If you work as PR on a sports car program, you just got served. Clever tag lines, situational comedy, boastful claims, trumpeting your awards — all of that is busch league. If a product is truly great, it'll sell itself. This ad uses 39 written words, there's no reassuring voice over actor telling us the car will maintain its value, get good fuel economy, whip up an excellent cappuccino and powder your bottom. No, just 39 words, the components, the car performing, and a wholly appropriate score. We recommend you go watch it in high-definition, it was so good we took some screen grabs:

Given that the Geneva Motor Show has been the birthplace of many icons of rock-and-roll fascination—both the Miura and the Countach were introduced here—it’s surprising how humorless, sanitized, corporate and depressingly adult the event is. Patterned shirts and rumpled hair did not make easy our entry past the gates, and that was before we produced our documents.

“These are a joke,” a stern lady by the name of Michelle greeted us with a smirk after inspecting our letters of editorial confirmation. No glossy magazines? No big-money advertisements on expensive paper? Then, upon my insistence, she visited jalopnik.com, and the joke was on her. “But you look so young” was all she could come up with as we waved her goodbye.

All photography by Máté Petrány.

In a sea of navy blue suits and black pro cameras, we went prowling the showfloor with a Lomography Fisheye 2 and two old Minoltas loaded with Kodak T-MAX 3200 film to capture something of Geneva supercars which elude modern cameras with their nuclear-powered image processors and Volkswagen-perfect optics.

What we’ve collected in this gallery are not professional photographs, but they show the Pagani Zonda, the Lexus LFA, the Bugatti Veyron, the Koenigsegg Agera and the Lamborghini Murciélago SV in ways which escape perhaps the majority of modern cameras.

Like how the scoops on a Lexus LFA are obviously inspired by melting icebergs.

Even though it’s been around for a while and our Mr. Wes Siler has already driven it, it was the first time either Máté or I saw an LFA in person. It’s shocking in the way only Italian cars can be. Full of completely weird details.

But the last word in weird goes to the Pagani Zonda Cinque Roadster. On display was number three of five and we kept circling around it for two days, unable to resist its pull.

Nobody does carbon fiber like Horacio Pagani.

The Zonda’s grand-piano-sized AMG V12, topped with the mother of all strut braces, shown here with a fisheye lens.

The Zonda Cinque’s rear continues in a towering, 1975-style hood scoop.

I’ve always suspected that the Bugatti Veyron was groundhogs. After finally seeing a fisheye photograph of its grille, complete with buckteeth, all I can say is quod erat demonstrandum.

Even though the Agera is the first new Koenigsegg since the CC, it is in fact nothing but a special edition CC. It takes a distorted perspective to hide its Koenigseggian lines and introduce an element of, well, modern Honda prototypes.

The star of the post-financioapocalyptic 2009 Geneva Motor Show, Lamborghini’s farewell to the Murciélago is still a wonderful, surreal car, six HP short of 666.

Underexpose the big Lambo with a fisheye lens and you get a menacing interstellar cruiser from the Alien series, roaring through constellations, serving the needs of a shady transplanetary conglomerate.

If the Murciélago SV is a Weyland-Yutani spaceship, the Pagani Zonda Tricolore is the xenomorph it’s sent to collect exterminate.

To part on a note that’s not all doom and gloom and high-grain Kodak, here’s how you turn a Zonda into ‘70s disco power. Party like it’s 1974 and speed bumps are yet to be discovered!

Three in a production run of cinque (five, that is), the Cinque Roadster is one of many late edition Zondas which mark the end of the greatest supercar so far of the 21st century. The Zonda will be replaced by a gullwinged successor, last seen filling up in the U. S. of A.

We have passed the Cinque way more than five times during our two days here in Geneva, but none of those passes have dulled its alien edge, even though it is but an iteration of an 11-year-old design.

Here, at the end of its life, the Zonda is a breathtaking counterpoint to all the fake green cars of the more corporate supercar shops. And let’s just hope that when Horacio Pagani picks up his cell phone to talk with his engine suppliers at AMG, nobody is trying to force an emissions-mandated battery pack down his throat.

Photo Credit: Máté Petrány and the author

As much as we've loved the Zonda F, we're excited about the prospect of more. And "more" is coming by way of a smaller AMG-sourced twin-turbo 6.0-liter V12 sourced from the SL65 AMG Black Series. Hey, it's not like 7.3-liter AMG V12s grow on trees. Horsepower is expected to near the 700 HP mark, giving it more oomph than either the Zonda F or Zonda Cinque.

In an effort to help the monster breathe better there appears to be a larger, updated front clip and big gaping intakes behind the cabin. It does retain the same essential Zondaness we lust after but with one big difference: whereas the Zonda has conventional doors this appears to have Gullwing doors. Hmm... Gullwing doors and a Benz engine?

As the sticker says "GOVERNMENT APPROVED HIGH SPEED TESTING VEHICLE." Yes, and JALOPNIK APPROVED as well.

These photos show a tester for the Zonda-replacing C9, this time ditching the 7.3-liter AMG V12 in favor of the twin-turbo 6.0-liter V12 from the SL65 AMG Black Series. With 40 models set to be produced per year, the chances of owning one increase slightly... if you have $1.3 million burning a hole in your custom-tailored Italian pockets. [Road & Track]

But first, the engine. It’s called the M120 and it’s the size of a calving iceberg. Europeans are not known for making giant engines, mostly because our nanny states tax the bejesus out of displacement, but tell that to Messrs. Aufrecht and Melcher from Großaspach, whose firm AMG have been a Mercedes-Benz loony shop since 1967. When AMG makes an engine, it’s invariably of Victorian dimensions. And none are bigger than the 7.3-liter M120 they installed in the very last version of the R129, which is the fourth generation of the big SL roadster, produced between 1990 and 2002.

When AMG laid their hands on the M120 in 1999 to make the SL73, it had already been around for years in its original 6-liter form: it powered all of Mercedes-Benz’s V12 cars in the 90s. To get an SL73—and there were only around 85 made between 1999 and 2001, a rumored fifty of those going straight to the Sultan of Brunei—you had to purchase an SL600 roadster from Mercedes-Benz and hand it over to AMG, accompanied by a wad of Deutschmarks to the tune of $50,000.

What you got for your silly banker money was a bored and stroked V12, its insides sprinkled with titanium goodies, good for 518 HP and 553 lb-ft of torque, eye popping numbers for 1999. All that power would then propel your 2-ton slab of little aluminum and lots of shteel all the way to 186 MPH, with 60 of those miles per hour arriving after a decidedly Ferrari-esque 4.8 seconds.

The SL73 would be the very last version of the R129, which was replaced by the R230 to become the current version of the SL roadster. But its engine lives on.

Thanks to Horacio Pagani’s good relationship with Mercedes-Benz—made possible by his friendship with fellow Argentine and 50s racing god Juan Manuel Fangio, who won two Formula One world titles for Mercedes—every version of the Zonda has been powered by the big AMG.

Power is now up to 678 HP in the track-only Zonda R. And contrary to the SL73, every Zonda is very happy to zig and zag. No surprise there: they are barely over half the weight of the SL73.

Photo Credit: Krzysztof Jarzębowski, LSDSL

[Orient Daily via Wrecked Exotics]

The Zonda is probably the most visually overwhelming car on the market. It’s got a leather purse for a glovebox, a Gatling gun for exhausts and the flight deck of an aircraft carrier for an engine cover. It skates right up to the edge of too busy, like the buildings of the Registan, the square in the heart of the ancient Central Asian city of Samarkand, and we can thank the good lord of delayed technology that is still has a need for wing mirrors instead of simply using cameras.

For these mirrors are so over the top that you, dear commenter, who is now tasked with showing us a photo of a sexier one, have got your work cut of for you. A thin stalk of carbon fiber, upon which sits a gorgeous curve of a mirror housing. Top that. Top it with carbotanium.

Have you got a hotter wing mirror than the Zonda’s? Prove it—post away!

Photo Credit: ukdavew/Flickr and the author

In the flesh, parked at Pagani’s low-key booth, the Zonda R is every bit the demented racing car you’d expect it to be. This is the last in a great line of super cars, the logical conclusion to Pagani’s original car: the 1999 Zonda C12. Let’s go look inside its mid-mounted guts.

The headless person at the bar, resting behind a Zonda Cinque, can plop his ass in a Barcelona chair if he so desires, which is just as comfortable as it looks. At least in the short term. For long-term stays, you need thousands of dollars or the company of bankers and Zonda-owners.

The famous Gatling exhausts are back and they have never looked this great.

A key element of the car’s supposedly supple suspension.

The valve cover, until recently marked only with its donor AMG’s emblem, has gained some Zonda branding.

Not your mother’s tires.

The carbon fiber rim of a cooling duct exposed by removal of the carapace.

The Zonda is not light on carbon fiber by any means.

The periscope-shaped air ducts inside the cabin are made of, you guessed it, carbon fiber.

Hood scoop to feed all 7.7 liters of the AMG V12. It has a peculiar resemblance to the exhaust pipes of the just-announced Bentley Mulsanne.

Undoubtedly the world’s greatest looking rearview mirror. The shape was introduced in 2005 for the Zonda F to replace the earlier Zonda C12’s snail eye mirrors.

It is a gorgeous mirror. You have to wonder though what function the LED’s which look like turn indicators serve: the Zonda R is a track car. Although, as you’ve seen with the similarly track-only Maserati MC12 Corsa, Horatio Pagani is perhaps anticipating the gentle and high-speed bending of rules.

Gone are the triple headlights of the Zonda F for these elongated dual units. Surrounding them are a material made by curing cloth and resin in an autoclave commonly known as carbon fiber.

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.

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.

This dark knight, just unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show, brings the heat with a 739 HP 6.0-liter V12, weight chopped down to 2,360 pounds and a 0-to-60 time of three seconds.

Photo Credit: autoblog.nl

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]

The Pagani Zonda F Cinque is something of a bridge between the Zonda F chassis and the next one, the Zonda Cinque (pictured above) gets chassis, aerodynamic, and power upgrades compared to the old car. The Zonda F Cinque is based on the Zonda R and borrows styling and aero elements from the Cinque like the hood scoop, and rear diffuser. Five Pagani Zonda F Cinque cars will be built in the year between the end of Zonda F chassis production and the start of Zonda Cinque production.

So if we want to put this in simpler terms and liken the Zonda F Cinque to Corvette history, this car would be the the 1961-62 model years, borrowing elements of two cars to make one rare and still cool car. Look for actual images and details on the car as it debuts next week at the Geneva Motor Show. [GTSpirit]

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]