A Brief History Of Pagani

Horacio Pagani grew up in Casilda Argentina, it was a rural agricultural community where Horacio first started to build go-karts and minibikes with his friends. As he got older, he started messing around with fiberglass and he made his own limitada santafestina race car which is a single seater rear engine car without any formal engineering training. He got money to fund his race car by selling fiberglass camper shells. Once he finished building his race car, he approached Renault and asked them for an engine, which Renault provided and they also ended up sponsoring the team for the entire season.

Horacio used his connections that he made through racing to help get him a foot in the door at one of the big Italian car manufacturers. He got a verbal agreement that he could work for Lamborghini as a designer on their new project. He sold his business and got ready to move to Italy when he got a letter form Lamborghini saying that they have cancelled their project, which was the LM SUV.

Pagani decided that he was still going to move to Italy and try get a job at Lamborghini. He kept asking for jobs at Lamborghini until finally they gave him a job in the body shop. After years in the body shop, he moved to the composite materials department where Lamborghini was experimenting with carbon fiber. In 1988 Lamborghini finally let Pagani help design a car, which was a special edition Lamborghini Countach.

Horacio urged Lamborghini to invest in a carbon fiber autoclave which will allow Lamborghini to produce carbon fiber pieces for their cars. However, Lamborghini thought that because Ferrari doesn’t use one they don’t need one either. So, Horacio got a loan from a bank and bought one himself, he then used the auto clave to make body parts for the prototype Countach. When the prototype was done it weighed more than 500kg lighter than the production version. His prototype was known as the Countach Evoluzione.

He quit in 1991 and he started making carbon fiber parts for the Ferrari F1 team and Aprilia. In 1992 he drew up designs for his dream car and focused on using as much carbon fiber as he could. Again, he needed an engine for his car, this time he approached Mercedes Benz where he was promised a v12. After 7 years of designs and prototypes he debuted the Zonda C12 at the 1999 Geneva motor show.  The C12 blew people away with its looks and its specs of 450hp and 0-60 in under 4 seconds. The following year Pagani brought the even better Zonda S to the Geneva motor show to show critics and investors that Pagani was not just a flash in the pan but that they were here to keep improving their cars. Pagani kept improving on the Zonda year after year even releasing the track only Zonda R and a few special editions until 2011 when the long awaited Huayra was unveiled. The Huayra was powered by a 6 liter twin turbo V12 provided by AMG, engine made 720hp. The Huayra also comes with active aero to help with traction and braking. The newest addition to the Pagani line up is the Huayra BC Roadster, this hypercar makes 800hp and comes in at 3.5 million dollars.  Only 40 of these are getting made with a price tag of $3.5 million dollars each.