Any Pagani Zonda is special, a true event to behold, but the unique ‘Blu Francia’ S 7.3 that production test driver Simone Tarozzi is noisily warming up in the courtyard of the Pagani factory on Via dell’Artigianato, San Cesario sul Panaro (Modena), is a particular treat. Built for HRH Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud of Saudi Arabia, chassis 20 returned to the works when the Prince upgraded to a Zonda F and has been in Mr Pagani’s personal collection ever since. It was the 2003 Geneva show car and starred in Adrenalina Blu, the legend of Michel Vaillant. It is not a car he is used to letting journalists out in, and this point is reinforced as we sign a disclaimer that makes mention of the fact that the temperature outside is hovering around freezing and the huge 18in Michelin Pilot Sports are the originals.
That means that those tyres have taken this particular Zonda around the Nürburgring in an astonishing 7 mins 32 secs on its way to a new record for homologated production cars. “It’s a great achievement that every record we have taken at the Nürburgring has been set with a standard customer car,” says Pagani. “That’s the way we work. We aim to build a car that is comfortable, but that anyone can drive to the track and be fast. In the world of the extreme supercar, people think you need to be an expert driver, but you don’t need to be Michael Schumacher to drive a Zonda. I want every Pagani to be usable every day, just like a normal car.”
A normal car? I don’t think so, not with those looks. In fact, ‘car’ seems far too mundane a word to describe the steed that the four horsemen of the Apocalypse would surely be riding if they paid us a visit in the 21st century. Ignore for a moment the exquisite detail flourishes, the puncturing of vents and grilles, and concentrate on that cab-forward shape. It’s easy to spot Pagani’s influences, such as the pointed prow and reverse-rake stern that hint at old friend Carlo Riva’s Superaquarama speedboat, or the flashes of Mercedes-Benz W196 streamliner or Porsche 917 langheck. Yet they combine to give a whole that, if not exactly beautiful in the traditional sense, has unrivalled theatre. From those quad central tailpipes to the leather straps that hold down the engine cover, every detail has been designed to delight, to amuse, to thrill. “I see it every day, yet every day it’s a ‘wow’,” says Luca Venturi, our minder for the day. In an age when supercar design is being watered down to appeal to the wider audience of a more affluent worldwide society, the Zonda makes no effort to compromise, with the same visual punch that the Countach offered in the ’70s. You sense that if it saw another supercar in the street, it would give it a wedgy and do a couple of donuts around it before disappearing into the middle distance.
And unless that other supercar was a McLaren F1 or a Veyron, with a pretty handy driver behind the wheel, it would get away with it. Mr Pagani is right, this really is a supercar that you could use every day – one owner has recently topped 100,000km. That revelation comes even as you reverse out of the factory gates, and realise that you can see clearly out of the back of it. The steering – surprisingly low-geared at 3.2 turns lock to lock – is fluid, feelsome and sweetly weighted. The same goes for the Chima six-speed gearbox: a touchy notchy, perhaps, but light and quick, and mated to a clutch that is no more fearsome than that you’d find in, say, a BMW 5 Series. And then there’s the brakes – oh my! Four colossal drilled rotors hugged by massive Brembo calipers. They might well be bettered on a circuit, but on the road their fabulous feel (iron discs rather than carbon-ceramic on these earlier cars) and violent power best even a McLaren F1 as the finest stoppers I’ve ever experienced.
Oh yes, and it’s also pretty quick, too: try 0-60mph in 3.7 secs, 100 in 7.4 and 150 in just 16 secs. When Autocar tested a Zonda S in 2003, only the legendary McLaren had posted a quicker set of times in the magazine’s history. Unlike in so many supercars, however, that outrageous acceleration is completely accessible. There’s so much torque that the car will pick up from 1000rpm in top and just keep on pulling until you lose your bottle – which happens a long time before the car becomes even remotely perturbed. And it’s worth doing that little test, because that way you get to experience the AMG-tuned engine’s full repertoire. Bizarrely, it doesn’t sound much like a V12, more like some deranged, animalistic incarnation of a V8, its howl honed by those four pipes into a unique voice with an unmatched range, from the bellowing rumble at low revs to an almost jet-fighter whoosh as the engine seems to get its second wind past 4000rpm and screams towards the 7000rpm redline, followed by a sonic boom of a pop on the overrun as you lift off. It’s addictive stuff and, thanks to a quirk of the exhaust system, it gets louder and louder as the engine warms up, building like the stormy wind that gave the Zonda its name.