As a first-grader in the Mid-1980s, there was only one thing that I desired more than a real Ferrari or Lamborghini – and that was a children’s version of my favourite Italian macchina that I could actually drive to school with, boosting my swagger and schoolyard credibility to inconceivable heights. In one of my worn-out supercar magazines that I could not yet read, but worshipped like sacred objects, there was an ad from an Italian company called Agostini Auto, picturing a kid in a very baggy business suit, casually leaning against a large scale-model Ferrari Testarossa, with cartoonish proportions and the ground clearance of a truck. Still, when I couldn’t sleep and considered what eternal happiness would look like, I always imagined the smirk on that boy’s face. Unfortunately my mom did not buy into my well-laid-out plans of selling our family Volkswagen Beetle, in order to afford my much-needed elementary school cruiser. But apparently, there were other parents that were less hard to convince.
This Lamborghini Countach junior car at 1:3 scale, was built by Agostini in 1985 – and it had nothing to do with the bulky plastic toy cars of the era. In fact you had to look twice to understand that it wasn’t the real deal. Commissioned by a Ferrari and Lamborghini client from the Middle-East who wanted petrol-engined replicas of his own sports cars for his children, this car was built by hand, taking almost 450 hours to craft. 20 examples were produced and sold at a retail price of 50.000 US Dollar. For comparison – in 1985, a real Lamborghini Countach cost you around 120.000 USD. The fiberglas-bodied junior car was as close to the original as it could get, with scissor doors, full leather interior, and a 400cc four-stroke Briggs and Stratton coupled with an automatic transmission that had two forward speeds plus one reverse.This particular Junior Countach was painted in a stunning baby blue and owned until recently by a car collector in Florence, Italy. It is now offered for sale at 50.000 euros by The Houtkamp Collection in the Classic Driver Market – a proud price, certainly. But nothing compared to the smirk of eternal happiness on your boy’s face when he starts his engine at “Little Big Mans” during Le Mans Classic next year.
