The man who signs every car.
A mistake turns out to be a stroke of luck. This rented Fiat Panda is a Group A special of such pared-back basicness that the only source of onboard navigation is my phone, balanced on the dashboard. After arriving in Italy, I ordered Google to take me to Pagani, but the algorithm set the destination to the company’s semisecret R&D base rather than the factory-museum.
Pagani’s factory feels only slightly less special than Willy Wonka’s. Inspired by the traditional Italian village piazza, it was built with the same attention to detail as the cars made there. The bricks for the walls were carefully selected to be as close as possible to those in Modena’s medieval center. When, late in construction, earthquake-resilience codes became stricter, Horacio took inspiration for the necessary metal reinforcements from the design of the Eiffel Tower.
“We live in an amazing land with an amazing history: Maserati has more than 100 years, Ferrari has 70, and Lamborghini has 60. There are a lot of reasons for collectors not to buy Paganis because of what all the others have been doing for these decades—which means we have to try harder and harder. That’s why we spend so much time on details.”
One thing they don’t want is electrification. “We started work on a full electric-vehicle project in 2018. At the same time, we started having discussions with clients and dealers,” Pagani says. “The result was that none of them saw interest in a fully electric Pagani, which makes it even more challenging for us to create one. Ultimately, we want to do that.
For the track-only R model, Pagani replaces the standard Huayra’s flat bottomed steering wheel with this button-rich racing-style yoke.With such a loyal, rich, and heavily engaged customer base, Pagani can also make some radical decisions. The C10 will be offered with the option of a manual gearbox, something that Horacio admits makes no rational sense but will undoubtedly add excitement.
The Huayra R won’t be as quick as other billionaire track toys like the Aston Martin Valkyrie AMR Pro or Gordon Murray Automotive’s T.50S Niki Lauda. But I would bet my heavily mortgaged house that nothing will sound better. Nothing could. The R’s hand-built naturally aspirated V-12 exhales through standard unsilenced pipes, although buyers will also get a more muted system for those unsporting racetracks that limit noise levels.
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