Hooayerah. Hwayrah. Hooerah. It doesn't matter how you say it, this autoTRADER.ca Find of the Week will drop your jaw every time you look at it. It's a hand-built, ultra-exclusive Italian hypercar with power from AMG, and it's the coolest car you're going to see this month. It might also be the only one of its kind in the country. It's a 2018 Pagani Huayra, and it's barely got enough miles on the odometer to be broken in.
Pagani Automobili is an Italian automaker founded in 1992 by Horacio Pagani. That's a name you probably hadn't heard of before he started his company, but Pagani managed the composites department at Lamborghini where we worked on cars like the LM002, Diablo, and Countach. Before that, he worked with racing cars for Renault and on his own, meaning that he knew how to build an exotic piece of automotive machinery. When Lamborghini declined to buy an autoclave to make more carbon parts, Pagani got the money to build his own and start his own design company.
The first car from the automaker was the Zonda, named for the hot air current above Pagani's home country of Argentina. It was a car that moved the entire supercar game forward at least one jump, with stunning styling, carbon fibre used extensively throughout the car, and a powerplant built by Mercedes-Benz (later Mercedes-AMG) for the boutique company.
After more than a decade of Zonda, and just more than 100 cars built, it was time for something new. The Huayra, named for a Quechuan wind god, evolved the Zonda's styling for a new era. Sleeker, more rounded, but still unmistakably both a Pagani and an Italian hypercar, the Huayra arrived on the scene in 2012. Just 100 of the original model were made, with all said to be sold out by 2015. More versions followed, though, including a roadster, the BC, named for the company's first customer, and a BC roadster, putting a cap on this car at right around 260 built so far.
The second version of the Huayra, the Roadster, made big changes to the car, though they extend beyond the obvious opening roof. Sure, that removable top is the obvious one, but the rear end is also different, getting a new engine cover with buttresses leading up to the integrated roll hoops, new fixed flaps on the tail, and trading the scissor doors on the standard car for more conventional doors.
All of the important bits were the same, starting with the twin-turbo, 6.0L AMG V12 that saw power bumped to 745 hp. That was enough to push the 1,280 kg car (lighter than the coupe) to 100 km/h in no time at all. Active aerodynamics use information from sensors in the car to adjust the suspension and flaps on the car to improve cornering and make a reported 816 kg of downforce, allowing the car to corner at massively impressive speeds.
But it wasn't just the specs and style of the Paganis that impressed. It was also the attention to detail. With nearly every component bespoke to the cars and showing features, hand-craftsmanship, and touches you'd expect from the likes of Rolls-Royce, not some tiny hypercar company, and Pagani's extensive carbon fibre experience leading to some amazing weaves, the cars were works of art even before you started the engine. The suspension components alone could go on display in a museum, as art, not just an exercise in engineering prowess.
Our Find of the Week is a 2018 Roadster that's finished in Bianca Malta gloss, but with plenty of exposed carbon to make sure you're getting the full effect of Pagani's work. The deep red center strip and accent stripes set off the colours wonderfully, with matching brake calipers to complete the look. Inside it's also red leather with titanium and aluminum trim along with gold finish dials and diamond stitching. It has just 500 km on the odometer, which may as well be nothing, and it has a matching two-tone luggage set to fit in the car's engine-bay saddle bag trunks.
With such low production figures, this could well be the only one in the country, and that number is certainly in the single digits. The price tag for this one, for sale in Vancouver, might be out of reach of most buyers, but we're glad it exists, just for the chance to look at it. And if it is in your reach, hey, bring it by some time.
