There has been a lot about hypercars on the blog in the last weeks, at least relative to what there usually is. Starting with the post on Koenigsegg (see here) and following on with last week’s interview with Supercars Invest Fund’s Theis Gerner Stanek (see here), the latter notably mentioned his strong love for another supercar brand than Koenigsegg, the cars of which he referred to as true works of art. He was of course right, and it would feel incomplete to move on from supercars to other exciting themes without having looked a bit closer at the Argentinan-born artist Horacio Pagani and his masterpieces, commonly referred to as cars. This week is therefore about Pagani and its unique take on the hypercar segment!

As an Italian born and bred in Argentina, you may think that a man who has dedicated his life to building some of the world’s most extreme hypercars would be a flamboyant, loud character, but you couldn’t be more wrong. Although driven by his life-long passion, Horacio is a soft-spoken artist that grew up in the small town of Casilda in Argentina to which his great grandfather had emigrated from Como, Italy. He started drawing cars and motorcycles as a child, having a dream of one day building sports cars in Modena, far away from the Argentinian pampa. A few years later he went on to study fine arts and engineering while drawing Formula 2 and 3 cars in his spare time. He was so good at it that he was allowed to work with Renault formula cars, and through that met a certain Juan Manuel Fangio. Fangio became so impressed by the young Horacio that he took upon him to write letters to the Italian sports car builders, telling them to hire him. Pagani himself was also convinced that his future was to be found somewhere in northern Italy, and returned to the old country before he knew he had a job. A while later, he did however get a call from Lamborghini and that’s when his career started for real.

Having spent some time wiping the floors in Sant’Agata, Horacio wasn’t shy about his ambition to become a great supercar builder¨ and made sure to tell the senior people at Lamborghini about it. He started to move up the ranks, ultimately becoming a chief engineer engaged with notably the Countach Evo and the Diablo. In the process he also became highly convinced of carbon fibre as a material for the future and tried to convince Lamborghini to buy a so called autoclave, basically a machine that would allow for larger usage of carbon fibre going forward. Lamborghini refused with as main motivation that Ferrari didn’t have one – perhaps not the most visionary type of business management… Horacio wouldn’t take no for an answer and borrowed enough money to buy his own autoclave. He left Lamborghini an in 1991 set up his own company – Pagani Automobili. The development of the Zonda now started, but it would take until 1999 before the first cars were finished.

Let’s make a short pit stop here to point out some key differences to Koenigsegg, arguably Pagani’s only real comparable hypercar competitor. Firstly, although carbon fibre is a prominent material for both, it has always been the lead material for Pagani from the first prototype until today, very much at the heart of the company It’s everywhere, from the chassis, over the bodywork to the interior, and all in a very visible way. Secondly, unlike Koenigsegg, Pagani decided from the start not to develop his own engines, instead partnering up with AMG, a partnership that has lasted to this day. Thirdly, if Koenigsegg can be said to follow a Scandinavian, toned-down design language, Pagani couldn’t be more different.

The Zonda C12 premiered in 1999 and was built through 2011, and new versions were again introduced in 2013 and as late as 2017. Around 130 Zondas have been built in total, in a mix of coupés and convertibles. Fangio, who helped launch Pagani’s career, was involved in the development of the car until his death in 1995. Built largely out of carbon fibre and carbon-based synthetic materials, the Zonda is light, weighing in at between 1100-1300 kg, which given the opulence notably in the interior is pretty impressive. It’s also a bit surprising given the wonderful but not very light 6-litre, naturally aspirated AMG V12 that sits in the middle of the car and in 1999 produced 394 hp, enough already then to give the Zonda a top speed of over 290 km/h. On later versions the engine volume was increased up to 7.3 litres and power up to 800 hp in the Zonda Revolucion, introduced in 2013. The initial C12 is therefore the only Zonda with a top speed under 300 km/h, the others are well above. It’s also noteworthy that until 2013, all Zondas had a 6-speed manual box, only then becoming a 6-speed sequential.

Everything about the Zonda is spectacular. The four pipes in the back, the purpose-built carbon fibre body, the interior quality and materials – it just goes on. It’s however practically impossible to find two cars that are alike, given again the number of special versions, but also that owners can obviously tailor-make their cars pretty much as they want. Pagani has several times reiterated that building a Pagani easily costs ten times more than building a more normal car, but that part of his proposition is precisely never to compromise to save costs. The whole car is hand-built and each car takes more than a month to finish. The number of cars built is by the way not fully up to Pagani, it’s part of the agreement with AMG who will not deliver more than a pre-agreed number of engines. After all, AMG also does a bit of business with the mother company in Stuttgart…

In 2012, Pagani introduced the successor Huayra (yep, pretty difficult to pronounce and if you’re wondering, both Huayra and Zonda are south-American winds), although both cars were in the end built in parallel until 2017. The Huayra can be said to be slightly toned-down in its looks, although it remains a spectacular car. It’s also a more modern car than the Zonda, with the body notably including “active” aerodynamic elements such as the two flaps behind the seats that rise during breaking. The gearbox is now a 7-speed sequential, but that it remains a single-clutch also show Pagani’s way of thinking: a double clutch would have added 70 kg in additional weight, thus cancelling out any advantage in acceleration obtained through quicker shifting. But even with a single-clutch box the Huayra is far from slow, with a 2.8 seconds time to 100 km/h and a top speed of 383 km/h.

The biggest change versus the Zonda however and the fact that many Pagani owners still prefer the latter, is the fact that the Huyara no longer has the naturally aspirated AMG V12, but rather a new, 6-litre, twin-turbo V12. It still comes from AMG and neither power output nore weight have suffered, but even those not obsessed by naturally-aspirated engines will note a far less spectacular engine note than in the Zonda. The Huayra was also built as coupé and convertible in a lot of different series and versions, with the last of around 300 cars said to have left the factory in 2020. Based on what happened with the Zonda that’s probably not the final date though, notably with rumours of a coming Huayra R (the R being the most extreme version of the Zonda) that would return to the naturally-aspirated V12.

There are also rumours of an all-new Pagani coming out soon (here probably defined as years rather than months) notably with talk of something aircraft-inspired (but then again maybe that’s the Huayra R). Few details are known, but one thing is sure: it will again be a multi-million creation largely out of carbon fibre, with an amazing interior and a large V12 engine behind the seats – hopefully at least, maybe a hybrid this time? Pampero is by the way a strong, northern wind that often blows down over Uruguay and Argentina. Whether Pagani stays with the wind theme and calls the new car Pampero or something else doesn’t really matter: Horacio more than achieved his dream as a boy of building true supercars, and he does it in a way that lets all of us all dream a little. If Koenigsegg is the Scandinavian supercar, then Pagani is very much the southern European one. Playing with the thought of which one you would choose if you could, is interesting!