Pagani has quietly built an extreme track beast, sold all five of the planned units of the limited edition, and is now telling us about it. About a car that you, me or the Sultan can’t buy. Ladies and gents, the five million euros a piece Pagani Imola.
Named after the racetrack on which Pagani says the car was modelled and fine-tuned, the Imola is a roadgoing hypercar “with a wholly racing temperament that embodies the maximum expression of Pagani’s track technology.” The Imola has gone through the severest on-track validation test ever applied to a Pagani, the company says, such as over 16,000 km track miles at racing speed, equivalent to about three times the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
This “vehicle-laboratory” uses the active aerodynamics system introduced by the Huayra, the first road car ever to be equipped with the tech. Each of the four mobile winglets behaves according to the driving circumstances, and even when braking, by generating an aerodynamic braking action.
Looks a bit over? Horacio concurs. “We can’t say that it’s an elegant car. We wanted an efficient vehicle, and just as you’d expect if you were looking at an F1 single-seater, this led us to design a car with additional aerodynamic features. So, although on the one hand these details may detract from the lines and overall aesthetics of the vehicle, on the other, they also allow to improve lap time, ease of driving and especially safety,” founder and chief designer Horacio Pagani said.
The suspension geometry (all-round independent double wishbones, helical springs, electronically controlled absorbers) has been newly designed to transfer the power and 1,100 Nm torque to the ground, reduce the dive effect and sway when braking. With this, the driver can take a corner “by braking at the last thousandth of a second,” it’s claimed.
“Since we could test drive on track (Imola, obviously) in different temperature and track surface conditions, we were able to try out new solutions, which we often took to the extreme so as to work out their behaviour. For instance, fitting semi-slick tyres allowed us to subject different parts of the car to stress that far exceeded – with respect to the suspensions and lateral forces – the stress sustained when road tyres are used,” the San Cesario sul Panaro carmaker said.
Pagani has played around with advanced composite materials. The new formula of the Carbo-Titanium HP62 G2 and Carbo-Triax HP62, developed for the central monocoque of the Imola and Roadster BC, was created to reduce weight while increasing torsional and bending stiffness.
Weight-saving goes to the next level with the introduction of Acquarello Light, a new bespoke painting system that cuts five kg while maintaining colour richness, depth and shine. This new painting tech will be available on future Pagani models.
Besides the extensive use of alloys such as those of aluminium, titanium and chrome-molybdenum steel, the Imola uses more than 770 forged or CNC-machined components featuring the newly developed texture-look finish specifically applied to aluminium alloy parts. This beast weighs just 1,246 kg!
Powered by a 6.0 litre V12 engine by AMG, 827 hp and 1,100 Nm is channeled to the rear axle via an Xtrac seven-speed transverse AMT with electro-mechanical differential. The braking system – Brembo carbon-ceramic discs, 398 mm six-pot front, 380 mm four-pot rear – has been optimised for better cooling. The bespoke Pirelli Trofeo R rubber provides great track performance but would also be “communicative and easy to drive,” Pagani says.
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This Pagani is as rara as a pregnant unicorn with mostache.
Still not as rare compared to a Perodua car that actually does 20km/l.
no new breakthrough in design since the first zonda
all their cars look similar