The Huayra is a decade old this year

I am sure there are people out there that never have seen a Pagani Huayra in real life yet, but this amazing model from Horatio Pagani was introduced back in 2011 already, the Huayra is celebrating her 10th anniversary this year, and with Monterey Car Week in little over a week, Automobili Pagani found the perfect venue to commemorate this event, by bringing something new to California for us to enjoy … the Huayra BC Pacchetto Tempesta.

But let’s take a trip back to 2011, when Pagani officially unveiled the Zonda successor, called Huayra, in a simple online press release in January 2011, due to the close collaboration with Pirelli the world premiere featuring a real car was done at the Milan headquarters of Pirelli a month later, because Pagani used a Mercedes-AMG sourced engine for the new Huayra, production was limited at only 100 units … four years later, by February 11, 2015, this very special Pagani was sold out.

A more public unveil for the new Pagani hypercar occurred at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show where the two cars on the stand drew a lot of attention, keep in mind at that same Geneva show Lamborghini unveiled the long-awaited Aventador LP700-4 and Koenigsegg showed the bright white Agera R, yes, the one with the ski box on the removable roof panel!

The engine for the Pagani Huayra might have been sourced from Mercedes-AMG, but it was a bespoke built for this car only, a 6-Liter twin-turbo V12 unit (internal code M158) that would deliver 720 hp at 5,800 rpm, but more importantly a massive 1,000 Nm of torque between 2,250 and 4,500 rpm … weighing in at only 1,250 kg, the Huayra was extremely fast on the track, in part due to the active aero ‘flaps’ at the front and rear of the car.

It took Pagani a few years to come up with an improved Huarya because the 100 units of the ‘base’ Huayra were sold out (not all delivered yet, however), we got the BC shown to the public at the 2016 Geneva Motor Show, a more track-focused model named after the late Benny Caiola, a close friend of Horacio Pagani, and the first Pagani customer.

The Pagani Huayra BC came with more power from the 6-Liter twin-turbo V12 engine, now rated at 745 hp with 1,100 Nm while overall weight got reduced to 1,218 kg, one of the options available on the limited edition Huarya BC was an impressive air intake on the engine cover and roof to make the car look even more like a race car … only 20 units of the Pagani Huayra BC were built.

A year later Pagani released the version of the Huayra I would be interested in the most, the Huayra Roadster, I prefer convertibles for my personal use, and the Huayra Roadster showed a rather radical, bespoke design, and I love it, she looks stunning. Naturally, the entire section over the engine had to be redesigned to offer open-top motoring, Pagani style, and on a car like this a canvas folding roof would be blasphemy, so the Huayra Roadster came with a removable hardtop section that could be left in the owner’s garage on a custom frame.

Unlike the Huayra that has those jaw-dropping gullwing style doors that open up, the Huayra Roadster comes with traditional doors, there is no roof to fix the hinges needed for gullwing doors, and while Horatio Pagani did some testing with a different way of opening for the doors on the Roadster, in the end, he deemed all the more ‘special’ solutions to be too heavy for this topless Huayra, so he settled for regular, horizontally swinging doors but still increased power from the V12 engine to 754 hp, the Roadster was again limited to 100 units only.

Just as with the closed coupe, the Pagani Huayra Roadster received an even more powerful BC variant, introduced in 2019, this time 40 units would be available of this $3,210,000 hypercar, now with almost 800 hp still from that Mercedes-AMG sourced twin-turbo V12 engine with a 6-Liter displacement. New to the roadster was a set of exhaust diverting flaps that would move some of the exhaust down, under, and more importantly over the sides of the rear diffuser, in effect making the Huayra BC Roadster a derivation of Formula 1 blown-diffuser technology developed in 2011 by Red Bull Racing.

The Pagani Huayra BC Roadster was intended to be unveiled at the 2020 edition of the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance during Monterey Car Week, but sadly that event was canceled due to the worldwide pandemic, fortunately, the 2021 edition will take place, during which Pagani intends to offer some serious experience for their owners by gathering a large number of Pagani cars on the track, more on that later.

The most powerful, street-legal Pagani Huayra is the 2020 Imola version, with 827 hp, this very special model took its name from the fact Pagani did about 16,000 km of testing on the famous Italian Imola track, with an overall weight of only 1,246 kg thanks to a new way of producing the carbon fiber body, the more obvious points to recognize this version must be the new side sills, big roof scoop, and a vertical ‘shark fin’ that runs into a fixed rear wing … this looked like a race version of the Huayra, but that one was still on the drawing boards at Pagani, only 5 units of the Huayra Imola were made.

If you think a production run of 5 units on the Pagani Huayra Imola was limited, think again … the Huayra Tricolore came in only 3 units, even an MSRP of € 5,500,000 before VAT didn’t keep people from buying this ultimate Pagani. In 2010, Pagani paid tribute to 50 years of the Frecce Tricolori by creating the Zonda Tricolore, with only three built too, making it the most exclusive and sought-after Zonda model in the world.

In 2020, the Frecce Tricolori reached their 60th anniversary and Pagani wanted once again to celebrate this milestone with another piece to a mosaic created from passion, tradition, and the spirit of collaboration, inspired by the Aermacchi MB-339A P.A.N., the Huayra Tricolore is powered by a new Pagani V12, a twin-turbo engine specially developed by Mercedes-AMG, now capable of delivering 840 hp at 5900 rpm and 1100 Nm of torque from 2000 to 5600 rpm in this latest iteration.

2021 marked the year when Pagani came up with the long-awaited R version of the Huayra, much like the Zonda R presented at the 2009 Geneva Motor Show, the Huayra R is a track-only car, this beast is not street-legal, but she still looks amazing, although we haven’t seen a rolling prototype yet, only a static mockup in a YouTuber video, the intention is to build a total of 30 units of the Huayra R, against 15 units of the radical Zonda R.

And it seems Pagani isn’t ready to unveil a working Huayra R yet either, their latest press release states ‘key components of the Huayra R project are on display’ at the 2021 Monterey Car Week, so we won’t be seeing an actual car in California this year, at least not a Huayra R, but we will be able to enjoy some serious Pagani hypercars over that weekend as Pagani will showcase the most iconic Huayra models at The Quail, A Motorsports Gathering, together with the world premiere of the Huayra BC Pacchetto Tempesta.

Pagani will bring along the first Huayra BC to be fitted with the new Pacchetto Tempesta together with one of the 40 units in the Huayra BC Roadster production, as they couldn’t unveil that car back in 2020 at the same event, the Pacchetto Tempesta is specifically developed to improve the already potent Huayra BC even further towards its racing attitude.

The Pacchetto Tempesta distinguishes itself from a regular Huayra BC with a different front splitter and dedicated air intake to maximize aerodynamic efficiency, a new rear wing featuring an integrated central fin comes into play, a different six-pipe exhaust system together with a new suspension. To enhance both comfort and looks, the interior of the Huayra BC gets some striking interior details and an all-new Soft Driving mode makes its appearance, power is increased by 8% to a total of 827 hp and 1,100 Nm torque.

While there won’t be a completely functional Huayra R on display this year, Pagani will showcase some key components of the project, like the all-new Pagani V12-R naturally aspirated engine, the six-speed sequential gearbox (created in collaboration with HWA), and the ultra-light Carbo-Titanium HP62-G2 and Carbo-Triax HP62 monocoque, specifically designed to provide the driving thrill of a true racing car, in line with the most stringent FIA requirements.

The monocoque interior to be featured inside the Huayra R shows a true racing setup, but will still be a testament to how even the most extreme, cutting-edge, models are fitted with unparalleled craftsmanship and unmistakably refined Pagani details, as even the R version, while not being street-legal, remains a Pagani masterpiece.

In the words of Pietro Berardi, CEO of the North American Market: “Passion and the continuous desire to go beyond our limits are some of the values that Pagani and Pirelli have shared for over 10 years in one of the most fruitful partnerships in the automotive world. Over the last years with Pagani we have implemented several research and development projects, always focused not on only maximum performance but also the new quality and safety standards: from the first record beaten in 2010 with a Pagani Zonda R on Pirelli P Zero at the Nürburgring, the iconic German racing track, to the use of Formula 1 modeling to develop the P Zero Trofeo R tires for the new Pacchetto Tempesta for the Huayra BC. Last but not least, just a few months ago, on the legendary Spa-Francorchamps racing track, the record set by the Roadster BC equipped with specially developed P Zero Trofeo R tires set a milestone in the history of “Motor Valley” supercars. With the new slick tires, specially developed for the Huayra R, the outlook looks much brighter for the years to come!”