These lines are the result of one of the best days at work for me. As a trained political and market analyst, I did a study on the car market in 2013, commenting production and sales data as well as the impact the automotive sector was having in producing jobs and wealth in Europe, America, and the BRIC Countries. In the last chapter of my work, I talked about product differentiation and what makes a customer choose a car over another. No other could provide insights on how to make a car attractive than Horacio Pagani of Pagani Automobili in Modena, Italy.
He is a true gentleman: in the time I spent at His factory in Caesano sul Panaro, I felt like I was being treated as one of His customers ordering their Huayra or Zonda. With the very first Zonda Revolucion behind us, we chatted for an hour about Pagani Cars and what makes a car an object of desire.
Best day at work if you ask me!
Here's the transcript. Enjoy!
What does mean car making to Pagani?
In our concept, in our philosophy, we take inspiration from the Renaissance idea of Leonardo da Vinci. More than 500 years ago, Leonardo used to say that art and science could walk together. This idea, this philosophy has been an integral part of my professional formation, that eventually led to the creation of Pagani Automobili. We produce automobiles that are an "object", where the technical and artistic components are crucial, as our cars are street-legal and are capable of high speeds, this imposing that all the design phase has to be carried out with great expertise, from the testing and the definition of the vehicle to the quality system, which is unique to Pagani in order to produce the each one of our products. But this is just a part of it. The other part, is the artistic and emotional component, the one that makes a customer to spend one, two or three million Euros on one of our cars. With this we are entering into a subjective sphere that justifies why we are talking about art. You have to recognize that the word art comes from "arto", the hand and the expression through it. I believe that one of Renaissance's key concepts has been the intellectual expression through the hands, the mind that creates, that imagines, that becomes enriched by the heart and the hand that follows; without making excessive use of the word "art", I believe that the amount of craftsmanship and work that goes in a Pagani has a strong artistic component in it: I believe that all my colleagues at Pagani, that are more than 80, express their mastery, their passion, their love trough their hands, that follows each part, each design, and each object. This is what I intend for making automobiles.
How has an automobile to be different from another one?
We can say that a brand has to maintain its character, and it has to be that way. If we see a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, an Aston Martin or a Jaguar, they all have their characteristics, their philosophy which were imposed at the beginning by the manufacturer: Ferrari gave the input to His engineers on how he wanted his cars, and so a legend was born these wonderful cars; same thing for Lamborghini, who had his own idea on how his cars were: so I think that a very important strong point we have here in Italy, talking about supercars, is that in a 20km range we have all best manufacturers in the World, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati, and Us, and we are four makers that, us being the smallest, add value not just to the area of Modena, but to everyone of us, as ambassadors of Modena in the World.
According to You, with the spread of mass produced motorcars, had we experienced a loss of the product's identity?
We can point that out if we have a glance at a Quattroruote catalog of cars being currently produced, and we compare it with a 20-30 year old one, we will notice that the latter will be shorter: it is clear that today we have an enormous productivity of automobiles, which is a highly consumed product, with a very short average car lifespan; if we previously had a new S-Class model every 10 years, we now have one every 5. I am now talking about high-level vehicles, maybe with day-to-day cars happens more often.
Trying to mass produce automobiles that will sell in very high quantities all across the globe, has certainly made many of these cars lose their identity. Today is more difficult to recognize a Kia from a Hyundai or Toyota or Mercedes, and we have to look at the front grille to see the symbol they have to differentiate them, since they are all similar.
What kind of connection has an Automotive brand and the territory in which it is produced? Do you think that this relationship is still valid?
If we are talking about supercars, we sure can say that there is a tie with the territory: it is highly improbable that Ferrari, for instance, which is synonymous with Maranello, Modena, and Italy, could one day be produced in China, and this is can be applied also to our cars and Lamborghini. Regarding other automobiles, I believe that this tie is becoming a bit lost: from the moment in which part of the production of Mercedes or BMW is sold 20% within the Country in which they are manufactured, while the rest is destined for exportation, it is only a matter of time that makers will move production lines elsewhere: a good example is the R-Class Mercedes that is built in the United States and not in Germany. We can also mention other examples, like Japanese cars, of which the majority is not built in Japan. Aside from supercars, I do not see strong ties with the territory.
Which economic, R&D and sales challenges must a Company like Pagani take?
This is a very delicate point and we have to be very careful. We concentrate a lot of energy in order to produce a car that has to be homologated and be able to be street legal worldwide, as our customers live in every corner of the globe. This means designing a car that must be able to be legally retained within all laws, from security to pollution. This poses a major strain on the designing phase: think about the complexity of the American laws for homologation. This becomes increasingly difficult, and maybe I magnify it by 1000 or 2000, but compared to a regular mass produced car we have to be able to keep the costs low in order to produce in very low volumes. This becomes easier if we have a very dynamic factory and the decisions are taken quickly and in the right way. I believe that designing a car is the most important step, because having a good overall project, i.e. a car that is born already to be homologated, that is not difficult to build with either left or right hand drive: if all these issues are quickly dealt with, the homologation will be much easier to obtain. So you may not proceed by trying, but by organizing wisely the base design, which is by definition more complex and sophisticated, but represents a great advantage in the homologation phase.
The same thing can be applied to the R&D phase. If there was already a very accurate design, it is obvious that the development phase will be much easier. All this takes its toll on a Company like ours: just think that for the Huayra we made six prototypes, plus others for the crash tests, making more than 800.000 Km in testing session between us, AMG, Bosh, Xtrac and Pirelli, with the cars that went to different suppliers to complete the development. All this work was done in a six years time before putting the car into production, and has its own weight on a small Company like ours.
What is the future for Pagani? Which direction is Your Company taking?
Our idea is to maintain low production volumes. We are now building a new facility that is four-five times bigger than this one, very modern and with the aim to reach 50 units per year, for a demand that is three times as much as that. So, why building a stable capable of doubling the production? Because we want to strengthen the R&D sector, i.e. making even more in-house tests in a high tech facility, with extremely high standards of technology and working environment for our workers; a very stimulating factory for the people inside it.
Just like the Ferrari Factory then.
Even more than that. The product we make is an object the customer wants to see being assembled, so everything has to let he or she see the car on the various building steps, and not just an assembly line. Ferrari today produces 7000 cars per year, so in that conditions it would be impossible to meet the customers as we do, considered the high level of personalization that our product has.
Which will be the development of the Huayra? Will it be similar to the Zonda, which had a lot of different models, and all wonderful?
We have not made many models of the Zonda. Bugatti has done plenty with the Veyron, which was produced in 50 different models. We made our first, the C12, than the S7.0 and S7.3, the "F" and further small production series like the Tricolore, the Cinque and the 760RS, all with low production volumes. The Zonda is a model we put into production in 1999 and is still being made: so the starting base is the same for all variants we made.
The Huayra is a car that has to live more than 10 years, because it is an object we have given the technology to go as far as 2021. Now we will produce 125 cupè, like the present one, and than the Roadster version, like we did with the Zonda.
So there will be variants of the production Huayra.
There will be the Roadster followed by some further variants. You have to imagine that we are tailoring a suit, so if a customer asks for a specific detail, we have to make it. We still have ten Zondas to build, all different from each other, just because our customers want a Zonda, and so is for those who ask for unique Huayras. This is our philosophy, tailoring a bespoke object for the commissioner.
Zonda R and Revolucion. What was the challenge to improve an already excellent car? With this I am referring to the record lap of the Nurburgring.
We can say that the Zonda R is a car designed with great freedom. It is not a car that follows any racing specification and it is not street legal. We wanted to make an car without compromises, even on the costs, it did not matter how much it costed, and we used only the best materials, the best technology and the best aerodynamics, for what we can do on a car that will be driven by a gentleman driver and not Shumacher, so it has to be extremely simple to drive, it must not intimidate and allows us to make a great technical validation work. For example a suspension, a component that is being tested on a Zonda R with 1500kg of downforce, lateral G forces that are two and a half time more the ones we find on a regular production car, with stickier tires, are being put to the test of high forces, even more that a Huayra. So, that suspension, once finished testing will be the one we will use on the regular production vehicle. For us, a car like this a "school", a laboratory where all these tests are made. Why making a car like the revolucion? Because we wanted to do push further with the technique to look for lighter and stronger components, also with different materials. After we have validated all components and the nuts and bolts on the R and Revolucion, we can install them on a regular production Huayra. This is the aim in making those cars.
How many Revolucion will be made? What is the typical customer of these cars?
The Zonda R project consists of 15 machines plus a prototype. 10 of them will be the regular R version , the one that made the record de Nurburgring ( German track used for racing and testing, ed), and the remaining 5 will be the R Revolucion , which is 12 seconds faster than the R on the same track. You have to understand that if the Revolucion is performing more than the R is because there is much more technology to make it faster . We will be making only five of them. Who is the customer that buys this kind of cars? There are two kinds of customers: one is the collector, which buys the car and does not use it. This represents 70 % of those who bought a car like this as an object of art, a painting, as people who never had cars and who bought a Zonda R to have it in his living room. Then there is the sort of customer who likes to run on the track , they are usually very busy people, and rent the track for private sessions without any other cars, because they want to lap the alone. We have a team that follows the cars when they go on the track, or also our dealers, for example in Hong Kong, where there is a team that accompanies the customer when he decides to go on the track. Usually the majority of customers of the Huayra and the Zonda, are people with a wide profile , who have worked hard.
There was a car (or more) that always captured and inspired You?
Absolutely. First of all, I am in love with the automobile, I have a great passion for it. So, as a young child I was attracted by the design of many cars. The Carabo of Bertone has inspired me a lot, then the Lamborghini Miura, the Jaguar E-type roadster, the Mercedes 196 that was raced by Fangio, some Ferraris, Maseratis, always had a passion for them, Porsche, I love them, I am a keen admirer of the 917 that won Le Mans and Monza, I love the Porsche Carrera GT, which I own; the Ford GT, that I have. I love cars and I've always liked them: I cannot wait to see new models coming out to be amazed by them and to buy the scale model.
If it is not too much indiscreet, what cars compose Your collection?
In my collection there is a Zonda for almost every version we made, a '63 Jaguar E-type, a Ford GT Gulf Limited Edition and a Porsche Carrera GT. This here in Italy. In Argentina I have a collection of vintage American cars, from Model T and A Ford, to Chevrolets, I have about twenty in total, just because they were the cars I saw as a child and it is a collection I made prior to my arrival in Italy. It is not an expensive collection, but it represents what I liked and what was on the streets as I was a young boy.
You`re doing a bloody good Job, go on
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