Say what you will about the preposterousness of the Pagani Zonda, the man who builds them has certainly got his material science nailed. The foundation Horacio Pagani has built his eponymous company on is comparable in solidity only to the material he creates his Zondas from: carbon fiber.

For Pagani did not set out at a foolish young age to make his as-close-to-kindergarten-art-as-possible supercars. He paid his dues at Lamborghini, working his way up in the organization until he designed the very Zonda-like 25th Anniversary Countach. Lesser men would then jump headfirst into car construction, but not Pagani: he followed by founding the carbon fiber consultancy Modena Design. By the time he finally got around to building the first Zonda in 1999—the C12—he had been working non-stop with carbon fiber since the first days it cropped up in car design. Allowing the Zonda to become the nimblest yet most rigid supercar of its day.

The last version of the Zonda is the R and its street legal offshoot, the Cinque. On a recent episode of Top Gear, the Cinque was featured in connection with the material it is made out of: an amalgam of carbon fiber and titanium. As quoted from a press release by Richard Hammond, the material is called carbotanium by the Pagani people—only for James May to retort that an equally obvious linguistic move could have resulted in titbon.

The timestamp on this blogpost shall also serve as an anchor for a countdown to the inevitable day when a pair of Oakley sunglasses will be manufactured from the same material. The name itself is so Oakley it hurts. And they certainly don’t shy away from working with titanium.

The artwork above is Natalie Polgar’s “The Incompatibility of Zondas with the Subantarctic Environment,” from The Pagani Zonda Field Guide.

If you're like us, then you know. If not, then we'll have to point it out loud and clear. Roofless exotics are for rich poseurs. Or are they? With the same Mercedes-Benz AMG-sourced V12 as the equally limited edition Pagani Zonda Cinque hardtop pumping out 678 horsepower and a tire shredding 578 lb-ft of torque, this is no poseur ride. To clarify even further; any car with full carbon fibered bodywork, carbon-titanium monocoque chassis (engineered specifically for the Cinque), Cima six-speed sequential gearbox and a titanium and magnesium adjustable suspension means business.

Sitting pretty at a dry weight of 2,667 lbs, the Zonda Cinque slingshots to 60 mph in 3.4 seconds, 125 mph in 9.6 seconds and fights the wind until it reaches its 217 mph top speed. Massive lateral grip in the Zonda Cinque allows it to maintain 1.45g with its massive Pirelli PZero tires (front 255/35/19, rear 335/30/20) wrapped around aluminum and magnesium, APP monolithic wheels (front 9x19, rear 12,5x20).

Sounds to us like there's plenty of fun wrapped up in this $1.8 million non-poseur mobile, but regardless of all the awesome, you just know that all five of these beauties will end up in some collection, never to be seen or heard from again.

Observe fast cars from the vantage point of the average automobile and anything with more than four cylinders and 200 HP will merge with their kin like railway sleepers on the horizon.

Because can there possibly be a difference between, say, a BMW 335i with six cylinders and three hundred horsepower and a Ferrari F430, where the respective numbers are eight and 490? They will both rip your head clean off upon a blip of the throttle and will both exceed legal speed in a matter of seconds.

Yet up close, the differences grow. My friend Gergely Antal has recently spent some time in a gray F430 Spider and he has emerged a different man:

Look, I don’t edit a fancy motoring magazine, I don’t drive race cars for a living, I am not a petrolhead. Still, I’m familiar with what a 300 HP car feels like [the BMW 335i you can see here – Ed.] and have even picked up a set of wheels for Xbox driving games. I don’t throw common sense out the window when I evaluate things, even if this is not always apparent—but this car is so much more than I’d believed. I was thinking maybe it’s twice as good as the 335i. But no: it’s like ten times as good.

This is what stepping on the slippery slope of supercars is like. When you realize that beyond the numbers are innumerable details. That an engine which is perhaps twice as powerful is also twice as responsive in raising and dropping revs. That its power flows through a gearbox twice as precise, through a suspension that follows the road surface like a silken glove, through tires—and I’ll have to quote Neal Stephenson here—“with contact patches the size of a fat lady’s thighs.” Add them all and quantitative differences emerge.

And don’t think that it’s regular cars on one side and supercars on the other. The F430 may be the inflection point on the way there, but the slide from an F430 to a Ferrari 599 GTB is just as steep, according to Nino Karotta, who has driven both. At the bottom of the slope stands Harry Metcalfe, managing director of Evo magazine, who has once paid Horatio Pagani a quarter million dollars to upgrade his Pagani Zonda C12 to F spec—and he called it money well spent.

So please, for the sake of your comfortable retirement and your children’s nutrition and higher education, avoid Ferraris like the plague. Look what’s happened to Gergely—a reasonable man, an engineer by training—barely a day after his experience with Maranello’s gateway drug:

I have now made the decision to not get old or die without having once owned a Ferrari. You do need goals to keep you moving.

Junkie talk!

Photo Credit: Andras Horvath

Buried deep in a non-descript Italian industrial park, the Pagani factory doesn't appear to be the birthplace of carbon fibered devils, but once you make it past the wrought-iron security fence that semblance of reality changes in an instant. The lucky guys at Speedhunters were given exclusive photographic access and a four hour personal tour of the factory including the assembly areas and managed to squeeze off some very delicious looking photos. Head on over to Speedhunters to check out their in-depth three-part article of their experience. Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Photo Credit: Dino Dalle Carbonare [via SpeedHunters]

Here's how it happened:

Hi Murilee,
unfortunately I only had my iPhone with me...
I'm usually pretty spoiled when it comes to expensive vehicles parked outside, as the part of Frankfurt I live in combines expensive flats with not enough garages. 911s are the Golfs here, and every other evening you can watch a RR Phantom-driver circling for half an hour, desperately looking for a parking space for his ocean liner.

This however, caught me completely off-guard. I left my building to take the trash out and was greeted by the sound of 12 cylinders. Mr. Hedgefund and his trophy girl got out and left this monster standing down on the street. Between early 20th centruy houses and the usual E-classes and 5-series BMWs it looked like an imperial X wing crashed parking in front of a medieval castle. Amazing.

When you say McQueen in a car magazine, it’s usually Steve. Time for an exception: Alexander McQueen is a Savile Row-trained British designer who has been making outrageous clothes for over a decade now. His latest collection, shown at the Paris Fashion Week in front of an automotive scrapheap, features an outfit with a proper black chrome car wheel as a hat.

It may not be immediately obvious, given the Marilyn Manson makeup, the equally weird hats and the parachute-sized skirts, but the clothes in the English designer’s fall/winter collection are ready to wear.

Damned European libertines, you may be thinking, but it’s these exact same libertines, shaping carbon fiber and titanium instead of silk and feathers, who supply the car nerds of the world with our regular hits of supercar. A Pagani Zonda with a racing engine and a quilted leather interior is no less decadent than a bony woman with an umbrella on her head.

And just imagine the baroque visuals on city streets if supercar owners started wearing stuff like McQueen’s prêt-à-porter. Women emerging from Murciélagos with whole flocks of birds on their shoulders.

Hat tip to gearhead fashion designer Anna Péter.

Photo Credit: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images, FRANCOIS GUILLOT/AFP/Getty Images

In addition to sucking up the world’s excess supplies of carbon fiber and titanium, supercars are also excellent devices for taking ungodly sums of cash and turning it into, well, nothing. While Albert Einstein might point to a factual error or two in that argument, supercars definitely depreciate in ways very familiar to the Dan Osman types who tie themselves on climbing ropes and plunge into ravines.

Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on a two-seat vehicle is usually reserved for people who couldn’t care less about their money, but these are not usual times. And if you had money to burn, would you store it in a bank? Surely not. Why not buy a Pagani Zonda Cinque instead?

Five will be made of these street legal versions of the Zonda R track special. On sale at ES Elite Style GmbH is chassis #1 for a cool 1.6 million Euros—two million bucks at the current exchange rate. For your monetary equivalent of a Presidential fleet of Maserati Quattroportes, you will get a sequential gearbox, 678 very useful horsepower, and a large athletic shoe with a sinister red-white-black color scheme to zip around in.

One word of warning to the potential buyer: this is an extremely low car best suited for well-maintained tarmac. Please do not drive it on the French island of Kerguelen, which is a glaciated volcano in the Southern Ocean and has no paved roads. Presented here for your warning is the painting The Incompatibility of Zondas with the Subantarctic Environment from the Pagani Zonda Field Guide:

You know it’s bad luck when albatrosses eye your vehicle with suspicion. Jusk ask a sailor intimate with the Roaring Forties.

In case you forgot, the Zonda R is Pagani's supposed fair-thee well gift to the Zonda name to the tune of 739 HP from its 6.0 liter V12, good for a 0-60 time in three second and top speed of 233 mph. Start liquidating your assets now because the $1.8 million super car will go fast, both literally and figuratively.

[via WCF]

Must. Suppress. Dragons.

Photos via Carplatform

Highlights are at 30 seconds, 2:30 and pretty much everywhere in between. Make sure you have a sturdy book ready to um ... just get it ready.

We totally want to make dragon-love with those four exhaust pipes — Is that wrong?

[via Evo]

It's been a good run, the Pagani Zonda has stoked many a supercar fantasy and plasters the walls of garages and bedrooms everywhere, but all good things must come to an end. The Zonda R is that end and the Zonda is not fading quietly into history. Everything gets turned up to eleven with this final model, 739 HP 6.0-liter V12, 0-to-60 times of three seconds, and a blistering top speed of 233 MPH.

The car also spares no expense, wearing top shelf parts made of titanium and carbon fiber, and the price shows. Only 15 Zonda R's will be available to the public for a mind-blowing $1.8 million, and they're building one extra to keep at the factory. Guess if you're going to go out, you go out big.

[iMotorMag]

Why Cinque? According to the person who posted this news, and the picture above, only five of the beasts is to be made. We'll assume it's going to carry the same 7.3-Liter Mercedes V12 and will perform best at the track, though we'd still try and drive it down Lake Shore if given the chance. If the photo above entices you like it entices us we recommend buying lottery tickets. Now! (h/t to Joe) [TeamSpeed]

Technical specs are still unconfirmed, but the speculators suggest the new engine will be the thumping 680 HP dry-sump V8 lump from the McLaren Mercedes SLR 722 GT. We're not sure how much sense that makes, what with SLR production winding down, but then the Zonda isn't exactly the sort of car you justify with the left side of your brain. With 0-60 runs likely in the sub-three second range, your right foot will likely be the decision-maker. [AutoExpress]

[via YouTube]

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