Climb inside, pull the door down hard, summon the bi-turbo V12. Nothing will ever be the same again, not once you have experienced the ferocious Pagani Huayra.
Story: Ben Barry
Photography: Mark Fagelson
There’s something very appropriate about driving Pagani’s Huayra in Car India’s seventh anniversary year. When I think back, it’s hard not to visualise some outlandish piece of exotica – a Ferrari 288 GTO, say, maybe a Lamborghini Countach – parked up on the flatlands around Modena and Maranello in northern Italy, crumbling farm buildings with terracotta roofs dotting the cornfields that stretch into the distance.
You’ll know that the supercar world has changed beyond recognition since those days. Most of the minnows have been swallowed by multi-national whales and, while progress has undoubtedly been made, supercars are generally more benign, less taxing, less extreme machines than they once were, no matter that they’re faster than ever before.
Now we’ve just driven the Huayra (it’s ‘why-ra’, after the Aymara God of wind) out of Pagani’s still-independent headquarters in Castelfranco Emilia, a stone’s throw from those other Italian supercar makers, and straight into déjà-vu bedroom-wall country. The police have already pulled us over for a closer inspection, photographer Mark Fagelson feels nauseous after the brutally accelerative forces he’s been subjected to and I’m gradually adapting to the Huayra’s idiosyncrasies.
I’m not saying that the Huayra feels like a 1980s supercar or anything, but it certainly channels that spirit in a way I haven’t experienced since the recently departed Lamborghini Murcielago SV. It’s styled so outlandishly that it leaves even Veyrons and Aventadors appearing ever so slightly ordinary and there is an otherworldly theatre to lifting that gullwing door and slipping down into an entirely bespoke cabin of exquisitely finished carbon, hunks of aluminium and plump leather, before reaching far above your head and pulling the leather strap down hard, slamming the door shut. Turn the key and squish the accelerator into the floor and the Huayra positively smacks you round the head with its performance, a Mafioso induction into a new, more brutal way of doing this supercar thing.
Cues from the Zonda – Pagani’s only other model and the car that the Huayra replaces – abound: that incredibly low scuttle, the foot pedals that resemble power-shower accessories, the air vents that float like inquisitive alien tentacles. The seats – beautiful, comfortable, hip-hugging seats – still only go back just and so far enough for legs to stretch out if you’re much taller than six feet, but there’s more space between your head and the outer edges of the roof than there once was and, unfortunately, far less rearward visibility, making that reversing camera more necessity than luxury and those excellent masquerade-mask wing mirrors indispensable.
However, if there’s a better production car cockpit in the world, my backside is yet to have the honour. As a piece of automotive art, only a Spyker feels similarly lavish.
The Huayra is not perfect; an extreme car like this is always going to have flaws. You can find fault with the gearbox, the fact that the cyborg limb of a gearshifter doesn’t feel as tactile as its delicate looks suggest it should, that there’s a detached, frustrating pause between selecting ‘Comfort’ or ‘Sport’ or ‘Auto’ and the corresponding info flashing up on the dash. These are the kinds of flaws that have been expunged from the Bugatti Veyron, making it technically the better car. But I know which car I’d sooner drive and I’ve got a Huayra-shaped key in my hand right now.
