Happy Birthday, Horacio Pagani!

Today, dear CTzens, is a very important day.
Because on this exact day, 63 years ago, a man named Horacio Pagani was born.

Born in 1955 in Argentina, Horacio had a passion for cars since he was a young boy, in particular he loved exotic supercars such as the Lamborghini Countach, Ferrari F40, DeTomaso Pantera, etc…, and his dream was to one day make his own supercar in Modena, Italy.
His career started around the age of 12, when he started building small car models with his own hands. Horacio’s strong will and determination allowed him to open a small shop where, by working on actual cars, he gained a lot of valuable craftmanship experience.
Not long afterwards, at the age of just 20, Horacio managed to build his own Formula 3 racecar, which raced in Argentina with the colors of the Renault team.

Thanks to that F3 racer, Horacio was noticed by none other less than legendary F1 driver Juan Manuel Fangio, who sent various letters of recommendation to manufacturers such as Ferrari, Lamborghini and Alfa Romeo.

As a result, Horacio started working for Automobili Lamborghini in 1983, where he played an important role in the creation of the Countach’s latest versions and the LM002 SUV, and later specialized in the use of composite materials and the processing of carbon fiber, and to do so he rented a shed and bought the necessary equipment thanks to a loan.
In 1991 he founded Modena Design in San Cesario sul Panaro, which which continues to make carbon fiber composites for Formula One cars and clients like Daimler, Ferrari and Aprilia. A year later, in 1992, he founded Pagani Automobili. He was not in Modena, as he had imagined as a boy, but he had managed to set up his atelier only twenty kilometers to the east.
For the following 7 years, Horacio developed his first true supercar, called the “Fangio F1” in honour of the man who helped him the most during his career.
When looking for an engine that could develop enough power to make the “Fangio” a true supercar, Fangio’s recommendation proved extremely valuable, and he found it in Mercedes-AMG, which made it possible for him to start production of his car.

Following Fangio’s death in 1995, and fearing his car wouldn’t have been worthy of such a name, Horacio decided to change the car’s name and a month before the car’s debut, after talking with his old friends from Argentina, he decided to call it the “Zonda“, in reference to an Argentinian air current as well as an Argentinian racetrack.
The Zonda debuted at the 1999 Geneva Motor Show, and took the world by storm. It was beautiful, it was fast, it was the realization of Horacio’s dream of building his own supercar.
The press was so impressed by the Zonda, that the term “supercar” was deemed insufficient to describe it. For that reason, the term “hypercar” was coined.
Development of the Zonda continued for the following years, and saw the birth of versions such as the C12, C12 S, F, Cinque and many others.
Over the years, Pagani grew as a car maker, but Horacio feared that the competition was in danger of causing the Zonda to age prematurely, and for that reason the development of an entirely new car begun in 2003.

Following a 8 years long development, the Pagani Huayra debuted at the 2011 Geneva Motor Show.
The car was inspired by the wind, and for that very reason the body was designed to be as aerodynamical as possible, and features active aerodynamics. The car’s name was inspired by Huayra-tata, a Quechua wind god.
The Huayra was acclaimed by critics and was named the Hypercar of the Year 2012 by Top Gear.
It is powered by a hand-built 6.0-litre twin turbo engine built by Mercedes’s AMG division, capable of developing over 720 bhp.
Just like its predecessor, the Huayra also saw a long line of special versions over the years, such as the Huayra BC and, more recently, the Roadster, as well as many custom made one-offs.

That was the story of how Horacio Pagani turned his ambitious childhood dream into a reality and became one of the most famous car makers of today.

He is the living proof that, sometimes, all you need to make your dreams come true is determination and a burning passion.

If you’re reading this, Horacio, i want to say Thank You for what you’ve done in all these years, for making some of the world’s best hypercars, but most importantly, i want to say Congratulations for acheiving your dream, you’re beign an inspiration for all of us. Thank You and Happy Birthday, Horacio!

-LamboV10