Lamborghini has reunited the two actresses from The Cannonball Run with ‘their’ Countach LP 400S for the first time since the movie’s release in 1981. The occasion was the 45th anniversary of the manufacture of the car that starred in so many iconic scenes that are close to the heart of every petrolhead.
Who can forget ‘the girls’ stopping to graffiti the 55mph speed limit sign during that epic three-and-a-half-minute police chase opening scene? More people probably remember that than the facts that they were the only all-female crew in the race and they actually won it.
The actresses in the Hal Needham film starring Burt Reynolds and a host of Hollywood A-listers were Adrienne Barbeau and Tara Buckman and their Nero car with Senape interior was built in November 1979 and shipped to the USA. For the movie, based on Brock Yates’ real-life adventures, it was ‘dressed’ with additional lights, spoilers, aerials and exhaust stubs, 12 of them!
The car, which was featured in Octane 222, was bought by childhood fan Jeff Ippoliti (below) in 2009. He said: ‘I had always been crazy about cars, but the opening of the movie was the first time I got to see and hear the Countach in motion, and I was captivated! I didn’t see it in person for the first time until twenty-six years later, and it took me another eighteen months of negotiations before I managed to take it home.’
So famous has the car become that it is one of only 30 ’registered’ with the Library of Congress in the US, an accolade it achieved on the 40th anniversary of the movie.
Now Lamborghini has reunited Barbeau (Marcie Thatcher) and Buckman (Jill Rivers) for a short interview about the experience, the first encounter either had had with a Countach.
In it Barbeau mentions that the car almost overshadows the rest of her career: ’In spite of my success as an actress in horror movies and playing Cat Woman in the Batman movie, people ask me above all to autograph Countach model cars.’
Buckman added: ‘It’s impossible for me, too, to remember how many times I signed a photo or a model car of the Countach!.’
Barbeau later says: ‘Everyone knows it. And everyone knows this Lamborghini,’ with Buckman adding: ‘Everyone also knows the two girls in the Lamborghini. We are inextricably tied to that role.’
You can watch the interview with Barbeau and Buckman here:
There is also a brief interview with owner Ippoliti
