Every Pagani starts life as a code: C8 for the Zonda, C9 for the Huayra, C10 for the Utopia. According to the company, the C stands for Cristina, Horacio Pagani's wife.
- Country
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Italy - Active
- Since 1998
- Founded by
- Horacio Pagani
- Website
- Official website ↗
From a balsa wood workshop in Casilda to Modena
Every Pagani starts life as a code. The Zonda was C8, the Huayra C9, the Utopia C10. The letter never changes, and according to the company it stands for Cristina, who married Horacio Pagani when she was 19 and followed him to Italy.
Horacio Pagani was born in Casilda, Argentina, on 10 November 1955. As a boy he carved little model cars from balsa wood and devoured car magazines, which is how he learned about his hero, Juan Manuel Fangio. In 1974 he started studying industrial design at the National University of La Plata. Soon his one-man firm, Horacio Pagani Design, made its debut with a caravan prototype called the Alpine.
Carbon fibre and the charging bull
In Italy, Pagani went to work for Lamborghini, a period his company dates from 1983 to 1991. He believed in composite materials before almost anyone. Pagani says he even bought an autoclave with his own money, against Lamborghini’s wishes. In 1985 he and his team built the Countach Evoluzione, which the company describes as the very first car made entirely of composite materials.
Then the Gulf War hit the car industry and project after project stalled. Pagani decided it was time for a car that was 100 percent his. His firm Modena Design paid the bills by making composite parts for others, including Formula 1 and aerospace work, while the Zonda took shape. One day in 1992 he showed his colleague Maurizio Ferrari an empty plot of land. “This is where we’ll build the new factory and make the car,” he said. Pagani funded the project himself until 1998, the year Pagani Automobili was officially established.
An oval with a surname in it
Pagani has never published an official story behind its badge, so we’ll stick to what can be seen. The emblem is a silver oval with a touch of blue. Across the middle, PAGANI is spelled out in wide capital letters, and below it, in much smaller type, sit the words Automobili Modena. The name is simply the founder’s own.
The oval clearly means something to the man who drew the cars. Writing about the Huayra, Horacio Pagani explained that the team worked in “elliptical shapes reminding of our brand” at the front and the back. On that car an elliptical frame wraps around the four exhaust pipes, which Pagani calls a typical hallmark of the brand. Its website, meanwhile, uses nothing more than a clean capital P as its icon.
Some logo websites give exact years for different versions of the badge, including a simplified one. Pagani doesn’t publish a history of its emblem, so we’ve left those dates out.
Winds, tributes and a utopia
Pagani names its cars like a poet. The company says the Zonda encloses “the essence of an unmistakable wind”. The Huayra goes further: it takes its name from Huayra Tata, the god of the wind in Aymara legend, who commands the breezes and snowstorms of the Andean highlands.
Landmark Paganis, from Zonda to Utopia
- 1999: Zonda C12. Presented at the Geneva Motor Show, it was the first Pagani built at the San Cesario sul Panaro atelier. The engine was a Mercedes-Benz V12, because, Pagani says, Fangio wanted it to be a Mercedes.
- 2005: Zonda F. Pagani’s tribute to Juan Manuel Fangio.
- 2009: Zonda Cinque. Shown in Geneva and built in just five examples plus a prototype. According to Pagani, it was the first road car with a carbo-titanium central structure.
- 2011: Huayra. Project C9, first sketched out in 2003, with a twin-turbo V12 that Mercedes-AMG developed exclusively for Pagani.
- 2016: Huayra BC. Named after Benny Caiola, the very first Pagani customer and a close friend of Horacio.
- 2017: Huayra Roadster. Unveiled in Geneva, and the first roadster ever to be lighter than its coupe version, according to Pagani.
- 2022: Utopia. Project C10, premiered in Milan. It skipped hybrid power for a pure V12 and offered a manual gearbox, and its name goes back to Thomas More’s Utopia of 1516.
Pagani is a small atelier with big neighbours. When Horacio Pagani began imagining the Huayra in 2003, the hypercar world included the Bugatti Veyron and the Ferrari Enzo, and he decided the Zonda’s successor had to be totally different in form and technology. For more on how badges like this one are put together, see how car logos are designed.
Frequently asked questions
What does the Pagani logo mean?
Pagani hasn’t published an official meaning. The badge is a silver oval carrying the founder’s surname, with the words Automobili Modena below it. Horacio Pagani has said the elliptical shapes on the Huayra were meant to recall the brand.
Who founded Pagani?
Horacio Pagani, born in Casilda, Argentina, in 1955. He worked at Lamborghini before setting out on his own, and the company calls him its Founder and Chief Designer.
When was Pagani founded?
According to the company, Pagani Automobili was officially established in 1998. The work started earlier: in the 1990s Horacio Pagani’s firm Modena Design was already developing the Zonda, and the first car was shown in Geneva in 1999.
Where are Pagani cars made?
At the Pagani atelier in San Cesario sul Panaro, in the province of Modena, Italy. The Horacio Pagani Museo is on the same site.
Why are Pagani projects called C8, C9 and C10?
Every Horacio Pagani project gets a code made of the letter C and a number. According to Pagani, the C stands for Cristina, his wife. C8 was the Zonda, C9 the Huayra and C10 the Utopia.
Pagani, project by project
- Founded
- 1998
- Founder
- Horacio Pagani
- Country
- Italy
- Headquarters
- San Cesario sul Panaro, Italy
- Current emblem
- A silver oval with the PAGANI name and the words Automobili Modena
- Known for
- Hand-built carbon fibre hypercars such as the Zonda and Huayra
- Website
- Official website ↗
