The Pagani Huayra Roadster Best 2024

The Pagani Huayra Roadster would still drop jaws and stop traffic if it had the engine from a VW Polo, but thanks to a 6.0-litre twin-turbo V12 from AMG serving up 753bhp (23bhp more than the standard Huayra Coupe, and a few more horses than even the extreme Huayra BC) it will liquefy your brain with mind-pulverising acceleration. Do not make the mistake of thinking this is just an opulent Fabergé egg with the top missing. It’s a properly developed and terrifyingly capable hypercar. One of the fastest roofless cars on Earth.

The pagani Huayra roadster, to refresh your memory, is Pagani’s Difficult Second Album. It’s the successor to the iconic Zonda, and it’s all about ‘more’: more power, more torque, more opulence. And more money.

The engine is smaller and twin turbocharged, for greater torque. The gearbox tasked with coping is an auto this time – but an old-school automated manual, which prioritises lightness over shift speeds.

The tub is made of carbo-titanium, which splices carbon weave with strands of titanium for greater stiffness and strength with a negligible weight penalty. And there are four pop-up aero flaps on the bodywork which leap into the airstream as you brake and turn to help push the car’s all-carbon form into the road. F1 racing designers dream of gadgets like that.

You’d think the pagani Huayra Roadster is simply 2012’s Huayra with the roof cut off, and the gullwing doors binned. But this being the Pagani huayra roadster, there are way more detail changes afoot than simply taking a set of secateurs to the top bit.

For a kick-off, the engineers have reinvented their reinvented carbon fibre. The carbo-titanium weave is stronger now, so the tub is stiffer than the coupe’s and lighter. Normally a cabrio has to get heavier than the coupe, either due to extra strengthening beams, and any roof gubbins.

Because the pagani Huayra roadster’s titanium-infused tub is stronger than the material Pagani’s employed previously, and because the roof is a manually extractable slither of carbon and glass, the pagani Huayra Roadster weighs just 1,280kg dry. Compared to the claimed dry weight of the hard-top Huayra – 1,350kg – that’s a massive saving of 70kg.Because it’s lighter, the inboard, racecar-like suspension has been retuned. The rear bodywork is all new, and more curvaceous now. More outrageously art-deco. The front bumper looks angrier. There are new, lightweight forged wheels. It’s a proper reworking this, as you’d hope. It is (gulp) a £2.3million piece of kit, after all.

What a concoction: brutal power and speed spiced with exquisite artistic flair. But it’s a very different machine to a Zonda

Why wouldn’t you have the Roadster? Unless you’re a gullwing door fetishist, the topless Roadster loses nothing in pace or performance – in fact, it’s faster still – and exposes you to more of that manic engine’s hissing, seething demeanour. It’s always an event to drive the Huayra – just to sit in it, even – but it’s not as intimidating nor as unforgiving as a Zonda when you lean on it.

The pagani Huayra roadster is entering the twilight of its life, but despite its objective flaws it remains true hypercar royalty, and a glinting example of what can be done with an absolutely zero-compromise attitude.The Huayra’s sole trim is the pagani huayra roadster, a convertible with enough fire and flash to stir the hearts of the brand’s long time devotees. The initials in this trim’s moniker are a tribute to the late Benny Caiola, a car collector who holds the distinction of being Pagani’s very first customer. Specially designed Pirelli P Zero Trofeo R tires wrap 20-inch aluminum-alloy wheels in front and 21-inch rims in the rear.

The pagani Huayra roadster BC comes standard with lower-body aero elements and a massive wing, and Pagani claims these features work hand in hand to produce a maximum of 1102 pounds of downforce at 174 mph. All models are equipped with a titanium exhaust that directs exhaust gases to the functional diffuser, much like the blown diffusers of Formula 1.Imagine if the Louvre handed over the Mona Lisa for a day. Your own private masterpiece. Take it home, hold it up to your nose for a close look, hang it on your wall. Want to run your fingers over the brushstrokes? Go ahead, no one is looking.

For an auto enthusiast,the Pagani Huayra Roadster seeing a $4.0 million in the wild is akin to laying eyes on the Mona Lisa. Getting handed the Huayra-shaped key and testing one is like tucking La Gioconda under your arm and making for the exit. A 3051-pound tribute to the carbon-fiber medium, the Roadster is as much a sculpture as it is a car. It’s the latest in the pagani Huayra Roadster line,

which dates to 2017. Only 40 of the targa-top-style BCs will ever exist, so the company is able to labor over each one for a while. Meticulously aligned carbon-fiber panels, titanium fasteners engraved with “Pagani,” leather straps that lock the front and rear clamshells in place—the creator’s marks are all over the thing.

There’s artistry in the build quality. Finding imperfection becomes a game. Hey, the carbon weave where the glovebox meets the dashboard is a little off. Oh, wait. It’s not fully closed. Click. Perfect. A steel-subframe latticework bolts to the back of the carbon-fiber passenger tub and supports the control-arm rear suspension, the pagani huayra roadster sourced 791-hp twin-turbo 6.0-liter V-12, and the seven-speed automated manual. In normal use, the engine is quieter than expected,

but if you’re leaning into the accelerator, there is an explosion of sound around 4000 rpm. At wide-open throttle, a merciless 95 decibels will ring your ears. Should you want loudness throughout the rev range, push the exhaust button by the shifter and a speaker behind the driver will amplify the noise to tinnitus-causing levels.Testing protocol requires shutting off power-sapping features such as air conditioning, even when it’s 97 degrees outside—in the shade. In the desert sun,

the pagani Huayra roadster cabin feels like an oven. While we melt like chocolate chips, the car never flinches during 23 acceleration runs. Water and oil temps are as stable as they’d be in an Accord. When we did turn on the A/C, we learned that it doesn’t blow very cold when faced with the Mojave furnace, should you be considering a Huayra for your fleet in Dubai.

Eventually, we get the throttle feathering just right, and the rear tires connect, mostly. But even if you do manage to harness the thrust into forward progress, first gear finds the 6500-rpm redline just below 60 mph. The old-school single-clutch transmission takes its time with that shift, adding precious tenths to the 60-mph time, coming in at 3.3 seconds. That number isn’t so impressive in a two-second world, but the triple-digit acceleration makes you sweat even more than the triple-digit heat.

Pirelli’s most exotic and grippy street-legal tires put your inner ear to the test. Tasked with keeping the Huayra on the black, the Trofeo Rs were developed for Pagani and give the pagani Huayra roadster so much grip that the driver needs a moment to adjust. On the skidpad, we measured 1.15 g’s. Reactions to steering inputs are instant but never touchy. A relatively long wheelbase attenuates any nervousness, and the low curb weight allows the Pirellis to quickly recover when you push past their lofty limits. Flaps between the headlights raise and lower to balance the aerodynamics and push the nose down, helping stabilize it.

As confidence builds, gentle on-throttle slides of the tail are possible without fear of going down in history as the guy who scratched the Mona Lisa of cars. Keeping you on the right side of infamy are the carbon-ceramic rotors. Braking distances are in the realm of those of the best cars we’ve ever tested. Erasing 70 mph takes only 139 feet, and we scrub 100 mph in 271 feet. Even after hauling the BC down from 180 mph, the brakes never showed signs of stress.

At high speeds, the wing moves itself against the airflow under braking and acts as both a parachute to slow the car and a stabilizer to keep the load transfer balanced and the car steady.

On the road, the pushrod-actuated coil springs and electronically controlled dampers provide a more civil ride than we expected from a car that looks like it should require Nomex. From the driver’s seat, the curved windshield, visible fenders, and exposed carbon fiber certainly set the race-car mood. Tall fender-mounted rear view mirrors are set far enough out for you to see what’s behind the car, which is good because the optional roof duct that directs air over the engine blinds the inside rearview mirror.

Interior design borrows from the retrofuturist school, appearing to have been done by Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. The analog gauges could have come from a Victorian train, and the leather grab handles to close the feathery doors add to the vintage feel. A wooden shift knob—a hat tip to the pagani huayra roadster Horacio Pagani’s favorite car—tops the shift mechanism’s exposed skeleton. We couldn’t find interior or exterior parts shared with a common car, a surprise from a small-batch carmaker.

Perhaps the best measure of art is what sort of response it creates. Even as a static sculpture, the Huayra stirs something warm and deep inside that makes you fully conscious of your knees—that you’re bipedal and inherently unstable. Drive one and you’re filled with both anxiety and the joy of a V-12 completely unstressed by the car around it. Sound and g-forces flood the nervous system.

Yet, despite how hard the pagani Huayra roadster strives for perfection, like any construct of man, it is imperfect. It’s expensive and a gearbox short, but that’s like worrying about Mona Lisa’s lack of eyebrows. Returning the car is a relief. As a work of art, it will probably outlive us all.

What is the pagani huayra roadster?

Pagani debuted the pagani Huayra roadster in February 2011 as a successor to the game changing Zonda first. The two largest differences? removal of a manual; insert 2 turbochargers into AMG-penned V-12 located behind the driver overtanked. Power increased, maybe at the expense of some driver involvement. (I’ll speak from personal experience here having driven both a Zonda and Huayra on the same day, I tend to disagree with the latter. And then there was the pagani Huayra roadster BC,

the Pagani huayra roadster says was named in honour of its original customer Benny Caiola who sadly passed away. Power went up from 730 hp and 738 lb-ft of torque to 791 hp/775 lb-tf, and weight got down. After that came the Huayra Roadster, which you guessed it’s open top version of the regular Huayra.It generated controversy because removing the roof meant changing the doors from gullwing to standard, an ignoble fate the Aston Martin Valkyrie Spyder managed to avoid.

The Pagani Huayra Roadster (alternatively known as the Pagani Huayra roadster or just RBC) is simply a roof-off version of the “regular” BC then, right? If only it were that easy. The engine is the latest, newest, and most powerful version of AMG’s legendary 6.0-liter twin-turbo V-12 that’s still, almost stubbornly, paired with a seven-speed Xtrac automated manual single-clutch transmission.

This engine is an actual preview of what will power the Huayra’s replacement, the upcoming and soon to be renamed Pagani C10. AMG will continue producing this beast of an engine through 2025, which should give Horacio Pagani and sons plenty of time to stock up. Pagani doesn’t need all that many V-12s, as the tiny brand builds just 45 cars per year; 500 M158 V-12s would be more than a decade’s output. And Pagani capped the pagani Huayra Roadster production at 40 units—twice as many as the 20 BCs built—and each one sold before the RBC was announced officially.

Beyond the engine, quite a bit separates the RBC from the plain old BC. The entire vehicle is built from a new type of carbotanium (Pagani-speak for carbon fiber woven together with titanium), which the company says is about 20 percent stiffer and nearly five times as expensive as typical carbon fiber.

The car’s body is adjusted slightly for RBC duty, with a new front fascia, massive wing, and more aggressive rear diffuser. Obviously, you lose some downforce when you lose your roof. Pagani says some of the new aero tweaks add up to 1,100 pounds of total downforce at 175 mph. The suspension’s active dampers are reprogrammed for RBC duty, and there’s an all-new titanium exhaust.

Engine, Transmission, and Performance

In the middle of the car lives a twin-turbocharged V12 (ship from Mercedes-AMG, generates 791 hp/775 lb-ft) A seven-speed single-clutch automatic sends all of the rear-wheel-spin. The lightest option here is the Pagani huayra roadster’s single-clutch setup, it’s less than a dual-clutch transmission. A very good weight figure for the Huayra BC sits around two hundred and seventy pounds short. Given the power of the engine we weren’t surprised that it would n 3.3 at our test track and hit 60 mph. Pagani said the roadster can continuously accelerate laterally at around 1.9g cornered, but can peak when necessary for 2.2 g’s. A set of Brembo Carbon-Ceramic brakes will be there lower gears to stop this hypercar before it stops you.

Interior, Comfort, and Cargo

Able to seat up to two passengers, the pagani Huayra roadster’s interior has a look that’s distinctly artisanal. The attention to detail is extraordinary, and you get the sense that every aspect of the cabin’s design was lavished with care. A gorgeous gear selector sits between the driver and front passenger. This simple component bears elegant lines and handsome exposed-metal detailing. Sitting above the occupants is a removable carbon-fiber roof with a glass insert. Supple leather is used lavishly, and wood accents help give the cabin a warm and inviting ambience. The front seats have graphic lines, and their curves mimic the bold forms of the car’s sheet metal. A four-point seatbelt keeps you strapped in tight during hard turns.