This one goes to 11
Modena, Italia
I always knew Pagani cars were very exclusive but wasn't until today that I realized how truly rare they are…
Our tour guide Francesco turned our van down a street with a black sign labeled "Pagani Automobili S.p.A." in the Italian countryside just southeast of Modena in the Emilia-Romagna region. I was looking for a smaller factory than Ferrari's massive Maranello facility but I saw nothing, even when we stopped at our destination. I then noticed the Pagani logo next to an open window on a humble building.
Francesco walked to a locked gate as a woman exited and pressed a button next to the hinges. He waited for the buzzing sound by bracing himself against the black metal bars of the gate in the fence; bushes obscured the view of the building. Moments later we entered as he whispered to us that that woman who passed us was the wife of Mr. Pagani. As we approached the door of the building we could see three cars so expensive you'd have to sell not one but several homes just to buy one of them—that is, if you could somehow manage to get yourself invited to buy one of the 18 super-cars they pour their souls into each year.
We're sardined into a room barely big enough for the cars and our group, but we don't mind. There's a Zonda F in the center, flanked on the right by a Zonda Tricolore with narrow racing stripes in the colors of the Italian flag, draped over carbon fiber with a thin coat of lacquer that's got a blue tint to it to match the anodized blue aluminum bolts, hoses and exhausts tucked behind the gills of the front and back of the body. In case you're wondering how much one is, the Zonda Tricolore is a production run of three and will sell for €1.3M before taxes (and it's leaving soon to be delivered to it's owner). Zondas fall between unobtanium and unicorns on the rarity scale.
On the left is a Zonda R, the current record holder of the Nürburgring Nordschleife, an old, famous and brutal racetrack with dozens of corners over its 20.8 km (12.9 mi) length. It beat Ferrari's best lap, the previous record, by 11 seconds—an eternity in racing—with an unfathomable 6:47 run.
Francesco pulls us away from feasting our eyes upon the details of these masterpieces; the clearly visible, naked weave of the carbon fiber makes stripes that line up like an expensive Armani suit. We put away our cameras because we're about to get a tour of the factory itself. It feels like being let in on an exclusive family secret recipe, in part because that's how it is. You see, Francesco used to work here, in fact he's worked at Ferrari, Lamborghini and Ducati as well. He seems to know everyone by name and smiles gently as he greets everyone and jests with them in Italian. There's a yellow line we have to stand behind but Francesco walks right up to everything and pulls items off shelves, out of drawers and from underneath covers to show us how Pagani builds only three cars at a time at its three assembly stations. It takes 7-9 months for each one to be completed. This is exclusivity like you've never seen before and it's immediately clear how special this experience is.
The three cars currently under construction are a Zonda R, the very last Zonda F ever to be produced, and the first of the brand new Huayra. Francesco's insight into the history of Pagani engineering is able to paint a clear progression from Zonda F to the Zonda R and into the undelivered Huayra. The finest details of the chassis and suspension illustrate the subtle evolution of from the final Zonda F to one of the world's most expensive laboratories, the Zonda R, into the Huayra.
Everything is handmade; when Francesco opens the engine cover the signature of the one guy who built the engine's name is inscribed on a metal plaque. It's difficult to convey how impressive the details are, especially the unseen ones such as the active aerodynamics on the Huayra: software and computers send electrical impulses to actuators that constantly move flaps on the body to slow the car during braking, or to generate more downforce when you fling the car through a bend in the road going faster than the Polizia would prefer.
Francesco raps his knuckles hard on the monocoque of the carbon fiber chassis he used to help build. Strewn about the shop are hundreds of parts all painstakingly made from carbon fiber with perfectly aligned weaves. A woman beside us is sealing the vacuum bag around a single carbon fiber part. Two giant autoclaves dominate the side of the another room; they'll cook the parts at 130 C at 80-85 psi for several hours.
There's molds with finished parts being coaxed out gently with rubber mallets. There's parts of chassises lying around collecting dust. This isn't a spotless white factory; it's a gritty and ordinary mom and pop shop that's turning out works of art that also happen to be engineering triumphs in their own right. The dozen or so workers visible are moving lethargically but with purpose and deliberate skill in the stifling heat coming from an open garage door to the alley. Every last part has a precision and level of detail to it that would give Michelangelo's David a run for his money. The welds look like they don't even exist, a carbon nose to a future car shows graceful curves that suck the car onto the road for maximum traction, and a worker stares unblinkingly at the edge of a piece of bodywork as he sands it to the millimeter of perfection.
We're whisked out as Mr. Pagani escorts a customer about to take delivery around the factory floor—not too hard to do with only 18 customers a year. Before we leave we're given a couple gifts and invited to sign and leave Mr. Pagani a note in his guestbook. This visit was very special to me and I felt honored to be granted such incredible access to this one-of-kind birthplace of power and beauty.
"Today" refers to September 5th 2011. I didn't want to forget the details so I wrote this up on my iPhone that day since I didn't have a computer while I was in Italy, so cut me some slack. All photos were taken with a Nikon D7000 DSLR camera with an AF-S NIKKOR 50mm ƒ/1.4G lens. Thanks to Chelsea Henry for proof-reading this post.
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