A Countach Junior was the ’80s greatest Christmas present

A Lamborghini Countach is no ordinary supercar. There are more expensive cars, there are rarer cars, and there are certainly more competent cars, but there is something magical about the way a Countach shrinks you down to grade-school height and fills you with the wonder of what a supercar could be. Now, imagine that you are eight or nine, and that Santa just left this under the tree for you: An Agostini AutoJunior Lamborghini Countach.

If you were the luckiest of lucky kids in the mid-1980s, you might have scurried downstairs in your palatial mansion to discover that Babbo Natale had delivered, big time, with one of these Briggs & Stratton–powered toys. Remember when the Power Wheels Jeep arrived on the scene? Just imagine your own running and driving handmade Italian exotic.

Officially, Agostini made just twenty of these cars, each a handmade work of art. Another four were built off the books, plus a few replicas, perhaps, made in period. Agostini wasn’t around for very long, and details about the company are murky. And as for the work of art part, maybe not so much.

“Once you start pulling it apart, you can see that [Agostini] really did just bodge things together,” says Scott Tatton-Bennett of Essex, who knows junior cars better than most. “The best thing about them is the body, the thick fiberglass, but underneath they did really just use anything that they could find.”

Tatton-Bennett is a longtime fan of junior cars, who found and restored a 911 Junior about ten years ago. The car was a match for his father-in-law’s full-size 911 Supersport. Since then he’s rebuilt several juniors, including another 911 and a Ferrari 308. But, for him and others in the know, the Countach is the holy grail.

This one is serial number fourteen, getting it required some long negotiations. The tiny Countach had been sitting in a shipping container for years, the seats were missing, and the 12-hp Briggs & Stratton engine and CVT gearbox were completely seized.

Under the skin, the Countach Junior is essentially a simple go-kart, with two forward speeds and reverse. The lights work, there’s a Momo steering wheel, and the doors go up scissor-style, in proper Lamborghini fashion.

“The stalks are from a Fiat 128, I believe,” says Tatton-Bennett, “Many of the parts are from now-classic 1980s Fiats, so they can be difficult to find. I’ve spent hours looking at pictures, trying to figure out what was missing.”

The Countach was not the only running and driving kids’ car produced by Agostini. It also built working Testarosssas, 308s, and even an F40. Most of these were open-topped, as even smaller kids wouldn’t completely fit. The Countach Junior did come with a solid roof, but it looks incredibly cramped.

There’s a hilarious echo of the real cars in these scale models that Tatton-Bennett has restored. He says that the 911, which was built by a company in Poland, was relatively well-made. There are hundreds of tiny 911s out there, so he was able to call up fellow owners to resolve issues.

Unfortunately, just like a full-size Countach, the Countach Jr. is both exotic and of slightly suspect build quality. Restoring it was a puzzle, and one that resulted in Tatton-Bennett gaining a network of contacts. He says that despite the small number of these cars built, you can find them everywhere—from London to Australia to Tokyo. Number 14 has just sold to a collector in New York. (Tatton-Bennett’s next project is likely restoring an Agostini F40.)

Their global presence is a testament to the outsized impact of this little car. Several were sold in the Middle East when new, but the Countach Junior was also offered in the FAO Schwarz and Neiman Marcus catalog. It was eye-wateringly expensive when new—details are sketchy, and figures range from $15,000 to $50,000—yet hundreds of kids would have flipped to the page with the Lamborghini and dreamed. Screen time also helped: In 1988’s Big, Tom Hanks and his boss go to FAO Schwarz, the site of the famous piano duet. They also have a “shootout” with toy guns, and a black Lamborghini Junior is in that scene.

The few Agostini Coutaches that come up for sale are fought over by collectors of high-end automobilia and by those who wanted a mini Lamborghini as a kid. Tatton-Bennett says he’s seen values rise: Two of the closed-roof cars sold this year through RM Sotheby’s, one in Paris for 44,000 Euros, the other in London for £60,000. There simply aren’t many of them around, and that rarity drives up the price.

The idea of paying that much money for a gussied-up 12-hp go-kart certainly seems crazy; you could easily buy a shifter go-kart and race hundreds of exhilarating laps for much, much less. And if you really want a tiny exotic car, there are cheaper and better-built models available from a growing number of companies building Junior cars to a more modern specification. One of the half-scale machines built by Harrington is of impeccable quality, has a three-speed gearbox, and can hit over 35 mph.

But the appeal of an Agostini Lamborghini Countach is not about speed or practicality. It is the embodiment of a childhood dream. It has a lot in common with the full-size Countach in that respect: People put plenty of miles on their vintage 911s, but a Countach is a special-occasion type of car. There’s quite a lot of enjoyment to be had in just sitting around and looking at it.

So while some ’80s kids definitely got faster go-karts for Christmas, the very few that got an Agostini Countach wouldn’t have been bothered by power ratings or outright top speed. There’s a magic to these cars, and that’s why people, even grown-ups, still want one.

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