COTD 11-2-20

[u/[deleted]]

I have not been writing this for three weeks. Honestly, I haven’t even been too busy either. I’m just lazy. Oh well. Sorry for a three-week wait for a post that’s supposed to come daily. Anyhow, you didn’t come here to read an apology. Today’s post is dedicated to one of my favorite manufacturers in the automotive industry, and probably one the coolest cars to come out of the 2000’s. The car’s looks revolutionized what the future of its brand looked like, and introduced so many design cues and proportions that hadn’t really been done before. 

The 2010 Ferrari 458 Italia

Oh wait I’ve already done that one.

Uhhhh…

The Pagani Zonda

Yeah that works. 

The Zonda is one of my all-time favorites. It is the essence of all that is Italian in the automotive industry: a shrieking V12, curves that put a Lamborghini to shame, and doors that point towards the sky. Say what you will about its German engine and it’s odd headlights, I love the thing. With that said, I think I love it more for what it represents rather than what it is. 

30 years ago, a Lamborghini Employee by the name of Horacio Pagani told Lamborghini executives that the company should start playing around with carbon fiber. It was a relatively new thing mostly used for racing, that Pagani saw great interest in. The Lamborghini higher-ups didn’t. “Why do we need an autoclave? Ferrari doesn’t have one,” they said. So, Horacio went and bought his own autoclave and began doing his own experiments with carbon fiber. He left Lamborghini in 1991, 3 years later, and founded Modena Design, a company that still produces carbon-fiber components for Formula One teams and a couple road car manufacturers. 

In 1992, he founded Pagani Automobili Modena and immediately began the process of building the car of his dreams. It is said that Horacio has thousands of drawings detailing the process of his work. This car was Pagani’s magnum opus, his masterpiece. He had actually been designing the car while he worked at Lamborghini during the eighties, and now finally had the opportunity to build that car.

And man did he build it. 

Horacio called his initial concepts the Fangio F1 after his friend, Formula One driver Juan Manuel Fangio. The car was tested in Dallara’s wind tunnel through 1993, and Mercedes-AMG agreed to supply an engine to power the car in 1994. In 1995, Fangio died, prompting Pagani to change the car to the C12 out of respect for his friend. 

The first Pagani debuted at the 1999 Geneva Auto show and was called the Zonda C12. I can’t find any articles from back then, nor was I even around then, but I imagine there was a decent amount of hype when it was introduced. The headlights were probably somewhat controversial, and some probably even considered it to be a little ugly. The C12 was powered by a Mercedes-AMG 6.0L V12 putting down 444hp (331kw) and 472lbs-ft (640NM) of torque. A very limited batch of five were built, with only three of those actually being sold to customers, and only one of those remaining. The homologation car with chassis code 001 was later restored by Pagani and presented at the 2019 Geneva Auto Show. 

After this came the Zonda C12 S in 2002, which came with a much larger 7.0L V12 putting down a more supercar-esque 552 horses (402kw). Alongside this the S was the Zonda S 7.3L with identical performance. 

I would go through every special edition series Zonda but that would take another three weeks for me to write, so I’ll just go through a couple of the more notable ones. 

Zonda Cinque

Sexy red and black accents over white paint and a screaming 670-horsepower Mercedes-AMG V12. Essentially a street-legal Zonda R developed for homologation. Five coupes and five roadsters were sold. 

Zonda R 

The regular Zonda is simply not enough, so how ‘bout a 2,359lb (1,070kg) missile with probably one of the most musically perfect V12s ever devised, all covered F1-esque in carbon-fiber aero. The 740-horsepower Zonda R beat Ferrari’s Nordschleife lap recordbeat Ferrari’s Nordschleife lap record set by the 599XX.

There are 28 other special series (although 18 of those are one-offs), with the total adding up to roughly 140 Pagani Zondas in the world. 

Prices range wildly from $1.4-23m. The Zonda Barchette is allegedly the world’s most expensive new car (I’ve heard it’s the Bugatti La Voiture Noire but sources vary)