Pagani, the Italian maker of exotic, overly-designed supercars, has created a new special edition model for a select few. Called the Pagani Huayra Codalunga, it’s joining the ranks as one of the brand’s most exclusive models ever built.
The Codalunga, Italian for ‘longtail,’ was born through a collaboration between two of Pagani’s clients and of course, Horacio Pagani. The Pagani Grandi Complicazioni, or special projects division, was tasked with the requested challenge of making a longtail out of the Huayra Coupé. From there, it required two years of work over two prototypes, one full size, and one 1:4 scale. Every detail was looked over to comply with the client’s requests.
I have to admit I’ve never been a fan of Pagani and its designs. But I have to say that the Codalunga is a rather beautiful car. Gone are the grills, covers, and diffusers of the standard car. At the front, the fascia is a simplified Huarya. However the rear is where you’ll obviously see the biggest changes. The company says it drew inspiration from the longtail Le Mans racers of the ‘60s, which resulted in those wonderful, smooth and flowing lines to the “tail” fin.
Pagani went into the Codalunga with the idea to “take away rather than add,” much like a race car build mentality while designing. Surprisingly, this put the longer car at a curb weight of 1,280 kg, making it just over 68 kg lighter compared to its original namesake, the coupé, that comes in at 1,350 kg. The lighter car also benefits the power that drives it. Pagani delivers with an 820 horsepower V12 and 368 kg-ft of torque.
The same attention and detail that went into the exterior, is of course found in the interior. Pagani Design selected neutral and matte colours “to evoke the shades of the past and to bring out the simplicity of the car’s design.” Nearly every surface is either covered in leather or woven two-toned leather, or polished aluminium accents.
It looks so expensive, because it is expensive — and rare. Only five of these $A10.36 million hypercars will be made, and all of them are already spoken for. Of those five, one is coming to America. Too bad all this engineering and design effort will likely sit in a climate-controlled garage somewhere, away from the public eye.