Car of the Day - Pagani Zonda Cinque

Car of the Day - Pagani Zonda Cinque

Pagani is the poster child for anyone who dreams of being a small volume car builder. Horacio Pagani's cars are seriously good and he himself obviously has exceptional style and business acummine. In a relatively should period he has established the Zonda at the top echelon of the SuperCar world.

Breaking into the top level is seriously hard, however once there the advantage of a business model based on a very limited production is that your clients are very rich, very loyal and eager to buy the next edition of their object of desire.

The hand made nature of a Zonda means a production run of 5 is feasible. Such is the case for the Cinque. Just five Coupe and five Roadsters were built. The Coupe was released first and obviously demand justified the effort for the re-engineering the Carbon-Titanium chassis to ensure the loss of the roof did not impact the stunning dynamics of the car. In fact the Pagani have managed to achieve this with out adding any weight over the Coupe. You have to wonder how many regular clients bought both. At 1.3 m euro we are talking about a serious investment.

Those that waited for the Roadster get the added pleasure of the exposed aural delights of the AMG developed 678 hp V12, with the convenience of being able to stow the roof in the front luggage compartment - a significant feat given the extreme configuration of the design.

A considerable amount of the development of the Zonda R made its way into the Cinque and the car is no show pony with different drive modes of the sequential robostised gearbox and an adjustable suspension setup tuned for trackdays.

At just 1210 kg and with 0 - 100 km/h (62 mph) in 3.4 seconds it just doesn't get much better..

Rod Halligan