The Lamborghini Bravo: Bertone’s Defiant Baby Countach

Music history is full of great records that never came out, finished albums shelved because the label went bust or the timing was simply wrong. Lamborghini has one of those too, and it’s called the Bravo. Unveiled on the Bertone stand at the Turin Motor Show in October 1974, it was a low, sharp-edged two-seater with a V8 behind the seats and a face that looked like a Countach left in the dryer a little too long.

It was meant to sit alongside the Urraco as Sant’Agata’s junior supercar, and unlike most show cars it actually worked, piling up thousands of test miles. Yet it never reached a showroom. In the worst possible year to launch anything fast and thirsty, the Bravo was Bertone’s act of defiance.