is the coolest car ever Pagani Huayra Tricolori is the Faberge

PAGANI HUAYRA TRICOLORI is the FabergÉ Egg of the Hypercar World

| BY SOMNATH CHATTERJEE

You cannot accuse the Pagani Huayra for lacking in theatre or pantomime. The successor to the critically acclaimed Zonda, the Huayra has seen various iterations over the years and each one is wilder and even more extreme with a ruthless dedication to art and performance. Pagani Automobili has been known for that and is a major player in the hypercar business with its expertise in design, craftsmanship and state-of-the-art composite materials. No one does carbon fiber in hypercars better than Pagani as does the insane attention to detail which oozes from their cars.

The latest one is the Huayra Tricolore and just like the Zonda Tricolore, this special edition is a tribute to the Italian Air Force Aerobatic Team. Revealed on the occasion of the 60th anniversary of the Frecce Tricolore, only three examples of this hypercar would be built thus making the € 5,500,000 + VAT list price a tad obsolete. In 2010, to celebrate the 50 years, Pagani did the Zonda Tricolore, of which again only three examples were made. Pagani says that amongst all of the Zonda models, this is the most sought after. We would not debate that.

Back to the Huayra Tricolore and the MB-339A aircraft of the National Aerobatic Patrol was the biggest inspiration for the design. It gets a new body designed from advanced composite materials while the Pagani V12 engine has been updated for more plus various aeronauticsderived technologies have been poured into the making of this special car.

Looking more like a fighter jet, the Huayra Tricolore has a new front bumper with side extractors while there is also a new air scoop and a rear wing. Even the shape of the tail fin is similar to the jet while the new wheels are mimicking the design of a propeller in a turbine. In the center of the front hood there is a Pilot tube, an instrument which allows each aircraft to measure the macroscopic air speed and, therefore, determine the aerodynamic condition of the aircraft. Of course the most recognizable bit is the livery which is a tricolor.

The Huayra Tricolore is powered by the new Pagani V12, the twin-turbo engine specially developed by Mercedes-AMG. The numbers are pure hypercar and while not quite having the Chiron like 1000 plus hp, the 840hp and the 1100Nm of torque makes this one of the fastest cars since it is much lighter. The new chassis is made from the latest generation composite materials, such as Carbo-Titanium HP62 G2 and Carbo-Triax HP62 and that has enabled considerable change to torsional and flexural rigidity.

The Tricolore is all about an emotive driving experience hence the usual dual-clutch automatic gearbox has been binned in favor of a sevenspeed sequential gearbox like the standard Huaryra (if such a thing exists).

However more than all of that, the fact that something so mundane as the gear knob is carved from a single block of aluminum and carbon while then milled through a five-axis numerical control center plus finally hand polished with the special transparent treatment, shows that how each Pagani car is made with painstaking craftsmanship hence elevating it to a piece of art rather than a mere motor car. There is nothing else like this on the market and it is perhaps staying true to the purest expression of what a hypercar should be.

It is not about plain numbers or how fast it would go as how it achieves that speed with raw emotion and how it makes you feel when you clap your eyes at it for the first time is ultimately more important. Job well done on that front, Pagani!