2014 Pagani Huayra: World Beating Hyper Car or Just Plain Hype? - Ignition Ep. 89 - video Dailymotion

MotorTrend

On this episode of Ignition

Transcript

00:00 (engine revving)

00:02 I'm near Modena, Italy, driving not just any old

00:14 Pagani Zonda S Roadster, but Horatio Pagani's

00:17 personal Zonda S Roadster.

00:20 I know I don't need to say it,

00:26 but life doesn't get much sweeter than this.

00:28 (engine revving)

00:31 You spend enough time driving this thing

00:33 and you say to yourself, why would you ever

00:35 build any other type of car?

00:37 And I was asking Horatio Pagani this question,

00:41 and he said, you know, the problem is around 2003,

00:44 suddenly, all these hypercars showed up, right?

00:47 You had the Bugatti Veyron, you had the Porsche Carrera GT,

00:51 you had the Mercedes McLaren SLR,

00:54 and of course, the Ferrari Enzo.

00:57 And all of a sudden, the Zonda was just

01:00 a plain old supercar, it wasn't a hypercar.

01:03 So all the way back then, in 2003,

01:06 he began thinking about his hypercar.

01:10 What would it look like?

01:11 How would it drive?

01:12 What would it consist of?

01:13 Well, eight years later, he showed the world his hypercar.

01:18 And on this week's episode of Ignition,

01:20 I'm gonna drive it.

01:25 (engine revving)

01:28 (soft music)

01:30 (engine revving)

01:33 (soft music)

01:36 (engine revving)

01:44 (engine revving)

01:55 (soft music)

02:02 (engine revving)

02:05 The story of the Huayra isn't complete

02:21 until you see where they're built.

02:23 (soft music)

02:25 (engine revving)

02:28 The Huayra's carbon fiber central tub

02:39 is lifted onto a Pagani-designed rig,

02:42 the aluminum subframes are bolted in place,

02:44 and the hypercars are then constructed totally by hand.

02:47 Need some bolts?

02:49 Then just pop over to the cases holding the bolts

02:51 and fish out the number you need.

02:53 This is how cars were built a very long time ago,

02:56 and happily, Pagani continues this tradition.

02:59 There's no doubt in my mind

03:02 that completed Huayras are works of art.

03:05 The pieces and parts that comprise them are just as lovely.

03:09 The individual carbon fiber pieces are exquisite

03:12 and hand-finished in temperature

03:14 and humidity-controlled rooms.

03:15 The leather is of the same quality

03:19 that you'd find in high-end handbags.

03:22 Each aluminum piece, from the HVAC controls

03:25 to the gear selector, is a thing

03:27 you'd happily let live forever on your desk.

03:30 Quite literally, Horatio's workshop

03:32 is a candy store for car junkies.

03:35 As much fun as I had watching Huayras being assembled,

03:37 and of course, picking up and fondling random pieces

03:40 like the exhaust pipes,

03:41 I didn't come all the way to Modena just to watch.

03:44 I came to drive.

03:45 (engine revving)

03:48 (engine revving)

03:51 Driving a Pagani Huayra.

03:57 I mean, look, right off the bat,

04:01 this is an incredibly powerful car.

04:04 You've got the twin-turbo V12,

04:09 hand-built in Al-Fatabak by AMG.

04:12 730 horsepower, 764 pound-feet of torque.

04:18 (engine revving)

04:21 Hypercars are fast, we know all that.

04:24 That's not what this car is about.

04:26 Yes, it's faster than whatever you drive

04:28 and whatever you can imagine driving.

04:30 The whole thing with the Huayra

04:34 is that there's so much to experience.

04:37 You could sit here in the car

04:40 and just push these gorgeous,

04:42 machine-turned aluminum buttons all day.

04:47 The leather's exceptional.

04:49 The carbon fiber is exceptional.

04:51 It's not even carbon fiber, it's carbon fiber titanium.

04:54 This is just world-class.

05:02 I've never seen anything as gorgeous as this carbon fiber.

05:05 You drive something like this

05:10 and your brain just starts to wander off

05:12 to very strange places.

05:15 I think for a lot of people,

05:16 they might be thinking like,

05:17 how can I work hard enough to make enough money

05:19 to afford something like this?

05:21 My particular brain starts to say things like,

05:25 who did I trick, who did I fool?

05:27 Why am I able to drive this?

05:29 'Cause it's so different and so special.

05:33 That's just, it's such an incredible machine.

05:38 Without getting into the details,

05:44 I know for certain that a Huayra can hit 209 miles per hour.

05:47 And since there are about three places on Earth

05:54 where that's important,

05:55 I didn't feel the need to verify Pagani's claim

05:58 that the car will do 231 miles per hour.

06:00 As for straight-line acceleration,

06:06 they're claiming zero to 60 in 3.2 seconds.

06:13 Italians don't really get the whole quarter-mile thing,

06:15 but I think it's safe to say

06:16 that she'll run in the low 11 seconds.

06:19 (laughing)

06:26 I think I might just start doing U-turns

06:30 and running on straights all day.

06:32 You know, I spent a lot of time driving a lot of vehicles

06:36 that have the twin-turbo AMG V12,

06:42 and this is the only one that feels really fast.

06:46 Maybe because it's not coupled to that five-speed,

06:49 slow AMG transmission,

06:51 but this car, it's so quick.

06:56 Rarely felt cars that turn in like this.

07:06 It's unbelievable.

07:07 This car is as happy going left or right

07:10 as it is going straight,

07:11 and that's a very, very, very difficult thing to pull off.

07:15 Above about 50 miles an hour, 80 kilometers an hour,

07:25 the active aero kicks in,

07:27 and the four wings start working

07:30 in conjunction with the hydraulic lift on the front axle,

07:33 and it's unbelievable.

07:35 It's like, I don't even know how to describe

07:37 how this car holds the road.

07:39 (engine revving)

07:42 Horatio told me that when he started working

07:46 on the active aero system,

07:48 there was no one in the entire car industry

07:50 that could help him,

07:52 so he turned to aviation.

07:54 In the Huayra, not only are the four wings functional,

07:57 but just like an airplane,

07:59 there's actually a switch that allows you to test them

08:01 before you take flight.

08:03 It's way too much for this road.

08:05 I mean, this car is just destroying this road,

08:08 and this road is trying to destroy this car,

08:10 (engine revving)

08:13 but we're not gonna let it.

08:15 Things I don't like about the Huayra.

08:26 Well, this one's covered in this stupid wrap.

08:29 A few weeks ago, I saw one at Pebble Beach.

08:31 It was raw carbon fiber.

08:33 Absolutely gorgeous.

08:35 Sorry for the way this one looks.

08:37 We showed up.

08:38 This is the car they gave us.

08:39 You'll also notice I'm wearing my hat,

08:41 which usually I wear when it's very hot out

08:43 or I'm having a bad hair day.

08:44 However, today, there's a piece of glass above my head,

08:48 and it's baking me.

08:49 And then there's the low-speed handling of this car.

08:55 And so if you drive something like the Veyron,

08:58 what freaks you out about the Veyron

09:01 is that as you're running around in the parking lot,

09:04 and I know everyone's said this,

09:06 but you might as well be driving a Volkswagen Golf.

09:08 It's so easy to maneuver,

09:10 so easy just to creep along at five miles an hour.

09:13 This car isn't, but again, who cares?

09:16 Just forget all that nonsense.

09:18 All these critiques are pretty meaningless

09:19 because this thing just goes like nobody's business.

09:24 Oh my God.

09:28 As you're driving and hammering it,

09:36 I mean, you're being overwhelmed

09:38 by the ferocity of the velocity,

09:40 the braking power, the turning ability.

09:42 It's just such an athlete.

09:44 And then as you kind of slow down and look around,

09:49 it's like, God, look at the leather, look at the stitching,

09:52 look at this aluminum, look at this carbon fiber,

09:54 like the weird little air vents that are gorgeous.

09:58 And it's like your favorite album.

10:00 One of my favorite albums is Paul's Boutique

10:02 by the Beastie Boys.

10:03 And I've been listening to that record for over 20 years now

10:07 and every time I listen to it, I hear something new.

10:10 And I think every time you drive this car,

10:12 you're gonna notice something new.

10:15 I'm gonna floor it 'cause it's a straight.

10:17 Oh my God.

10:18 (laughing)

10:20 I really think you would figure something else out

10:26 that you hadn't noticed before.

10:28 (car engine roaring)

10:32 I just keep noticing things

10:34 and being pleasantly surprised by things.

10:36 Like, you know, I just was making a left turn,

10:38 I looked down, I noticed that goofy little point

10:41 of the rear view mirror.

10:42 And I think that's the point of the Huayra.

10:48 Is it the fastest car in the world?

10:51 No.

10:52 Is it the absolute best handling car in the world?

10:55 No.

10:56 Does it cost too much?

10:57 Yes.

10:58 It's a $1.4 million.

11:00 It's the same price as a LaFerrari.

11:03 And it doesn't make as much power

11:05 and it's not gonna be as quick,

11:06 but you just won't care.

11:09 There's 80 guys in a building in Modena making this thing.

11:15 You know, it's not some mega national corporation,

11:18 you know, with all the best engineers available.

11:21 I mean, this is, you know, one man division

11:24 and I just love cars like that.

11:27 (dramatic music)

11:30 I get to spend a great deal of time

11:37 playing around with the greatest cars in the world.

11:39 But even supercars can grow routine.

11:46 The Huayra, on the other hand,

11:49 I simply wasn't prepared to be this impressed.

11:56 The Huayra is Pagani's masterpiece,

11:58 both as a company and as an individual.

12:02 Nearly every single aspect of the car is mind-blowing.

12:05 But more than that, every single aspect

12:07 represents one man's singular vision

12:10 of what an automobile should be.

12:12 Of course, there is no perfect car,

12:15 but until that time, the Pagani Huayra

12:17 is number one in both my mind and my heart.

12:20 I'm awed, really and truly awed.

12:23 (dramatic music)

12:27 (gentle music)

12:30 (gentle music)

12:32 (gentle music)

12:35 (gentle music)

12:43 (gentle music)

12:58 (gentle music)

13:01 (gentle music)

13:03 (gentle music)

13:06 (gentle music)

13:09 (music)

13:11 [Music]

2014 Pagani Huayra: World Beating Hyper Car or Just Plain Hype? - Ignition Ep. 89

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