Pagani

Pagani Automobili S.p.A. is a maker of fine Italian sports cars, as well as a manufacturer of carbon fiber material. The company was founded by Horacio Pagani from Argentina, a man who formerly worked in Lamborghini’s composites department. He founded Pagani Composite Research in 1988, and his company collaborated with Lamborghini on a few projects, such as the redux of the Countach, the Diablo, and the P140 concept vehicle. Late in the 80s, Pagani started designing his own vehicle, code-named the “C8″, with plans to badge it as the Fangio F1 in honor of Formula One champion Juan Fangio. Pagani is located in San Cesario sul Panaro, a town near Modena, Italy.

In 1991, Pagani started Modena Design in order to meet rising demand for his prototyping, engineering and design help, and in 1992, he began work on the prototype for the Fangio F1. By the beginning of 1993, the F1 was in testing at Dallara’s wind tunnel, and in 1994, Pagani got an agreement from Mercedes-Benz to supply the V12 engine that would power the would-be Fangio F1 (the final car ended up being called the Zonda C12; the “Fangio” name was omitted because Fangio passed away in 1995. The Zonda C12 had its debut at 1999′s Geneva Motor Show. In 2005, the Pagani company announced that its output would triple within the next three years, and they entered the US market in 2007.

On September 25, 2007, Pagani earned the new record for the fastest production supercar, with the Zonda F Club Sport. The car completed the Nurburgring in just under seven and a half minutes, but that record has since been eclipsed by cars such as the Corvette ZR1, the Dodge Viper SRT10, and the Maserati MC12. In July of this year, the Zonda R got the single-lap record at Nordschleife for a production car, with a time of just under seven minutes (11 seconds better than the time that Ferrari lodged). On the whole, Pagani is an independent company, but it has a good partnership with Daimler AG, more so with the AMG division of Mercedes. The partnership came to be because of a suggestion from Juan Fangio that the company enter into talks with Mercedes. Pagani’s Zonda has used ever-evolving versions of the V12 M120; the current Zonda has a 7.3 liter engine.