Behold: the concept ‘Alisea’, the wonderfully reimagined Pagani Zonda

Using a large amount of design talent and a small amount of magic, a group of students has resurrected the most unkillable of all modern cars: stand up, because your V12 engine has been renamed, the Pagani Zonda.

But it’s not called Pagani Zonda. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a beautiful image of Horacio’s creations for the very first time by the students of the (master course in transportation design) (intensive) at the Istituto Europeo di Design College in Turin. Meet the ‘Alisea’ concept: a 1:1 real-life study of the ‘modern’ Zonda.

The first and most important question of course, is ‘why’. Simple: Zonda turns 25 this year, and 24 young men spent the year working tirelessly to try and restore and reimagine what Horacio first pioneered before the turn of the century.

“We search a lot, then iterate many times, then we make several recommendations, to see what works best, to quickly delete what doesn’t work well,” they explained. “Everything is designed for the pure pleasure, even the sight, of those who look at the object.”

And it is some thing. Students worked side-by-side with Pagani itself, from freehand drawing to working in 3D to creating a realistic life-size car. “Its surface has no decorative elements or distractions,” the IED said. “The Alisea is a single shape, clean and readable, with no holes in any part of the body – a rare feature in this class of cars.” Punchy.

There’s a glorious, uninterrupted sweep of silk that exaggerates the Zonda’s front-end design, while underneath sits a real, real-life AMG V12. There’s a set of full LED headlights, there’s active aero and of course, there’s Pagani’s famous pipe-in-a-circle setup.

“It’s the closest translation of a Le Mans car to the road,” the students said.

There’s an interior, too – we’ve only seen the renderings, but there are analogue gauges, a manual gear, a digital dash and plenty of leather.

“We had the opportunity to lead young talent, tapping into the knowledge combined with the daily practices that we, as automotive designers and engineers, apply to the industry,” said Alberto Piccolo, head of advanced design at Pagani. “At the same time, we have benefited from their fresh and uncontaminated approach.”

“This is how we promote the professional growth of young designers, looking at the future with a broad and open perspective,” added Paola Zini, director of IED Torino.

Does this break the seal and allow for a new batch of special edition Aliseas that will keep the Zonda alive for another 25 years? We are not complaining.