The Zonda has been in production for nearly 12 years, just over 140 cars have been built covering a distint five car range. These are the C12, the S, the F, the Cinque and the R. All the various specials we have seen in recent years are no more than parts bin cars. By that i mean a customer will come in and ask Pagani to build them a car using the best bits from the previous models. Cars like the Absolute for example is just an rebuilt F with Cinque upgrades. And dont forget the specials only appeared after the run of 50 F's was completed and the 10 Cinque's built. Pagani was only responding to demand from customers who were not able to secure a Cinque that were all pre-sold

The various Veyron specials in most instances are no more than a fancy paint job and interiour. The car is vitually the same

 

Ok so lets try to put this in pictures instead of words:

This is where Ksegg started with the CC-8S :



And this is the latest Agera R:


Correct me if im wrong, but that is 12 years of the basic same car (chassi wise).

Now for Pagani

Started here:



Today:


So i guess what they guys are trying to point out to you DD, is not how many variations of a single car each company made.
But the fact that the so called new car (AGERA) is heavily based on the previous segg's.

But all that does not matter, there are still no facts towards Pagani lacking in any area vs the competition.
Because they simple don't!

 

I don't buy that to be honest and you're basically saying that PR doesn't work when saying so. It's as if I would argue that shirt sponsors doesn't matter because if you would ask someone who doesn't watch [insert team] they wouldn't even know what's printed on their shirts. You know as well as I do that it's about brand perception and saturation.

"Relatively minor" is what I wrote. Those millions are a drop in the ocean compared to what they otherwise would have paid to raise brand perception.

Most manufacturers aren't custom builders?

The 7-speed was introduced with the Agera so don't see how it's any different from Pagani introducing it in the Huayra? The triplex was introduced with the Agera R. The chrono cluster and the infotainment system I would agree are glaring differences I would have a problem with, but they've all been introduced with a new production year so it's absolutely fair play.

You pay to play? On one hand you argue that Pagani isn't a poor man's hypercar and in fact is a more expensive car than Bugatti and Koenigsegg, and on the other you argue the upkeep for both these cars are too high? Would you at least agree that one argument cancels out the other and pick one?

I'm sure your friends are thrilled by how you present the company to the public and sign your recommendations against buying the car using their name? I assume you'll be spending cristmas with the Koenigsegg family?

Fancy paint job? Not new world records and raising the bar on performance? Wouldn't those be obvious double standards?

 

Personally I think the Huayra lacks in two things. Name and engine. The name is just awful
About the engine, it's got an old and heavy low revving turbo V12 from AMG. An engine AMG has replaced a long time ago in their own models. Sure AMG has tweaked it and made it look different from the outside but for me a big part of the Zonda's appeal got lost with the generation shift. There's no denying that turbo engines lack the responsivness and engine note from natural aspirated engines.
That's mainly whay the Huayra does nothing for me. However, that's just my personal opinion

 

Zonda 760 RS for me over all of these.

 

The Agera R without question. It accelerates faster, IMO looks better, has tons of ground breaking technology, it's light, honestly I like everything about the Agera R over the Huayra and the SS. Also the Zonda Cinque > Huayra.

 

That is a mistake about the engine.
The old AMG unit is a SOHC, and this is a new engine built for pagani is DOHC, to my knowledge you can't just upgrade it like that it needs to be rebuilt.
Now if the engine is not to your taste that's different, but it sure as hell ain't a old engine off the AMG shelves.The 7.3 V12 in the Zonda was more that than the TT V12 in Huayra.

PS
I to prefer the NA V12 from the Zonda, but i understand paganis vision for the huayra, and the turbo engine suits that vision better.

 

It's not a mistake. I'm gonna quote my friend D55L from a while back when we first learned about which engine Pagani was gonna use for the Huayra.

If you had been around a little longer on this forum you would know he is a very knowledgeable guy and always has the inside scoops on everything. Before the release of the Huayra there was a thread where we hade many discussions about Pagani's choice of engine and to sum up most of us were very dissapointed.

It's a reworked version of the engine from the SL 65 Black Series. Is the Black Series a race car? No, just as little as any other AMG converted Benz. It redlined under 6k rpm... An engine like the M275 6 l V12 bi-turbo is built for an Autobahn racer, not a hypercar like a Pagani. Sure it's about personal taste but an ultra exotic like a Pagani shouldn't sound like a vacuum cleaner which just sucked up a frog.

About Pagani trying to justify its choice of engine with some kind of vision, it makes about as much sense as Lambo's awkward explanation why the Aventador doesn't have a dct. "Emotion and analogue feel" Every single car journalist has critizised the Aventador's gear box since it just isn't up to modern standards. Same thing for the Huayra engine...

 

that is a truly supercar engine, light, powerfull, highest nominal power, highest nominal torque... nice



Engine in detail Koenigsegg Agera R by Christian von Koenigsegg - YouTube

 

Re PR, The Veyron project was forced through by Ferdinand as a way of allowing his engineers free rein to develop the most extreme car possible, it was not backed by the rest of the VW board as they saw no benefit to the rest of the company. Any new technologies that resulted from the Veyron were also seen of little use as they would have been too expensive to implement on any other car in the VW group.

The desire to resurrect the Bugatti brand was only ever going to be possible if VW took it on board that it would always be a loss making enterprise. Only the depth of VW pockets allowed it to happen.

The PR gained would only really benefit Bugatti as by producing the fastest car in the world they would do nothing but produce headlines around the world.

If you can show me anywhere where VW has used the Veyron to promote VW or any of its other brands then I will be happy to stand down on this point.

And this also points to your raising brand awareness quote. Bugatti promotes itself, not VW. As a Bugatti client you do not want to be reminded that the same company can also sell you a low rent diesel Golf. I say again the Veyron; great car that it is was purely a halo vanity project that no other company would have ever considered.

Could you please point to where I said the up keep of these car were too high? A hyper car by its very nature is a very expensive product, both to buy and too maintain, but the Veyron far outstrips the Pagani and the Koenigsegg when it comes to running costs. Which is why it is now proving to be an almost unworkable second hand prospect.

Your poor man’s tag makes no sense in the context of this discussion

To add a little balance to this discussion I have also critersized Pagani's pricing policy on it later cars, points that I actually made to the Pagani's people face to face. I could not work out how you could buy a Zonda F in 2007/2008 from the factory for £800k but be asked for over £1.3 million for a slightly revised car two year later. I now know the answer but will not bore you with it now.

As to how my friends react to my presentation of the Koenigsegg company, funny but they don’t seem to have a problem with it. I have the greatest respect for the company and what they have done where most have failed. It’s just my personnel opinion being exchanged on the internet. I suspect it is unlikely to have any effect on their bottom line. The world would be a very boring place if we all agreed.

If it was not for the SSC stealing the Veyron’s top speed honours Bugatti would never have built the SS, they had no need too. In the great scheme of things making the Veyron go even faster was not a huge engineering undertaking, that’s the joy of Turbo's for you. As too their other specials, like most of the Zonda specials they were very simple variations on the original theme