IEEE Spectrum April, 2015 - 54

Pagani Huayra
A millionaire's gull-winged dream

the huayra has Bugatti-like exclusivity and
value: Barely 40 units a year are being built to
order at a price that can top us $1.8 million.
nevertheless, and happily enough, pagani
let me test one at the Monticello Motor Club
in upstate new York. note to self: do not run
this fabergé-rare beauty into the nearest wall.
With a naked, clear-coated carbon-fiber
body and monocoque chassis, the huayra
weighs 1,400 kilograms (3,100 pounds).
uniquely, pagani also weaves titanium into
the carbon fiber to boost rigidity and spread
kinetic energy in a crash. (and how's this
for obsessive: every titanium bolt in the
car is etched with the pagani name.) to
achieve street legality in the united states,
the huayra had to pass 47 crash tests
using a pair of carbon-fiber monocoques
that pagani says remained usable despite
repeated destructive tests. and the engine?
it's built by Mercedes-aMg to pagani's specifications, including a dizzying 1,000 newton
meters (738 foot-pounds) of torque, and it's
mated to a seven-speed single-clutch automated manual transmission.
on the day of my test drive, i arrive at Monticello to find the two-tone huayra lolling
in the pit lane, drawing a crowd and looking as though it's going 300 kilometers per
hour while standing still. exterior mirrors curl
from slender stalks, like the antennae of some
superpowered insect. stepping into the car is
like going back in time: the inside is a gleam54

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price: us $1.5-$1.8 million power train:
537-kW (720-hp) 6.0-l
twin-turbo V-12
overall fuel economy:
19.6 l/100 km (12 mpg)

ing metal-and-leather cocoon that feels like
the cockpit of a fantasy howard hughes
aircraft. on the track, the car has a visceral,
almost retromechanical feel. But there's
nothing old-fashioned about the acceleration,
which-inspired by pagani's heroes, including leonardo da Vinci-mimics the feel of a
jet hurtling down the runway. Minus the liftoff,
of course: active aerodynamic flaps at all four
corners rise and fall to mimic the aileron of a
plane, keeping the body flat even as g-forces
threaten to peel the skin off my face. it sounds

SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG

like a gasping beast, its turbos huffing and
chuffing with every mash of the throttle. the
car rockets to 100  km/h (62 miles per hour)
in about 3.2 seconds and keeps cooking to
about 370 km/h (230 mph).
standing in the pits at Monticello, pagani
tells me that, contrary to conventional wisdom, it is possible to build a business by
making cars that cost as much as a threebedroom co-op in Manhattan.
"if it's your passion and your dream, you
will achieve your goal," he says. n

Pagani

horacio pagani is a throwback to
the era of henry J. kaiser and preston tucker, when a visionary could
start a car company on little more
than brilliance and good connections. and like kaiser and tucker, the
argentina-born former Lamborghini
engineer builds cars like no one else.
as an object lesson, consider the
huayra (why-ra), a 537-kilowatt
(720-horsepower) gull-winged,
carbon-fiber goddess that makes
many supercars seem like massmarket commoners.
http://SPECTRUM.IEEE.ORG
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum April, 2015
