It was a real treat being there - I’d remembered watching 60 minutes with Maury Safer in the 1990s and I stood at the same spot where Valentino drove out to greet Maury and did a donut for him in a Countach.
When I first met Valentino a few years ago in Florida (pic below) he was such a joy to talk with - the nicest guy in the world (I’ve been lucky enough to talk with him twice since) and I asked him about the car they named after him - he said that he insisted it be rear wheel drive (all the other Gallardos were AWD and he talked about how you can’t talk with a car that’s AWD, it should be RWD (I agree)) and insisted that it have a manual transmission (again he said they were sucking the souls out of cars by letting them shift themselves) and he said that gave the product guys a big headache so you could spend 10K more and they’d put in eGear…he thought that was sad), but he got his way, so yes, the last Lambo offered with a stick was his namesake. While I would love an old Countach I think I’ve got a manual tranny Balboni Gallardo on my top pedestal of automotive “want”.
I like Marshawn’s taste in cars!
