Horacio Pagani: Car People You Should Know

You probably know the name Pagani. It has been outfitted with high end buoys for over 20 years now. But how much do you know about the man who gave his name to the brand and produced amazing machines like Zonda, Huayra and Utopia?

The early years of Horacio Pagani

Horacio Pagani was born in 1955, not in Italy, where his creativity now lives, but in the city of Casilda in Argentina to a family of Italian descent.

Casilda is essentially a city, but in practice, it is more than a small town – even today it is home to only 35,000 people. From an early age, Pagani’s curiosity exceeded his humble surroundings, and he was obsessed with cars.

Casilda Municipal Palace, Argentina (photo via Emilce Llacza…

When he wasn’t racking his brain with facts from car magazines, or sketching the fancy machines of his dreams, he was hanging out at the local model shop trying to figure out the secrets to creating a real replica. Almost everything he did as a young man was about gathering information to create the best automotive work.

He also discovered the work of another curious soul from a bygone age – Leonardo da Vinci. The great Italian politician also spread his interests in art, science, technology and design, and his talent for results was a great inspiration for the young Horacio. To this day, he bases his way of working on the methods established by da Vinci – combining art and science with the philosophy of hands.

Interest is growing

In 1971, at the age of 14, Pagani got his hands on an engine. Indeed, it was an old Sachs Televel unit, and it did not work, but together with his friend Gustavo, it led to his first project – a go-kart. Except that didn’t allow both of them to enjoy together, so it was given up in favor of a new design – two small bikes.

Before he even finished high school, the young Pagani had built a car. It wasn’t a Huayra this time, but a Dune-Buggie. This was a plastic package produced by an Argentinian company to fit the existing car frame. Horacio bought himself a Renault Dauphine from a scrapyard, and after five months of transplanting, he started turning heads in his bright red car on the streets of Casilda.

By 1974, 18-year-old Horacio was studying industrial design at university. Even the political turmoil and suspension of his course could not discourage him, and he switched to a degree in mechanical engineering. However, as his academic efforts progressed he realized that by studying, he did not, and did not, do anything important. He decided to abandon theory, and focus on reality, leaving academics to rely on his self-taught expertise.

business

Pagani opened what he called his “factory”, a bustling factory with a corrugated iron roof and basic hand tools, with Horacio as the only employee. He wasn’t making cars this time, he was making… well, whatever people wanted.

Horacio Pagani and his F2 car

His first order was for some beautiful stools to be used in the bar, complete with legs, pure leather and chrome plating. (Even today, Pagani has a division – Pagani Arte – that creates bespoke orders, from furniture to private jets.)

It wasn’t until 1978 that the first car from Horacio Pagani Design made its debut. And it wasn’t a big car – it was a model caravan called Alpine. After showing it off at a trade show, he was inundated with orders for vans, pickup trucks and even a mobile radio studio. Pagani was still only 21 years old.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, however, commercial vehicles and caravans were not Pagani’s passion. In 1979, the car that best suited his passion appeared – a Formula 2 car. Built over a year and with about 5000 hours of work poured into it, it was designed and built before Pagani had ever raced – he built it based on principles alone.

The completed car was presented in front of a special dinner of gathered racing fans, entrepreneurs and journalists, and attracted the attention of Ace F2 driver Agustin Beamonte, who immediately signed an agreement to race the new Pagani creation. Speed had entered the Pagan business in spectacular fashion.

Pagani later claimed that “basically, that’s the first real Pagani,” and it gave him contacts with key motorcycle figures, including Argentine engineer Oreste Berta and F1 champion Juan Manuel Fangio.

A big switch

F2 didn’t pay the trade bills, however, so Pagani continued to work on special orders in the workshop. But in the back of his mind, he wanted to continue his dream. Since he was young, he dreamed of building cars in Italy, and so with a list of European contacts and letters of recommendation from Fangio, Pagani took a trip across the Atlantic.

Lamborghini LM002

“Italy is recognized worldwide as almost an open museum,” Pagani said in an interview with Carfection, “wherever you go, you find artistic expression. My dream was to come to Italy and work in Modena, to work in the world of supercars.

On that trip in the early 1980s, Pagani made contacts. He met racing designer Gian Paolo Dallara and spoke with Lamborghini’s chief technical director, Guilio Alfieri. The talks resulted in a job, and Pagani joined Lamborghini to work in the composition department at a low level. But he claims that it was a very good and important time, working with his colleagues who he considered to be craftsmen, at a time when Lamborghini was a small company, far from the big business owned by Audi today.

Highlights of Pagani’s time at Lamborghini include creating the Countach Evoluzione (the world’s first carbon and Kevlar car) and being involved in the development of the LM002 (above). His expertise in composites increased, but it didn’t always go well – he had to lobby hard to get a site for the construction of the Lambo factory, the fighting bosses who didn’t see the point. In the end, Pagani bought the autoclave with his own (borrowed) money.

By 1987, while still working for Lamborghini, Pagani had opened his own workshop to research composite materials and design. But within a few years, perhaps somewhat unexpectedly, the first Gulf War in 1991 changed things. Lamborghini at the time was owned by the American car manufacturer Chrysler, and when the war worsened the economy, Chrysler went into a general shutdown and put a stop to all the development of the combined projects.

Pagan origin

Not wanting to twiddle his thumbs, Pagani left Lamborghini. The time had come to build his dream car. He now had extensive experience building high-performance cars from the ground up using modern equipment, and he wanted to build one with his own name on the badge.

Pagani Zonda C12 – engine

The project was called Fangio, inspired by Pagani’s friendship with the great man. While working on the job, Pagani started projects with Ferrari and Dallara, but in the background Fangio took the shape. Its shape took inspiration from Le Mans models, the details of luxury watches from Patek Philippe, modern fighter jets and the beauty of Riva luxury yachts. In honor of Fangio, the car had to have a Mercedes engine and by the mid-1990s, Pagani had reached an agreement with a large German company for distribution units – a deal that continues in today’s Pagani.

Project Fangio had to be an amazing car, but Pagani was determined that it should be safe and easy to drive, and above all communicative. This was again direct advice from Fangio himself, who warned Pagani against the hard-driving nature of racing sports cars.

After years of development, the car that emerged was not a concept; it was ready to go. Unveiled in front of the world press at the 1999 Geneva Motor Show, Project Fangio was christened the Pagani Zonda. Under its attractive skin was the Mercedes’ M120 V12 engine, decorated with the three-pointed star of its manufacturer, which immediately gave this new, exotic machine a credibility that other companies, swimming in a sea of mysterious megacars, could not claim . Orders for the new car came in.

Horace Pagani with Zonda

Many orders, in fact, that Pagani could afford to choose from. In the first year of Zonda production, less than 10 orders were accepted, to ensure that the cars could be delivered to Horacio’s exact standards. The number gradually increased, but the demand exceeded the supply.

That demand didn’t diminish especially when the press reviews flooded in, or when, in 2007 the Zonda R took to the Nurburgring and set a new lap record of 6min 47sec, proving once and for all that Horacio’s dream car was more than a long shot. just a beautiful, shiny toy.

Horacio Pagani at a memorial event in Dubai

But what do you do once you realize your dream and the world loves it? If you’re Horacio Pagani, you have more dreams. “You question something and start studying it,” he told Carfection. “You come back to this idea again and again, you ask what have you done to try to do better.”

This philosophy of continuous improvement resulted in various Zonda bodies, rather than a series of thousands of new cars. In fact, in more than 20 years, Pagani has produced only three models: Zonda, Huayra from 2011 and the third model, Utopia, from the end of 2023.

Next time

Although the Pagani brand is now known worldwide, the company is still small. Cars are made by hand, in small quantities. And the company is now a family affair as Horacio prepares for Pagani’s future. His sons Leonardo and Christopher both work for their father (and yes, Leonardo is named after da Vinci). Now approaching 70 years of age, Horacio knows he cannot work forever, and wants the brand’s future to be in safe hands.

Horacio Pagani after winning an award from the Associazione per il Disegno…

“There are days when I would just like to stay at home with my dog, enjoy the countryside and go out for a spin,” he told Top Gear magazine in 2019. “(But) one of my biggest responsibilities is building the conditions for the company to continue on its own.”

That said, she hasn’t hung up her design hat yet – future projects she wants to complete include a realistic car based on a toy she carved out of wood when she was 12. And she wants to design a collection of women’s handbags. Oh, and he wants to go to Milan to study the life of Leonardo da Vinci.

Somehow we suspect Horacio Pagani will never have the quiet life that he claims to dream of so often. There is so much intelligence in his brain, waiting to be spilled into the world.

Horacio Pagani: Car People You Should Know | A feature

The early years of Horacio Pagani

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The early years of Horacio Pagani

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