Horacio Pagani, a man who realized "the dream"

Horacio Pagani has had a surprising life. His passion for cars, speed and design emerged very early and, at the age of 12, he amazed everyone with models of supercars carved from wood or modelled in clay.

He made his debut into the world of racing cars when he was 20, designing an F.3 that competed in Argentina under the colours of the official Renault team. Then came an enormous number of industrial design projects in which he had an accelerated apprenticeship, combining a mixture of creativity and a maniacal search for perfection.

He met Juan Manuel Fangio, his childhood hero, who became the right person to introduce him to Modena, the home of legends like Ferrari and Lamborghini. And the miracle took place at Lamborghini. 

It was engineer Alfieri who provided the young Horacio with the space to express his imagination and manual dexterity.

He started off as a third level mechanic in the bodywork department but was rapidly promoted to manager of the new composite material department. He took part in all the important projects of those years: the LMA Jeep, the restyling of the Jalpa, the design of the Countach Evoluzione (the first car in the world with a one hundred per cent carbon chassis), the Golf Caddy and the 4 valve Countach.

In 1988, he set up Pagani Composite Research which carried out various projects, including the restyling of the Countach Anniversary, for which the company also supplied the final details in composite materials.

At the height of this collaboration, Pagani worked with the team that designed the Diablo, the Lamborghini P140, the L30 and the Diablo Anniversary.

The difficult economic climate created in 1992 by the events linked to the Gulf War did not discourage Pagani from producing his own supercar.

The final car was named  "Zonda C12".

In fact, says Pagani, he would have called his GT car Fangio instead of Zonda (a wind of the pampas) had the great man lived long enough to see it, but he did not want to trade on the Fangio name without direct approval, a nice reticence not everyone would have observed.

After Alejandro DeTomaso, Horacio Pagani is the second, from Argentina, who build his personal dream in Modena.

We are very proud to have Mr.Horacio and Pagani Automobili in San Cesario village and we are waiting for the new creature after Zonda C12.

Thanks to Mr. Horacio Pagani.