Cover – ‘Legendary Automobiles’ – Lamborghini Countach

Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary Edition. The images of this very famous and exotic Italian sports car were used on the cover and inside a book titled ‘Legendary Automobiles’, that comes along with a series of limited editions coins dedicated to the theme ‘Legendary Automobiles’. Client: MDM Münzhandels-GmbH Deutsche Münze, the world’s largest private numismatic trade company. On Assignment photography, professional car photography.

Lamborghini Countach – Making Of : I received a call from a German publisher who works for MDM. He spotted an Lamborghini Miura image on my website and asked for some Countach photos in my archive. He was a bit nervous – he had searched the www for nearly 2 weeks now and was tired of writing tons of emails. And he was very close to the client’s deadline. I told him that especially this iconic Italian sports car model was built by Lamborghini for years and myriads of images should be available.

But the problem with most images on the web : many are just copied from other sites and in many cases neither the photographer is known , nore do the images come with the property release necessary for commercial usage. The client even asked VW (the German Volkswagen Group who owns Lamborghini) for a car he could shoot – without success.

Because the client was in a hurry I forwarded him to some stock photo agencies I am with  to check the agencies for released Lamborghini Countach photos. Again, no success. Stock photo agencies don’t like automotive images very much due to the troubles with trademarks and logos and paranoid car manufacturers.

I did some phone calls and due to my ‘car-network’ , close contacts to classic and exotic car owner, collectors and dealers I was able to spot a Lamborghini collector after 30 minutes (with some luck involved). Meanwhile the customer would have been happy with ANY Countach image. But the collector had exactly the Lamborghini Countach 25th Anniversary edition in his garage that was preferred by MDM (and the coins refer to). The car even was colored in  red, the ‘one and only’ color for Italian sports cars. Best of all, the Lamborghini owner lived in my neighborhood. I had a lot of luck this day. Usually it doesn’t work that easy.

Close to the deadline – the Lamborghini Countach owner agreed to do the shooting the very next day. Additionally I contacted one of the female models I work with and convinced her to come to the set. A model wasn’t needed for the shooting, but the car owner told me that his Countach is often pictured by other ‘photographers’ and every time all was done in 10 minutes or so (?). However, with that in mind I used the female model to entertain the Lamborghini owner - just a little trick – to get the time needed for my shooting. I did some ‘fun shots’ with the model to camouflage my intention. Three hours and some 100’s images later the Lamborghini Countach was ‘boxed’ in the cam (and left with an empty battery). The same night my client received a  selection of processed Lamborghini images. He was all smiles again.

I arranged with the client just to remove the license plate of the Lamborghini Countach, but to leave the frame in place. This way it should have been easier for the publisher to add a nice ‘Lamborghini’ or ‘Countach’ script inside the  frame (by software) instead of the ugly license plate. But for reasons I don’t know this never happened.

Some 100’s images have been done. Similarities and variations available. All Lamborghini  Countach images with property release signed by the car owner.

Client website MDM Münzhandelsgesellschaft GmbH Deutsche Münze