-based limited-production hybrid-electric model called the Countach LPI 800-4 in 2021.

Design and development
The development of the Countach was initiated by Ferruccio Lamborghini with the goal of creating a successor to the Miura. The Miura was widely acclaimed after its introduction in 1966, but by 1970 new competitors including the Ferrari Daytona had been introduced to the market, and the Miura was showing its age. Chief engineer Paolo Stanzani and his staff began work on the Miura successor in 1970 under the project name "LP112." From the beginning of the project, Stanzani's collaborators included test driver Bob Wallace, assistant engineer Massimo Parenti and designer Marcello Gandini of Bertone.

Stanzani and Ferruccio Lamborghini agreed that the Miura's successor required a mechanical design that enabled the greatest possible performance as well as a body that was both aerodynamically efficient and aesthetically daring. These principles had formed the Miura's development and enabled the commercial success of that model. Despite Mr. Lamborghini's preference for comfortable grand tourers, he recognized the commercial value of a more uncompromising sports car like the Miura and gave Stanzani's team permission to further push boundaries with the LP112 project. The resulting Countach incorporated successful aspects of the Miura, such as the rear mid-engine, rear wheel drive layout along with many new engineering and styling innovations. Lamborghini's engineering team addressed several flaws in the Miura design, improving high-speed stability and reducing lift-off oversteer as well as addressing the limited maintenance access, uneven weight distribution and cooling issues endemic to the Miura's transverse engine layout.

After a year of intensive development work, the first Countach prototype, designated LP500, was shown to the public at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show. Subsequently, the Lamborghini engineering team spent three years refining this radical prototype into the production-ready LP400 Countach, which debuted in 1974.

Name
The Countach name originated in late 1970 or 1971, near the beginning of the LP112 project. Most previous and subsequent Lamborghini car names are associated with famous bulls and bullfighting, but the Countach broke with this tradition. The name originated from the word contacc, an exclamation of astonishment in the Piedmontese language.

Marcello Gandini, the designer of the Countach, explained the origin of the name:

"When we made cars for the car shows, we worked at night and we were all tired, so we would joke around to keep our morale up. There was a profiler working with us who made the locks. He was two meters tall with two enormous hands, and he performed all the little jobs. He spoke almost only Piedmontese, didn't even speak Italian. Piedmontese is much different from Italian and sounds like French. One of his most frequent exclamations was 'countach', which literally means plague, contagion, and is actually used more to express amazement or even admiration, like 'goodness'. He had this habit.

When we were working at night, to keep our morale up, there was a jousting spirit, so I said we could call it Countach, just as a joke, to say an exaggerated quip, without any conviction. There nearby was Bob Wallace, who assembled the mechanics—we always made the cars operational. At that time you could even roll into the car shows with the car running, which was marvelous.

So jokingly I asked Bob Wallace how it sounded to an Anglo-Saxon ear. He said it in his own way, strangely. It worked. We immediately came up with the writing and stuck it on. But maybe the real suggestion was the idea of one of my co-workers, a young man who said let's call it that. That is how the name was coined. This is the only true story behind this word."

Lamborghini used a system of alphanumeric designations in order to further delineate Countach models. This designation begins with "LP", an abbreviation of the Italian longitudinale posteriore, meaning "longitudinal rear". This refers to the engine orientation and placement shared by all Countach models. For the prototype and early production models, "LP" was followed by a three digit number designating nominal engine displacement, "400" for 3.9-litre engines and "500" for 4.8 and 5-litre engines. Therefore, the full name of the first production Countach was the Lamborghini Countach LP400. As in the Miura, the letter "S" (short for Sport) was added for later high performance variants. This naming scheme was disrupted by the 1985 LP5000 Quattrovalvole equipped with a 5.2-litre engine, also called the 5000QV. The LP- designation was dropped entirely for the 1988 25th Anniversary Edition, also called the Anniversary.

Styling
The Countach was styled by Marcello Gandini of the Bertone design studio. His design for the Countach's predecessor, the Miura, achieved commercial success and critical acclaim from the automotive press when it was introduced in March 1966. Following the Miura's debut, Gandini began experimenting with a new, more angular and geometric design language in a series of concept cars for Lamborghini, Alfa Romeo and Lancia. In particular, the 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo and 1970 Lancia Stratos Zero were direct styling precursors to the Countach. Like the Countach, they were both entirely wedge-shaped, mid-engine designs with a low, flat front, truncated tail and angular details. Both of these concept cars featured unconventional methods of entry into the passenger compartment—a hinged windshield for the Stratos Zero and scissor doors for the Carabo—foreshadowing the scissor doors used on the Countach.

At the start of the LP112 project in 1970, Lamborghini commissioned Gandini and his team at Bertone to develop a body for the then-unnamed prototype. Chief engineer Paolo Stanzani supplied the design team with chassis information so that body design could proceed while the mechanical details of the prototype were finalised. Shortly before the 1971 Geneva Auto Show, the finished chassis was shipped to Bertone, where the prototype bodywork and interior were installed. The resulting Countach LP500 prototype was unveiled at the 1971 Geneva Auto show, where its unconventional design drew great public interest and extensive press coverage. The LP500 prototype had a crisp, wedge-shaped design that, compared to the Miura, was wide and very low but shorter in overall length. Overall dimensions of the prototype were 185 cm wide, 103 cm tall, and 401 cm long. The nose of the prototype tapered sharply to a thin grille, an uninterrupted slope enabled by headlights in retractable housings that flipped down inside the body when not in use. The prototype's body lacked bumpers, aerodynamic spoilers, side mirrors and any other addition that would have interrupted the lines of Gandini's design. Trapezoidal shapes appeared throughout the body, including in the windshield, side windows, door openings, hood and engine covers and taillights. Air was supplied to the engine and side-mounted radiators through louvered vents immediately behind the side windows, although road testing quickly demonstrated these vents alone were inadequate to control engine temperatures.

The interior of the prototype was equally notable to contemporary audiences as the exterior, as it incorporated new technologies and bold styling decisions. Gandini initially sketched a dashboard with all-digital readouts for the Countach. This dashboard design was not fully realised in time for the debut, the LP500 prototype instead used a conventional analog speedometer and tachometer. However, the LP500 dashboard incorporated other innovations from Gandini's original sketches, including aircraft or spaceship-inspired warning lights placed centrally on the steering column, within the arc of the steering wheel. One of these warning lights served a similar purpose as a modern automatic cruise control system, illuminating when a set speed was exceeded. Another innovation was the inclusion of an on-board diagnostic system (long before their standardization and widespread adoption) that displayed the status of the car's individual subsystems superimposed on a schematic view of the entire car, located on the dashboard to the driver's left. Due to the poor rearward visibility inherent in the Countach design, a periscope was integrated into the passenger compartment roof, instead of a conventional rear-view mirror. This periscope system was obtained from Donnelly Mirrors, who had first developed it for an ESV project. Gandini also used a single-spoke steering wheel and deeply recessed bucket seats, which shared a stylised motif of segmented blocks. The low seating position, prominent transmission tunnel and wide door sills all contributed to the sensation of being inside a race car cockpit.

The scissor doors of the Countach prototype were a prominent design feature carried over to the production Countach as well as many subsequent Lamborghini models. First appearing on Gandini's 1968 Alfa Romeo Carabo concept car, they attached to the vehicle structure at the front of the door using horizontal hinges, so that they lifted up and tilted forward when opened. The mechanism was assisted by gas struts, which supported the weight of the doors and smoothed the opening and closing motion. Gandini incorporated this door design as both a styling gesture and to facilitate entry. The car's wide chassis and high and wide doorsills made entry using conventional doors difficult in narrow spaces. Conversely, care needed to be taken in opening the scissor doors under low ceilings. Due to poor rearward visibility and the wide sills, many Countach drivers park by opening the door, sitting on the sill, and reversing into the parking spot while looking over the back of the car from outside. The scissor doors made it difficult to exit the car following a rollover accident. Lamborghini engineers studied solutions to this problem including an easily removable "kick-out" windscreen or using explosive bolts to remove the doors following an accident, although neither were incorporated into the production Countach.

Following the LP500 prototype's public debut, the body design was progressively altered during pre-production testing to improve aerodynamic performance, high speed stability, engine cooling and ability to meet mandated safety requirements. This resulted in many differences between the LP500 prototype and the production LP400. The most visible change was the addition of several vents to improve engine cooling and air intake. These included NACA ducts spanning the doors and rear wings on each side and protruding air intake boxes, which replaced the louvered vents behind the side windows. The slope of the nose was made shallower to reduce excessive front-end downforce that destabilized the prototype during braking. The side windows inset with small trapezoidal glass sections were changed to horizontally split two-piece windows with a retractable lower half. Additional small windows were added behind the side windows, slightly improving rearward visibility. The futuristic dashboard and diagnostic displays seen on the prototype were replaced with a conventionally styled dashboard using Stewart-Warner analog gauges, while the single-spoke steering wheel was replaced with a three spoke wheel similar to those used on other production Lamborghinis. The periscope rear-view mirror was retained for the LP400, but for subsequent Countach models it was replaced with conventional rear view mirrors. The overall dimensions of the LP400 were slightly larger than the prototype, at 189 cm wide, 107 cm tall, and 414 cm long.

The styling of the Countach was continually altered as new production models were introduced. Later additions—including flared arches, spoilers, carburetor covers and bumpers—progressively changed the Countach body in order to improve the model's performance, safety and appearance. Despite these updates, the basic shape of the first Countach prototype revealed in 1971 remained virtually unchanged over its 19-year lifespan.

Engine and transmission

The Countach was designed around the existing Lamborghini V12 engine in a rear mid-engine, rear-wheel-drive layout. In contrast to the Miura's transversely mounted engine, the engine in the Countach was longitudinally mounted. This layout was a first for a road-going V12, previously used only in the Ferrari P-series racing cars. However, chief engineer Paolo Stanzani wanted to improve the weight distribution of the car even further and devised a new type of longitudinal layout that would avoid placing the mass of the transmission at the rear of the car. The resulting configuration had the output shaft at the front of the engine, immediately connecting through the clutch assembly to the transmission. The transmission itself was a 5-speed manual with Porsche-type synchromesh and was mounted in the middle of the car between the two seats. The driveshaft ran from the transmission through the engine's oil sump to a differential at the rear. This arrangement effectively sandwiched the length of the engine between the mid-mounted transmission and the rear-mounted differential. This configuration had numerous advantages over the Miura's transverse engine, including an increase in stability from placing more mass near the car's center, a shorter overall wheelbase, a more direct gear-shift linkage for easier and faster shifting, better cooling and easier maintenance access to engine components.

The Lamborghini V12 used in the Countach originated in 1963 and was designed by Giotto Bizzarrini. Versions of this engine were used in preceding and then currently produced Lamborghini models including the 350 GT, 400 GT, Islero, Espada and Miura. As used in the Miura, this engine had a 3929 cc displacement, a 60º cylinder bank angle, double overhead camshafts per bank, two valves per cylinder, lubrication and distributor ignition. Paolo Stanzani's engineering team wished to increase the Countach engine's power over the maximum of 279 kW as seen on the Miura SV. The 3.9-litre version had been tuned to be rated approximately between 307-324 kW in the experimental P400 Jota, but an engine of this specification was expensive to manufacture and was difficult to handle in normal city driving due to lack of low-RPM power. Therefore, the engineers decided to increase the engine's displacement to 5-litre, in order to extract more power while avoiding the usability problems of a race-tuned engine. This increase in displacement would require a major redesign of the existing V12. Lamborghini's plan was to produce the 5-litre engine in time for series production and published specification sheets for the proposed production 5-litre engine at the 1971 debut of the prototype. Lamborghini reported this engine would be rated at 328 kW at 7,400 rpm. One experimental engine was constructed by boring out a conventional 3.9-litre engine block and was fitted to the Countach LP500 prototype for testing purposes. It incorporated many lightweight castings made from Elektron, an expensive magnesium alloy. This engine self-destructed during a 1971 road test by Bob Wallace. This made it clear that further revisions to the basic engine design were required to improve durability. The LP500 prototype was subsequently fitted with a 3.9-litre engine for the remainder of pre-production testing.

The first production cars used a 3.9-litre engine as durability issues with the new 5-litre engine could not be resolved in time. As equipped to the 1974 Countach LP400, the engine was rated at 276 kW at 8,000 rpm. The stated power output was less than that of the Miura SV, which was blamed on the use of side-draft Weber 45 DCOE carburetors instead of the down-draft carburetors used on the Miura. Later engine development eventually increased the engine displacement to 4754 cc in the 1982 LP500S, and then to 5167 cc with four valves per cylinder in the 1985 LP5000 Quattrovalvole. All variants of the Countach were equipped with six Weber carburetors until the arrival of the LP5000 QV model, some of which used Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection to meet US emissions regulations. European-specification cars continued to use carburetors until the arrival of the succeeding Diablo.

Chassis and body construction
Paolo Stanzani and the Lamborghini engineering team developed an all-steel partial space frame chassis for the LP500 Countach prototype. This prototype chassis was constructed of both a steel sheet and square-section steel tubing, with wall thicknesses between 0.8-1.0 mm. The front section primarily used stamped and spot-welded sheet steel, with certain areas stiffened by stamped ribs and welded reinforcement panels. Stiffening frames constructed of sheet steel and tubing extended through the center of the car, along both door sills and around the central transmission tunnel. The rear section of the chassis consisted of almost entirely square-section tubing and included diagonal bracing and multiple cross-members for strength. This prototype chassis was constructed by Marchesi of Modena, which had produced chassis for earlier Lamborghini models.

The prototype chassis was stiffer and heavier than the Miura chassis. It weighed 107 kg, while the Miura's chassis weighed 75 kg. The additional weight was partially due to the lack of the lightening holes used in the Miura and partially due to the need to construct an extra-durable chassis for pre-production testing. In addition to the strength and stiffness improvements over the Miura design, engineers believed that greater use of steel tubing would result in a chassis that was easier for the factory to fabricate and easier to protect from corrosion.

Following testing of the LP500 prototype during 1971, Stanzani and his team decided to further revise the chassis design. The dimensions and layout were similar, but the steel sheet and square tube construction used in the prototype was entirely disregarded in favor of a full space frame constructed of welded round-section steel tubing. Compared to the prototype, this design used a much more complex welded assembly of cross-braced tubular frames and was reinforced with sheet metal gussets in a few key areas. Tubes of 30 mm, 25 mm, and 15 mm diameter were used, all with 1 mm wall thickness. Overall, this new design was stiffer and weighed less, at 90 kg. At the time, this construction technique was used in Formula One but was extremely advanced for a road-going automobile. In addition to the performance benefits of this design, engineers recognized that building a technologically advanced and visually complex chassis would align with Lamborghini's marketing strategy and sell better than a conventional design. The full space frame chassis was tested in a second Countach prototype and would be used basically unchanged on subsequent production cars. Chassis fabrication added a significant amount to the cost of the car as each chassis required laborious hand-welding, first by Marchesi then again during final assembly at the Lamborghini factory. However, logistically this method of fabrication was relatively easy to incorporate into the low-volume, manually skilled production line.

Prototype and production Countach bodies were constructed primarily of unstressed aluminum panels. Stanzani had initially considered fabricating body panels from the lightweight alloy Avional, primarily used in aircraft construction, but found it expensive and difficult to obtain. A more conventional aluminum alloy was used instead. Prototypes used aluminum panels between 1–1.2 mm thick, increased to 1.5 mm for the production LP400. The aluminum body panels were fabricated by Bertone. These panels were supported by thin steel frames welded to the main chassis. Once the panels were in place, factory workers would then hand-form them in order to adjust the final body shape, surface smoothness and gaps between panels. As the spaceframe chassis did not have an integrated floor panel, a separate fiberglass and aluminum panel was installed underneath the passenger compartment. Although the LP400 used an all-aluminum body, later versions of the Countach would incorporate body components made of fiberglass and carbon composites.

Prototypes
Lamborghini created three pre-production Countach prototypes prior to the introduction of the LP400 production model.

The first prototype was the LP500, which was displayed at the 1971 Geneva Motor Show and later used for pre-production testing and development by the factory. This car had many mechanical and styling differences compared to the production LP400. It was built on a partial spaceframe steel chassis which was heavier and simpler compared to the production version's full tubular spaceframe. The bright yellow bodywork closely followed Gandini's original design for the car but was modified during testing with additional air inlets to improve engine cooling. The 5.0 liter V12 engine initially fitted to the LP500 was destroyed during testing and replaced with a 3.9 liter V12, similar to the engine used on the production LP400. The LP500 prototype was destroyed in a crash test on March 21, 1974 at the MIRA facility in England to gain European type approval, even though its construction method was utterly unlike production vehicles. In 2017, a recreation of the LP500 prototype was constructed by Lamborghini Polo Storico, the Lamborghini factory's restoration division. The completed recreation was first displayed to the public at the 2021 Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este.

The second Countach prototype (chassis number 1120001) was shown to the public at the 1973 Geneva Motor Show (painted red) and at the 1973 Paris Motor Show (painted green). The bodywork of this car was much closer to that of the LP400 production model, and now incorporated the side NACA ducts and air intake boxes tested on the first prototype. This car showed some styling details from the first prototype that would not carry over into production, including trapezoidal windows and a bumperless nose with silver, recessed grill. This was the first car to be equipped with the tubular full spaceframe chassis used on production models. This car was fitted with the 3.9-litre engine, although contemporary press releases still designated it as an "LP500", possibly because Lamborghini engineers still intended to use a 5.0-litre engine in the production version. In addition to appearing at motor shows, Lamborghini engineers used the second prototype for road testing and as a reference to create the wooden master pattern for all body panels. This car currently resides in the Lamborghini factory museum.

The third Countach prototype (chassis number 1120002) was shown at the 1974 Geneva Motor Show and was the first to be constructed entirely in the Lamborghini factory, except for the chassis built by Marchesi. It is sometimes called the first pre-production or first production LP400 Countach. This car was painted bright yellow and had the finalized production LP400 body style, which was 13 cm longer than the previous prototype bodies to increase interior space. The trapezoidal side windows seen in the first prototypes were replaced with a three-panel design, which was easier to manufacture. The wheel arch shape was slightly changed to prevent the rear tyres from rubbing when the suspension was compressed. To improve long-term durability`, the thickness of the body sheet metal was increased from 1.2 mm to 1.5 mm and the suspension and gearbox mounting points were made from tubing with a greater wall thickness. The interior was changed to final production form, losing Gandini's electronic diagnostic displays from the first prototype and using instead conventional gauges manufactured by Stewart-Warner.

LP400
The first production model of the Countach was the LP400, produced from 1974 until 1978. It was first offered for sale at the 1974 Geneva Auto Show, where 50 orders were placed. The LP400 was equipped with a 3929 cc engine delivering 276 kW. This engine was given the type designation "L 406."

Externally, little had changed from the second prototype. The nose panel was altered, the side windows now split horizontally, and various details of interior trim were changed. The LP400 was equipped with Michelin XWX tires, sized front 205/70R14 and rear 215/70R14. The narrow tires and the slick styling meant that this version had the lowest drag coefficient of any Countach model. The emblems at the rear simply read "Lamborghini" and "Countach", with no engine displacement or valve arrangement markings as is found on later variants.

The LP400 chassis was constructed by Marchesi, then delivered to the Lamborghini factory at Sant'Agata where the car was assembled and painted. The engine and transmission were also manufactured at Sant'Agata. Each engine was run for a total of 5 hours and inspected before being installed in the car. The LP400 production line was developed and supervised by Giancarlo Guerra, a former Scaglietti employee who worked closely with Stanzani. By the end of production in 1978, the company had produced 157 Countach LP400s.

LP400 S
In 1978, a new LP400 S model was introduced. Though the engine was slightly downgraded from the LP400 model at 261 kW, the most radical changes were on the exterior, where, and fiberglass wheel arch extensions were added, giving the car the fundamental look it kept until the end of its production run. An optional V-shaped rear wing was available over the rear deck following the popularity generated from the rear wing of the Walter Wolf Countach, which, while improving high-speed stability, reduced the top speed by at least 16 kph. Most owners ordered the car with the wing despite this disadvantage. The LP400 S' handling was improved by the wider tyres, which made the car more stable while cornering. The standard emblems ("Lamborghini" and "Countach") were kept at the rear, but an angular "S" emblem was added after the "Countach" on the right side.

There are three distinct Countach LP400 S Series:
 * Series One: 50 were produced. The final chassis number of this series was 1121100. Series I cars can be identified by distinctive Campagnolo "Bravo" wheels with protruding hole edges, 45 mm carburetors and a lowered suspension ride height. Early series one cars used small Stewart-Warner dashboard gauges, which were changed to larger versions halfway through 1979. The very early 1978 cars had the original, unpadded LP400 steering wheel, while later cars used a different, padded style.
 * Series Two: 105 were produced. The final chassis number of this series was 1121310. Series II cars can be identified by their smooth, concave wheels and lowered ("lowbody") suspension ride height.
 * Series Three: 82 were produced. The first chassis number of this series was 1121312 and the final chassis number was 1121468. Series III cars can be identified by their increased suspension ride height compared to series I and II cars. The usable interior space was also increased by 3 cm.

LP500 S
1982 saw another update to the Countach, with a larger displacement, more powerful 4754 cc engine. The bodywork was unaltered, however, the interior was given an update. This variant is sometimes called the 5000 S in some markets, which may cause confusion with the later 5000 QV. 321 cars were built.

LP5000 Quattrovalvole
In 1985, the engine design evolved again, as it was bored and stroked to 5167 cc and given 4 valves per cylinder—quattro valvole in Italian, hence the model's name, Countach LP5000 Quattrovalvole or 5000 QV in short. The carburetors were moved from the sides to the top of the engine for better cooling—unfortunately this created a hump on the engine cover, reducing the already poor rear visibility to almost zero. Some body panels were also replaced by Kevlar. In later versions of the engine, the carburetors were replaced with Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection system. The Fuel injected engine was rated at 309 kW. The European carbureted (also known as "Downdraft" or "DD") versions used six Weber carburetors and were rated at 335 kW at 7,000 rpm and 500 Nm of torque at 5,200 rpm. 610 cars were built in this specification, with 66 having the fuel injection system.

On the 26th of June, 2024, a Lego set of the car was made.

25th Anniversary Edition
Named to honour the company's twenty-fifth anniversary in 1988, the 25th Anniversary Countach, although mechanically very similar to the 5000QV, sported considerable restyling done by Horacio Pagani. Notably, enlargement and extension of the rear 'air-box' intake-ducts was among other refinements undertaken (extending them to a more gradual incline further in-keeping with aerodynamic-streamlining), while the secondary pair of debossed ducts, originally situated further behind them, were brought forward and relocated directly on top, encompassing refashioned fins now running longitudinally rather than transversely, this allowed the airboxes, located behind the radiators to be rotated from a transverse to a longitudinal position, allowing better airflow from the radiators out through the secondary fins. Additionally, further reconstruction of an already modified engine-bay cover, from a concept consisting of dual-raised sections and tri-ducting, to one that embodies a centre-raised section incorporating dual-ducting become another feature. Various redevelopments to the rear were made; most notably the introduction of a rear bumper extending outwardly from the lower-portion.

These styling changes, particularly features such as the fin strakes within the primary rear-intake-ducts openings, appeared to mimic the Ferrari Testarossa, though providing crucial improved engine cooling. Nonetheless it was only outsold by the QV model. It continued to feature 345/35R15 tyres. The Anniversary edition was produced up until 1990 before being superseded by the Lamborghini Diablo.

The 25th Anniversary Edition was the most refined and possibly the fastest variant of the Lamborghini Countach, accelerating from 0 to 60 mph in 4.7 seconds and achieving a top speed of 183 mph.

North America
The United States is Lamborghini's biggest market and has traditionally been the largest market in the world for expensive cars such as exotic sports cars. However neither the Countach, nor its closest competitor, the Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer, were built from the factory to meet United States or Canadian safety and emissions regulations.

Americans purchased the Countach anyway, and individual consumers paid to modify each vehicle to meet United States Environmental Protection Agency and United States Department of Transportation regulations. This was known as the grey market era (1976-1988). While the Countach, Ferrari Berlinetta Boxer, and Range Rover were among the first such vehicles, the infrastructure they created allowed the "grey market" to reach 66,900 vehicles in 1985.

In 1985, with the introduction of the 5000 QV, a U.S. specification model was produced by the factory, meeting United States federal safety and emissions regulations. Changes to the American specification models included larger energy-absorbing bumpers, as the original bumper design did not meet the American "5 mile per hour" regulation (1974–1981), and a Bosch K-Jetronic fuel injection system. Many owners removed the bumpers immediately or received their new cars without bumpers installed.

American federal law exempts all vehicles older than 25 years from all design, safety, and emission regulations. Therefore, any original Countach can be freely imported into the US and registered for unrestricted road use in states that permit such activity.

Walter Wolf Countach
In 1975, Walter Wolf, a wealthy Canadian businessman and owner of the Wolf F1 Racing team in the 1970s, purchased an LP400; however, he was not satisfied with the LP400's engine and asked Gianpaolo Dallara to create a special high-power version of the Countach. Dallara was the former chief engineer at Lamborghini and had founded his own company, Dallara Automobili, in 1972. Dallara modified chassis 1120148 to create the "Walter Wolf Special" with an engine identical to the 5.0 L engine from the original 1971 LP500 prototype, which generated 333 kW at 7,900 rpm and enabled the car to attain a theoretical maximum speed of 315 or. This model also featured upgraded wheels, Pirelli P7 tyres, flared arches, and front and rear spoilers, all features that would become integrated on future Countach's starting with the LP400 S. Wolf's car was painted red with black flared arches, was designated "LP500 S" like the standard Countach model from the 1980s, and was the key stepping stone that led to the development of these later production models.

Two subsequent Wolf Specials were produced, the first, painted Bugatti blue, No. 1120202 was kept by the factory, and the last, a darker navy blue, No. 1121210 was the very first LP400 S and presented at the 1978 Geneva Motor Show. Both of the later Wolf cars used the original 5.0-litre engine commissioned by Wolf, transplanted to each car in turn.

Countach Turbo S
During the early 1980s, two modified turbocharged Countachs were commissioned by Max Bobnar, the official Lamborghini distributor in Switzerland. Bobnar hired Master Technician Franz Albert to convert the cars to a twin-turbo configuration and to make other performance modifications unique to the two prototypes; this was accomplished between 1980 and 1982. One was based on an LP500 S and was painted black, while the other was based on a Series I LP400 S and painted metallic red. The LP500 S Turbo was presented to the public at the 1984 Geneva Motor Show.

The LP500 S twin turbo weighed 1515 kg, while its 4.8 litre twin-turbocharged V12 engine had a claimed maximum power output of 558 kW and 876 Nm of torque, enabling the car to accelerate from 0-100 km/h in 3.7 seconds and attain a top speed of 335 km/h. A manual boost controller, located beneath the steering wheel, could be used to adjust the boost pressure from 0.7 bar to 1.5 bar at which the engine generated its maximum power output. The Turbo S has 15" wheels with 255/45 tyres on the front and 345/35 on the rear.

Countach QVX
The Countach QVX was a short-lived Group C sports racing car built in 1985. It was not built or designed by the Lamborghini factory, but instead used a Spice Engineering and CC engineering built chassis and an engine derived from the Lamborghini Countach's V12 having a displacement of 5.7-litres. This engine was reported to generate a maximum power output between 485-522 kW depending on track conditions and utilised a Hewland VG-C racing transmission. The engine was built under the direction of Luigi Marmiroli and used data derived from Lamborghini's marine engines. Lamborghini's British importer David Jolliffe commissioned the car. The car was entered in the 1985 season of LeMans but didn't have any success despite keeping up with the winning Jaguar. It was entered again in the 1986 season by its sponsor, Unipart, but the funding soon ran out and the car was pulled out of competition.

F1 safety car
Between 1980 and 1983, Formula One employed the Countach as its safety car during the Monaco Grand Prix.

Countach Evoluzione
The Countach Evoluzione was a one-off prototype and testbed car built by Lamborghini in 1987. It was developed by Lamborghini's engineering team in order to test multiple technologies for the Countach's successor. The Evoluzione used a substantially different chassis and body than the production Countach and lacked interior trim, soundproofing and air-conditioning. It was continually modified for testing purposes and all body panels were left unpainted. Although there was no production version of the Evoluzione, the Countach Anniversary Edition and the Diablo would incorporate some of its engineering, including carbon fibre/Kevlar composite body panels.

The Evoluzione was built on an all-new chassis but used engine, suspension and wheels from the Countach LP5000QV production model, although all these components would be modified during testing. While based on the production engine, the Evoluzione engine was blueprinted for greater performance and generated approximately 368 kW. The transmission was modified with a short throw shifter but was otherwise the same as the production version. The Evoluzione accelerated from 0 to 97 kph in approximately 4 seconds and had a reported top speed around 200 mph.

The most radical change from the production Countach was a new chassis and body incorporating many composite materials, including Kevlar and carbon fibre-reinforced plastics and aluminum honeycomb panels. The tubular steel space frame chassis of the production Countach was completely replaced with a new composite unibody structure. The front boot lid, rear engine cover, front air dam and wheel arches were made of carbon/Kevlar composite, while the wings and doors used more conventional but still lightweight aluminum panels. Aerodynamic wheel covers made from composite materials were also tested but were found to increase heat build-up and brake fade. These changes resulted in a radical weight reduction of approximately 876 lb compared to the contemporary LP5000QV production model. The new body also reduced the drag coefficient by approximately 10%. The 1988 Countach Anniversary edition incorporated features of the Evoluzione body, including several composite panels and air intakes integrated into the lower door sills.

Lamborghini engineers used the Evoluzione as a testbed for many other technologies during its existence. These included a 4WD drivetrain, electronically controlled ride height, active suspension, ABS, and retractable, low-drag windscreen wipers.

Although contemporary publications mention the possibility of a limited production run based on the Evoluzione, the car never entered production. The single Countach Evoluzione prototype was destroyed by the Lamborghini factory during crash testing and no longer exists.

Countach L150
The Countach L150 was a one-off prototype developed between 1984 and 1987 under the supervision of engineer Giulio Alfieri. The L150 was intended to represent a new Countach-based production model. It was developed into a fully functional prototype at the request of Lamborghini owner and CEO Patrick Mimran. Mimran was presented with two approaches for future Lamborghini models in the mid 1980s: Alfieri wished to continue developing the Countach, while newly hired engineer Luigi Marmiroli began designing a new model which would become the Diablo. The L150 represented Alfieri's approach, and included many body panels intended to improve engine cooling and update the car's styling. Efforts were also taken to improve the car's comfort, such as installing electric windows. Mimran eventually rejected the L150 due to cost concerns, instead choosing a less ambitious update of the Countach with the 25th Anniversary Edition while also approving further development of Marmiroli's Diablo concept. In 1987, Mimran acquired the L150 for his personal collection. In 1989, it was sold to Lamborghini collector Minoru Miura and still remains in his collection as of 2021.

Production figures
A total of 1,983 cars were built during the Countach's sixteen-year lifetime:

Substantially more than half were built in the final five years of production, as Lamborghini's new corporate owners increased production.

A small number of new Countachs were assembled in Cape Town, South Africa during the mid-1970s by local dealer and importer Intermotormakers (IMM). IMM imported Countachs and other Lamborghini models from the Lamborghini factory as complete knock-down kits. This import arrangement was active until the South African government revoked IMM's exemption to phase V of the local content programme, which took effect in 1980 and mandated that cars manufactured in South Africa incorporate a minimum of 66% locally produced content. The total number of Intermotormakers-assembled Countachs is unknown, but they constitute a very small fraction of Countach production.

Countach LPI 800-4

In order to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Countach in 2021, the nameplate is reused on a limited-production hybrid-electric model called the Countach LPI 800-4 which has a naturally aspirated 6.5-litre V12 engine with a 48-volt electric motor based on the technology of the Sián FKP 37.

title: Lamborghini Countach


text:
John Lent

John Lent is a Canadian poet and novelist, as well as a college teacher of creative writing and literature. He has published ten books from 1978 to 2012. His book, So It Won't Go Away, was shortlisted for the 2006 Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize. Lent's fiction and poetry have appeared for years in magazines across Canada, including: The Malahat Review, Event, Dandelion, Grain, The Wascana Review, NeWest Review, Prairie Fire, CV2, New Quarterly, Waves, Matrix, The Fiddlehead, and The Antigonish Review. Lent has read from his work in many cities in Canada, and internationally. Lent has also published critical articles on the work of Malcolm Lowry, Thomas DeQuincey, Wyndham Lewis, Tom Wayman, Kristjana Gunnars, Mavis Gallant, Dennis Brutus and Wilfred Watson.

"My continuing interest," Lent says, "is the relationship between consciousness and notions of 'narrative' in both fiction and poetry. So I'm fascinated by what happens when you take a person in a very ordinary, textured world and the story that surfaces actually mimics the process of awareness that is right at the heart of that world...so it's this wonderful, crazy mix of subjectivity and things that keeps drawing me to more open, more flexible forms of story.  I find that whole process nervy and exciting."

Lent is also a singer-songwriter and plays in a roots/jazz trio, The Lent/Fraser/Wall Trio, which performs in British Columbia, and has opened for groups as various as Leahey, Chilliwack, Campbell Ryga, Long John Baldry, UHF and others. John Lent lives with his wife, Jude Clarke (painter and writer) in Vernon, British Columbia. Lent is a member of the Writers Union of Canada, SOCAN, the Canadian Songwriters Association, and the Associated Writing Programs (USA).

Biography
John Lent was born on July 8, 1948, in Antigonish, Nova Scotia. He is the son of Harry and Adrienne (Brown) Lent and is one of seven siblings (Susan, Michael, Harry, Francis, Timothy, Mary-Lou). Lent married the painter Jude Clarke in 1981. Educated at the University of Alberta, B.A. (with honors), 1969, M.A., 1971, where he was a student of Sheila Watson, Lent pursued doctoral studies at York University, 1971–75, including field work in British Columbia, on Malcolm Lowry and Spatial Form.

Prior to joining Okanagan College, Lent taught at the University of Regina, Saskatchewan, and Notre Dame University College in Nelson, British Columbia. Starting in 1979, he taught creative writing and literature courses at Okanagan College in Vernon, British Columbia. He retired from the position of Dean, North Okanagan Region, Okanagan College, in April 2011. He was influential in the creation of the Ryga Award for Social Responsibility in Canadian Literature, Ryga a Journal of Provocations, the Mackie Lecture and Reading Series, the Kalamalka Press, KIdsWWwrite (a creative writing ezine) and the KIWW Digital Archives, as well as several radio programs and newsprint collaborations such as The Kalamalka Chronicles. John Lent's participation in and authoring of the opening chapter of the, initially, serialised Kalamalka Chronicles, a community writing project initiated by The Sun Review newspaper and the Kalamalka Institute for Working Writers, emphasises the degree to which he experiments with narrative form and authorship. In this instance, the characters and their opening maneuvers were controlled by Lent, then re-authored and re-plotted by eight other writers. That the 'contest' was quite lively and that the newspaper folded after the publication of chapter nine is, perhaps, indicative of a community of writers rather than readers. In addition to these services to the literary arts and promotion of quality writing, Lent has engendered careers in writing through his work as a teacher and as an editor. He was a writer in residence at Sage Hill, Saskatchewan from 2009 to 2011. Lent reads his work in many cities in Canada, the United States, France, and England. He is a founding member of the Kalamalka Press, the Kalamalka Institute for working writers, and the annual Mackie Lecture and Reading series at Okanagan College. Lent is also a singer-songwriter and played in the roots/jazz trio Lent Fraser Wall.

Lent lives in Vernon, British Columbia, where he has finished revising a novel, The Path to Ardroe, a multi-voiced narrative set in Vernon, Strasbourg and the Scottish highlands, scheduled for publication in Spring 2012. He is also at work on a sequence of essays on consciousness and form, covering, among others, the writings of DeQuincey, Gunnars and Lowry.

Other biographical information is available in Jude Clarke's The Language of Water.

Critical response
John Lent is an academic, essayist, poet, short story writer and musician. His work is marked by a mixing of genres that aims to produce a literary equivalent of jazz music. Lent also draws on art (especially the Impressionists) and has been influenced by the pioneering work of Joseph Frank in spatial form.

A Rock Solid plays off the various senses of the term rock: geological, musical, and etymological, with emphasis on its derivation from the Old High German rucken: "to cause to move". The term solid relates to the Cubist-influenced geometric structure, an insight prompted by the epigraph from Albert Gleizes and Jean Metzinger's Du Cubisme (1912). Combined, the "rock solid" signposts an emphasis on fluidity and stasis. The title's indefinite article foregrounds this rock solid as one petite narrative among many; that is, the structure and sense are not a univocal, universalising "truth". The relationship between words and painting, tied to the acoustic suggestion in the volume's title, stress the poet's inter-related concerns with a totality of experience. A Rock Solid "has captured a sense of experimentation with form [...] It is rare in literature for a reader to have a glimpse of the poet chipping through the rock solid of experience in order to see the poem" (Meyer, 88–90). Meyer's sole review of the book also comments on its packaging and how the reader is "sorting through a pile of debris". This comment underlines the reader's engagement, where sorting through the cards enforces reflection upon the experience and the reading process.

Wood Lake Music continues the emphasis on landscape, but a greater sense of mood is evoked. In tune with the sense of foreboding, the narrator's consciousness penetrates day-to-day rituals of renewal. The narrative employs a simple plot—the protagonist's drive (from Vernon) past Kalamalka Lake, then Wood Lake, and finally Duck Lake and into Kelowna. Temporal structure runs from "Monday, September 8, 3:30 pm" through "Monday, October 13, 7:00 am; 1:00 pm" Time represents the specific chronological frame of the trips, while their incremental repetition offers an accretion of being in place.

In subsequent writing (Frieze and The Face in the Garden), Lent loosens his aesthetic through the application of lessons taken from Joseph Frank's concept, spatial form, as well as its deconstructive developments—in particular the emphasis on space/place. Reviews of Frieze have been positive. Andrew Vasius, for example, applauds Lent's use of "end-line, internal, vowel and consonant rhyme for his own designs. The effect is not, as one might think, poetic conservatism, since he creates new forms through rhythmic change-ups, diction, caesura and sustained imagery" (110). Yet Vasius is critical of what he perceives to be "some poems [that] are so self-centred they leave a fleeting impression that Lent is translating experience into poetry" (110) rather than vice versa. Further to this claim, Vasius contends that the "'how' is exciting [...] whereas the 'what' is often only as new and unusual as the coffee, cigarettes and booze" (110) that punctuate these poems. Christopher Wiseman differs from Vasius in Wiseman's recognition of the regional place and the vernacular that is attendant to it: "The poems are rooted in real places, but these are turned into places of the mind, way-stations of the migrant heart, touchstones in the poet's search for meaning. The search is intensified by the tonal range of the poetry, from the high serious to the most colloquial, blended smoothly and always at the poet's service" (190). Michael Estok presses further, highlighting a motif in Lent's aesthetic: "Primarily, however, Lent is an artist of the 'negative space' of unadorned day-to-day existence. The stress of his rhythms is clearly on the banal, rather than on the sensational [...] The poet's careful structure of imagery and his muscular tone—his powerful expression of the hypnotic rhythm of the ordinary—elicit our confidence in his ability to redeem the commonplace" (9). Cheryl Sutherland, in a fine, close reading of several poems, evokes the volume's core: "he finds precision satisfying [and so] the task he has taken upon himself is to release the petrified voices of those who have lacked the vocabulary; he fashions a frieze from their silence" (Sutherland, np).

The Face in the Garden explores subjectivity by using prose and poetry to refer to external and internal states of consciousness. The author's linguistic dexterity underscores the sense of mobility as a theme in life and in literature. The volume is, however, a transitional moment in the writer's career. On the one hand it presents his first published stories; while, on the other, it consolidates his accomplishments as a poet. Reviews of this experimental book range from the journalistic boorishness of John Moore to academic criticism. Elizabeth St. Jacques, in Freelance, sees the work as the story of Peter Bendy, wherein "Boredom [...] has become his companion enemy that follows him on the long search to find his own 'face in the garden' of life" (38). St. Jacques faults the weakness of Bendy's character, the prose stories, that "come across as mini-lectures" and applauds the poetry, where "Lent allows his sensitivity and calm spirit to surface" (38). Professor R. G. Moyles concentrates on the title, offering an explication of "face" as many and "garden" as metaphor for life. He views "Towards the Gardens" as about "family upbringing and its emotional energy", while "In the Gardens" and "Facing the Gardens" present "physical and psychical" (n.p.) terrain. John Le Blanc's review is the most considered, though readers are likely to find room for argument with his conclusion: "[T]he shift to poetry in the last third of the work [exchanges] an analyzing consciousness [with] a verse that, in its imagistic terseness, is more coldly remote than engagingly elemental" (180). While there is much to agree with in Le Blanc's piece, the shift to poetry, far from being remote, is an imagistic expression that complements the analyzing consciousness. The point is not body versus mind, but rather body and mind—a fusion and a 'return' to that originary garden, Eden, where humans could be.

Monet's Garden is a discontinuous narrative of asymmetrical structure – an interweaving of connected stories with elliptical, interconnected pieces on the narrator of the book. The injection of a jazzy structure forcefully creates a three-dimensional literary space, perhaps at the expense of character, while in Black Horses, Cobalt Suns and Home (a poetic broadsheet, 2003), the poet opens out to societal concerns. The reviews are plentiful and consistently positive for Monet's Garden, Lent's major prose achievement prior to the publication of So It Won't Go Away. For example, Britt Hagarty writes of the "many descriptive passages worthy of quotation" (G6). Hagarty also notes that the book "succeeds powerfully at first. But its initial promise is not kept" (G6). Allan Brown perceptively parallels Monet's Garden "both of intention and general effect, to his poetry collection Wood Lake Music". Thematically, Brown observes: "There is some sadness in the new book with its tactful yet poignant descriptions of the ravages of alcoholism and the uncertain emotional relationships of an over-extended family. But there are moments of secure joy as well: moments, rather, that isolate, emphasize, and partly recreate a repeated joyfulness, often caught up in the perception of things." In his review of five new BC books, Brown concludes that, comparatively, "Lent has probably come closest of all these authors to what Charles Lillard [...] called 'a coming-to-terms with the landscape'—of B.C., or anywhere else." Dallas Harrison's observations are similar, though high praise of Lent's descriptive power is forthcoming in Harrison's summary of Jane's narrative as "a crisis of selfhood in London worthy of Antoine Roquentin in Jean-Paul Sartre's Nausea" (113). Harrison misses the point with respect to the Roof sequence when he suggests their deletion, "abstract meditations that add little to the portrait of the family" (113); however, he rightly notes that "[t]hese autobiographically influenced stories suffer somewhat from John Lent's controlling consciousness, evident in the similarity of characters [...]" (113). Valerie Compton's review in The Edmonton Journal displays the inattentiveness of the reviewer, especially to the book's structural experiment. See McLuckie's review for a contrasting perspective. Susan Patrick's capsule review emphasises the predominantly "psychological" nature of the stories, while also joining the chorus of reviewers who applaud Lent's "strong sense of place [that] has the ability to put the reader into both the emotional and physical landscapes of his characters" (3123).

Black Horses, Cobalt Suns: new poems is John Lent's sixth published book, his fourth of poetry. Based on revisions to a "sonnet cycle" completed in 1995, this chapbook contains the original twelve poems reworked as ten free verse lyrics, with a reflective "prologue". The new edition incorporates a governing epigraph from Robert Kroetsch's The Crow Journals (1980). "Abandonment" is the catalyst, where "People without names" is the thematic core (i.e., to exist outside the rational labelling consciousness). The question governs Lent's investigation of self in place. Historically, the sonnet cycle has some provenance in a varied number of poems governed by an intellectual pattern. The question posed in the epigraph is that pattern, with a movement from loss and depression to a slow renewal of an expressive vision and cautious hope. For Lent, cultural critique is central to the cycle, as his "Prologue" makes clear. Lent sees the horses as a metaphor for human (dis)connectedness: "hooves thundering through the reader's veins, racing over the planet with a passion that is out of us, sometimes turned against itself, sadly". The second metaphor, also foregrounded in the title, is the representation of place: "In the summer here in the Okanagan [...] there is a shade of cobalt blue that can be so intense it's overwhelming, and you get this gold and silver of the sun shredding it, shattering it, burnishing it, as it goes down." The interconnection of the horses moving out to meet the in-coming sun creates a crease, a physical epiphany that assures humanity is in the right place.

So It Won't Go Away, the follow-up to Monet's Garden, dazzles with its open, looser structure, inviting the reader—as do each of Lent's works by different means—to an engaged participation in text and in life. Devastating critiques of late capitalism, with an attendant and demonstrable human agency, bring the writer's aesthetic, calmly, quietly, forcefully to fruition. Cherie Thiessen writes that "The short stories in So It Won't Go Away are not plot-driven narratives. Instead they flip around in time, place and point of view, incorporating first, second and third-person perspectives. Lent's dozen stories get as close to three-dimensional writing as is possible." Paul Denham, notes the struggle a critic faces with the book and labels but also sees that struggle as an impediment "from its real emotional power of a story (or series of stories, if you prefer) about the joy and pain of being a family." Two reviews in The Globe and Mail concentrate on structure and theme. Wiersema places emphasis on structure: "Interestingly, the creator never creates a position of privilege for himself; his story is as fictive, and as truthful-feeling, as the "bigger, impossible story" of the Connelly siblings, and becomes another strand in the complex and utterly winning tale Lent is spinning." While Sandborn offers a thematic overview: "The book works both as a straightforward story of family pain, addiction, love and redemption, and as a highly intelligent meditation on the process of writing itself."

Lent's recent novel, The Path to Ardroe (2012) embodies Lent's interests in jazz, being, consciousness, landscape and the self. The thematic core is, for lack of better phrasing, a spiritual existentialism—how a human can just be in the world. Another way to cast the theme and, in several respects, the approach may be likened to the following: "It is, of course, an operation to unblock the heart but a tricky one, where you have to go in through the head without getting trapped there." Steven W. Beattie, in his National Post review of the novel has caught its place in Lent's oeuvre: "If So It Won't Go Away is a series of distinct riffs and trills, The Path to Ardroe more closely resembles a symphony, with a number of different movements circling around a central theme."

Lengthier analyses of Lent's work are found in Craig McLuckie's "Improvisation of Self and Other in John Lent's Developing Aesthetic", which offers coverage of the published work (excluding songs) up to Black Horses, Cobalt Suns, and the book length conversation on writing conducted with Robert Kroetsch, Abundance, which offers significant insight to Lent's creative praxis generally and to So It Won't Go Away specifically. Kootenay writer Angie Abdou, reviewing the book, remarks " In Abundance, readers are immersed in an intimate conversation between two greats of Canadian literature—great teachers, great writers, great minds."

Discography
Recordings include:

 * 2005: Shadow Moon (with the Lent/Fraser/Wall Trio)

John Lent's family has a strong presence musically; his songs have been recorded by a number of artists. With his sister, Susan, and brother, John Lent formed a folk-rock group, The Circle Widens, who were sturdy cover artists.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: John Lent


text:
User talk:Bugmuncher

Hello there Bugmuncher, welcome to the 'pedia! I hope you like the place and decide to stay. If you need pointers on how we title pages visit Naming conventions or how to format them visit our manual of style. If you have any other questions about the project then check out Help or add a question to the Village pump. Cheers! —Frecklefoot

Hey, no problem. Your articles are really good, especially the Mac the Knife one. Good to have you around. (BTW, timestamp is done with ~ .) - Hephaestos 06:30, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Testing... Bugmuncher 18:27, 1 Aug 2003 (UTC)
 * Works! This page has a lot of the markup tricks listed on it. - Hephaestos 00:43, 2 Aug 2003 (UTC)

Village pump
I started editing frenetically last week without reading the rules... I figured that I would learn them as I go, and now I'm actually bolding things... and citing. Yay.

But... the first article I wrote was Macworld Conference & Expo. I was on the Apple Macintosh page, and saw that Macworld Expo was listed, and decided to correct it to its proper name. Then I noticed there was no article for this newly created name (I was new then), and I set out creating an article.

Then a few days later I realized that there was still a Macworld Expo article... even if it was shorter. Oops. So... I guess the question is, should I make the other one a redirect, or should I merge the pages, and keep the old title? -Bugmuncher 17:09, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * I think merging the short one into the long one, making the short one a redirect is most usual, if the long one has the better name. (17:14, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC))

 * Just copied the text from Macworld Expo to Macworld Conference & Expo, making Macworld Expo a redirect, haven't merged it properly, though. Ксип Cyp 17:21, 8 Aug 2003 (UTC)

 * Welcome to Wikipedia! :) Martin

Thanks...
Thanks for all of your excellent work on the Jesse Macbeth article! -- Yekrats 10:43, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

Glad you like it
I am glad that you like the script. Feel free to use it on articles in your categories of interest. If you are feeling brave, you can copy the contents, make your own version and edit it. Regards. bobblewik 21:06, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the cluestick :)
And no hard feelings. Copyright is a confusing area that I myself had to research to understand. The big thing that's confusing is how people still file copyrights at the United States Copyright Office, but really its purpose is just to be able to say "I told you so" if their claim of creation comes into question. Basically, if a business wants to make sure they don't have to bother with lawsuits, they copywrite their works offically to save themselves the hassle. See Copyright Act of 1976 for more information.

On another note, you can always try resending the images in with the right fair use tag ;) But see if there are any free images of him out there first.--SeizureDog 05:28, 9 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The unusually funny thing about this is that I know a lot about IP law, sorta, with respect to licensing of trademarks. It hadn't occurred to me that my copyright information went out of date shortly after I was born...Bugmuncher 05:36, 9 June 2006 (UTC)

 * Changed up the Copyright notices in the Jesse Macbeth area. While I think you were close, I think that listing them as CopyrightedFreeUseProvidedThat is more accurate, since under a Copyleft-style liscense, there is still the stipulation that your subsequent works also be freely available (which the Wikipedia fully meets). Damn good work with the article, though. EvilCouch 09:24, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Change to Common.css
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WikiProject Good Articles Newsletter
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We are always looking for new members to assist with the remaining articles, so if you are interested or know of anybody that can assist, please visit the GA sweeps page. In addition, for every member that reviews 100 articles or has a significant impact on the process, s/he will get an award when they reach that threshold. If only 14 editors achieve this feat starting now, we would be done with Sweeps! Of course, having more people reviewing less articles would be better for all involved, so please consider asking others to help out. Feel free to stop by and only review a few articles, something's better than nothing! Take a look at the list, and see what articles interest you. Let's work to complete Sweeps so that efforts can be fully focused on the backlog at GAN. If you have any questions about the process, reviewing, or need help with a particular article, please contact me or OhanaUnited and we'll be happy to help. --Happy editing! Nehrams2020 (talk • contrib) 08:01, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

April 2010 GAN backlog elimination drive
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ArbCom elections are now open!
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title: User talk:Bugmuncher


text:
Ann-Marie MacDonald

Ann-Marie MacDonald (born October 29, 1958) is a Canadian playwright, author, actress, and broadcast host who lives in Toronto, Ontario.

Life and career
MacDonald is the daughter of a member of Canada's military; she was born at an air force base near Baden-Baden, West Germany. She is of partial Lebanese descent through her mother.

MacDonald won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for her first novel, Fall on Your Knees (1996), which was selected for Oprah Winfrey's Book Club in January 2002.

MacDonald received the Governor General's Award for Drama, the Floyd S. Chalmers Canadian Play Award, and the Canadian Authors Association Drama Award for her play, Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet).

MacDonald hosted the CBC documentary series Life and Times for seven seasons. MacDonald also hosted CBC's flagship documentary program, Doc Zone for eight seasons.

She appeared in the films I've Heard the Mermaids Singing and Better Than Chocolate, among others.

MacDonald's 2003 novel, The Way the Crow Flies, was partly inspired by the Steven Truscott case. Her third novel Adult Onset was released in 2014 and has been translated into five languages. Her fourth novel Fayne was published in 2022.

She was the inaugural Mordecai Richler Reading Room Writer in Residence at Concordia University, and she coaches students in the Acting and Playwriting Programs at the National Theatre School of Canada.

In 2008, MacDonald was awarded an honorary doctorate of humanities by the University of Windsor.

In May 2015, MacDonald was the "big-name author" and "public face" of the inaugural Canadian Authors for Indies Day, organized to bring attention to independent bookstores across the country. Nearly 100 stores and 270 authors participated in the nationwide event.

In December 2018, MacDonald was named as an Officer of the Order of Canada, in recognition of "her multi-faceted contributions to the arts in Canada and for her advocacy of LGBTQ+ and women's rights".

MacDonald is married to the Canadian playwright and theatre director Alisa Palmer.

Theatre

 * This is For You, Anna - 1983 (play, collective creation)
 * Nancy Drew, The Case of the Missing Mother - 1984 (play, co-authored with Beverley Cooper)
 * Clue in the Fast Lane - 1985 (play, co-authored with Beverley Cooper)
 * Goodnight Desdemona (Good Morning Juliet) – 1988 (play)
 * The Arab's Mouth – 1990 (play)
 * Nigredo Hotel – 1992 (opera libretto)
 * The Attic, the Pearls and Three Fine Girls – 1995 (play, co-authored with Jennifer Brewin, Martha Ross, Leah Cherniak, and Alisa Palmer)
 * Anything That Moves – 2000 (book and lyrics for musical)
 * Belle Moral – 2005 (play; a substantially revised version of The Arab's Mouth (above))

Novels

 * Fall on Your Knees (1996)
 * The Way the Crow Flies (2003)
 * Adult Onset (2014)
 * Fayne (2022)

Films

 * The Wars (1983)
 * Unfinished Business (1984)
 * I've Heard the Mermaids Singing (1987)
 * Where the Spirit Lives (1989)
 * Where the Heart Is (1990)
 * Paint Cans (1994)
 * Getting Away with Murder (1996)
 * Better Than Chocolate (1999)
 * The Girlfriend Interviews (short, 2001)
 * Interviews with My Next Girlfriend (short, 2002)

Television (as actress or host)

 * Rubberface (TV movie, 1981)
 * Mafia Princess (TV movie, 1986)
 * Hot Shots (TV series, 1986)
 * Airwolf (TV series, 1987)
 * Adderly (TV series, 1987)
 * Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future (TV series, 1987)
 * Alfred Hitchcock Presents (TV series, 1987–1989)
 * Diamonds (TV series, 1988)
 * Rin Tin Tin: K-9 Cop (TV series, 1988–1991)
 * Street Legal (TV series, 1990)
 * Beyond Reality (TV series, 1991–1992)
 * E.N.G. (TV series, 1992–1993)
 * Shattered Trust: The Shari Karney Story (TV movie, 1993)
 * The Babymaker: The Dr. Cecil Jacobson Story (TV movie, 1994)
 * Due South (TV series, 1995)
 * Friends at Last (TV movie, 1995)
 * Her Desperate Choice (TV movie, 1996)
 * Life and Times (TV documentary series host, 1996–2006)
 * Too Close to Home (TV movie, 1997)
 * A Taste of Shakespeare (TV series, 1997)
 * The Industry (TV series, 2003)
 * The Unsexing of Emma Edmonds (TV movie, 2004)
 * The L Word (TV series, 2006)
 * Slings & Arrows (TV series, 2006)
 * Doc Zone (TV documentary series host, 2009–2015)

Television (as writer)

 * Street Legal (TV series, 1988)
 * Beyond Reality (TV series, 1992)
 * Ready or Not (TV series, 1994–1995)

title: Ann-Marie MacDonald


text:
Talk:Acetal

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Andriyyuzvyak.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 13:19, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Image problem
The carbon atom shown here only has three bonds. It needs to have a hydrogen on it (for acetals), or another R group (for ketals).

 * Missing H on C now fixed. Delta G 15:36, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Glycoside
Why is Glycoside redirected to this article? Nothing currently in the article text mentions glycoside. Could someone knowledgeable make the connection explicit? Thank you. -- Jeff Q 19:40, 10 Jul 2004 (UTC)

 * I agree the redirect was not obvious. I replaced it with a stub that links to glycosidic bond where things get explained in more depth. FYI, the tenuous link was that a glycoside contains an acetal. -- Delta G 14:39, 11 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Acetal
how do you properly pronounce????
 * three syllables, ass-e-tal 203.218.87.192 01:46, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

Acetal formation image
An IP left this comment in the article and I'm moving it here:

"This picture is incorrect: it starts with a ketone, therefore this is a ketal, not an acetal."

Wizard191 (talk) 21:11, 15 February 2009 (UTC)
 * In modern terminology (now explained in the article), "ketal" is a more specific category within "acetal" rather than being two separate types that differ by ketone-vs-aldehyde. DMacks (talk) 12:07, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Thermal Expansion

 * I added a note about thermal expansion. acetal is terrible for this. polyprop would be a better alternative. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.151.155.157 (talk) 09:01, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Terminology question

 * AREN'T ACETLAS A SUBSET OF KETALS NOT THE OTHER WAY ROUND? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 143.167.229.218 (talk) 07:39, 1 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Nope. I just added a link to the Gold Book ref for "ketals", which states "a subclass of acetals." DMacks (talk) 12:13, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Merge Acetalisation into Acetal?
One is a reaction, the other is the product of the reaction. There is not much content on the product, and actually a large part of the product article is about the reaction that makes it. Much of what's important about the product seems to be (or at least is highly related to) the specific chemistry of it, i.e., the reaction that forms it. Perhaps some day someone will write tons of material about one or the other enough to merit separate articles, but for now seems like it's duplicated content and/or closely related important content spread over multiple places. DMacks (talk) 12:17, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

 * Support per the nom. Wizard191 (talk) 18:42, 7 February 2011 (UTC)
 * Support seems to make sense to discuss the functional group in the same article as the synthesis thereof.--Smokefoot (talk) 21:15, 14 October 2012 (UTC)

Acetal/ethanal...
Acetal is also the name (shouldn't WP reflect this?) of a particular acetal, 1,1-diethoxyethane (named "acetal" after the three ethyl groups?). Confusingly, "acetal" looks like a synonym for "ethanal", which I see it is not. --lifeform (talk) 04:51, 2 June 2014 (UTC)
 * We didn't have an article about that specific chemical on the English wikipedia (but did on other languages'). I created a stub article about it and added a hatnote link at the top of the page. DMacks (talk) 06:32, 2 June 2014 (UTC)

Move to "Acetal and ketal"?
Ketal redirects here, which seems fine. Maybe the title should reflect that the article covers both? Beyond that title change, I dont have any special ideas. The article might not need separate sections on acetals vs ketals.--Smokefoot (talk) 20:14, 14 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Oppose renaming per naming guideline of being concise and precise. Ketals are a subset of acetals in current nomenclature. But I could easily see overhauling the article to be unified on that nomenclature except at the few locations talking about that historical nomenclature difference. DMacks (talk) 21:42, 14 June 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Acetal


text:
Sky Lee

Sky Lee (born September 15, 1952, as Sharon Lee ) is a Canadian artist and novelist. Lee has published both feminist fiction and non-fiction and identifies as lesbian.

Personal life
Lee was born September 15, 1952, in Port Alberni, British Columbia. Her mother, Wong Mowe Oi, was a homemaker and her father, Lee Gwei Chang, was a millworker.

Moving to Vancouver in 1967 to attend university, she received a B.A. in Fine Arts at the University of British Columbia and a Diploma in Nursing from Douglas College. She became a member of the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop. Lee lives on Saltspring Island, British Columbia.

Career
Lee was first published as the illustrator of 1983's children's book, Teach Me to Fly, Skyfighter! by Paul Yee. The book is a collection of four stories exploring what it is like to grow up as a Chinese-Canadian in a community with links to both Asian-Canadian and Anglo-Canadian cultures. Reviewer Robert W. Bruinsma argued the book was "modestly illustrated."

Lee's first book, Disappearing Moon Cafe, published in 1990, explores the Wong family over four generations, as they operate the titled cafe. Nominated for the Ethel Wilson Fiction Prize and the Governor General's Award, the novel won the City of Vancouver Book Award despite some critics charging that the writing was over-earnest. For example, critic Gary Draper wrote, "Hardly a noun walks free of a trail of adjectives." Critic John Z. Ming Chen has studied Lee's literary works exhaustively from a Daoist perspective in The Influence of Daoism on Asian-Canadian Writers (Mellen, 2008). Disappearing Moon Café was reissued in 2017 by NeWest Press with an afterword by Chris Lee and an interview with the author conducted by Smaro Kamboureli. Chris Lee comments: "SKY Lee's novel was a major intervention in contemporary Canadian literature, a bold attempt to account for the role of Chinese migrants in settler colonialism, a feminist interrogation of diaspora, family, and kinship, as well as a gesture towards queer futures."

In the same year, Lee contributed to the collective prose, Telling It: Women and Language Across Culture. The book's writing is attributed to the "Telling It Book Collective", of which Lee was a member. The book explores issues of racism and homophobia experienced by native, lesbian and Asian Canadian women.

In 1994, Lee published Bellydancer: Stories, a collection of 15 short stories that explore a range of feminist themes, with allegories focusing primarily on the "bellydancer," an archetype of survival. The back cover of the book explains: "bellydancing was originally performed at the bedside of women in labor, as an erotic dance of creation."

Critical Studies: Dr. John Z. Ming Chen's monograph, The Influence of Daoism on Asian-Canadian Writers (2008), features an entire chapter on SKY Lee's two book-length works of fiction published so far.

Her short stories have also appeared in Vancouver Short Stories as well as periodicals such as West Coast Line, The Asianadian , Kinethis, and Makara.

title: Sky Lee


text:
Mystic Seaport

Mystic Seaport Museum or Mystic Seaport: The Museum of America and the Sea in Mystic, Connecticut is the largest maritime museum in the United States. It is notable for its collection of sailing ships and boats and for the re-creation of the crafts and fabric of an entire 19th-century seaport village. It consists of more than 60 historic buildings, most of them rare commercial structures moved to the 19 acre site and meticulously restored.

Overview
The museum was established in 1929 as the "Marine Historical Association". Its fame came with the acquisition of the Charles W. Morgan in 1941, the only surviving wooden whaling ship. The Seaport was one of the first living history museums in the United States, with a collection of buildings and craftsmen to show how people lived; it now receives about 250,000 visitors each year.

The Seaport supports research via an extensive library and runs the Frank C. Munson Institute of American Maritime Studies, a summer graduate-level academic program established in 1955 by maritime history professor Robert G. Albion of Harvard University. The museum also hosts Williams–Mystic in conjunction with Williams College, an undergraduate program in maritime studies. Outreach includes sailing and history classes for area children.

Grounds and programs

The Preservation Shipyard is an important part of the museum, where traditional tools and techniques are used to preserve the Museum's collection of historic vessels, including the 1841 whaleship Charles W. Morgan. A replica of the slave ship La Amistad was constructed in the shipyard and launched in 2000. Amistad departed New Haven on June 21, 2007 on a 14,000 mile transatlantic voyage to Great Britain, Lisbon, West Africa, and the Caribbean, marking the Atlantic trade and slave route to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the end of the slave trade in Great Britain. The 19th-century seafaring village contains nearly all the types of general and specialized trades associated with building and operating a sailing fleet. They include a chandlery, sail loft, ropewalk, cooperage, shipping agent's office, printing office, bank, and others. Also included is The Spouter Tavern, which is open seasonally and serving "travelers' fare". Each building is used to show the original activity and also to display examples of what was sold or constructed; the nautical instrument shop, for example, displays sextants, nautical timepieces, and so forth, while demonstrations at the cooperage show how casks were assembled.

Additional buildings house more exhibits. One is a $1/128$ scale model of the entire Mystic River area as it appeared around 1870, complete down to the outhouse that was located behind every residence; the model is 40 feet long. Another contains a collection of carved ship figureheads. Also among the museum's buildings is the Treworgy Planetarium which demonstrates how seamen used stars for navigation.

Sailing instruction is also offered, as well as tourist rides in various historical small craft. Such tours give a good overview of historic ships at their moorings. Mystic Seaport's music program is unusual, as it prominently features sea shanties in their original contexts as work songs.

Mission, Vision and Core Value
Mission:

Mystic Seaport Museum strives to inspire an enduring connection to the American maritime experience.

Vision:

Mystic Seaport Museum will re-imagine the interchange between maritime heritage and broader contemporary culture.

Core Values:

Knowledge, Authenticity, Inspiration, Stewardship and Community

National Historic Landmarks
Four vessels at Mystic Seaport have been recognized by the United States Government as National Historic Landmarks

General and cited references

 * Bray, Maynard; Fuller, Benjamin; and Vermilya, Peter (2002) Mystic Seaport Watercraft. ISBN 0-913372-94-3

title: Mystic Seaport


text:
User:Synthetik/Scratch/Sharp Zaurus/Images

Sharp Zaurus Images
These images are not intended for use in the articles but rather for researching the subject. Motherboard of a PI-5000 need to find the main and the sub CPU, probably both from Sharp