Behind the Scenes at Pagani - DRIVEN

INTERVIEWER: Welcome to a hidden gem of Italy, 15
minutes from Ferrari, 15 minutes from Lamborghini.
This is Pagani.
And inside, some of the most exotic super cars
you will ever find.
The attention to detail is like none other.
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[CAR ACCELERATING]
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INTERVIEWER: You walk in and you're greeted by the Huayra.
This car actually was one of the first cars built,
travelled around the world.
I saw this in Pebble Beach.
It's been to China.
And of course, you've got the Zonda R, which--
dear God.
And it's pretty interesting that anyone can really just
walk in here and look at these cars.
You won't find this car or that car side-by-side anywhere
else in the world at this very moment.
You look at this company and from the outside on the street
on this industrial road, you wouldn't think much of it.
But these cars, they're now becoming world recognized.
They've only built a couple dozen at this point, Zondas.
And Huayra, they're only producing probably about 250.
So it's very unique, special brands.

You come in and you're just engulfed by art and design.
It really is something so unique.
These are art pieces, not just cars.
Hand sketches and they're put on display as art pieces.
Which is so unique and you wouldn't really find that in a
lot of car companies, especially
none of the big ones.
You come closer over here and you start seeing, OK, this is
the history.
That bike actually, Mr. Pagani actually worked on when he was
15-years-old back in South America, Argentina.
And then you come here, his first models
as a kid, as a teenager.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

INTERVIEWER: He came from South America to Italy to
super car valley.
In the back door of the biggest brands, Ferrari,
Lamborghini.
And said, I'm going to do something better.
And behind this door you're going to see he did it.
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INTERVIEWER: Unlike Koenigsegg, which has their
monocoque chassis built in the UK and then shipped to Sweden,
here Pagani produces all the monocoque chassis, including
all the other parts.
Everything is produced here.
Everything is designed here.
And everything is fabricated here and assembled here.
You come back here and you find the molds.
That's the back of a Zonda that's being molded, the
carbon fiber.
It will go into the autoclave over there.
But here you see all the molds and just a few people that are
actually putting together these cars, the body work.
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[CAR ACCELERATING]
INTERVIEWER: It's actually two pieces, the roof and then the
subpart which is the tub.
And this material here, it's not carbon fiber.
I actually have a piece.
It's carbon fiber with a titanium weave in it.
It's the only production car right now that actually has a
carbon fiber titanium weaved monocoque.
And we actually have a shot that shows normal carbon fiber
next to this.
And you'll see the detail that this is some of the strongest
material you'll ever find in the planet.
And actually, it flexes a little bit more which actually
disburses the energy in the event of an impact.
And that's what this is made of, which is unreal.
So this is the second assembly point.
You've got the rear subframe with the motor in the center.
And then the forward half of the car with the suspension
components put together.
Now this engine's actually very special.
It's a 6 liter, V12 twin-turbo.
And it's built by AMG.
Now, that may not sound special, but
it's one of a kind.
It's the first time AMG has ever built a unique engine
for, I guess you call these guys a customer.

And mind you, they're only building 250 of those.
That's the contract amount.
So for this particular motor which has somewhere in the
range of 730, 750-horsepower, there's only going
to be 250 of those.
So the question may be why AMG?
Well, it's actually a very interesting story.
Pagani has a very close connection to Mercedes because
of one man, Fangio.
He was good friends with him before he died in '95.
I may be wrong about this, but Pagani and Fangio
met in South America.
And Mr. Pagani showed him his designs.
And Fangio was just blown away.
And Mercedes saw that connection and was actually
very happy to see the connection between the two.
The relationship built off of that.
And that's why Mercedes, AMG, provides these motors.
And very interesting fact, if you come here, of course
you'll see the new AMG badges.
But before AMG was bought by Mercedes, that's the original
logo of AMG.
And that's very cool to see it right there at
the center of all.
Now the motor is built by AMG.
But all these pieces here, these attention to detail,
it's all fabricated by Pagani in-house.
These suspension components all CNC'd.
It's all art.

You can always build a faster car.
But this is a work of art.
Every single detail, even these bolts are CNC'd and
laser etched with the Pagani logo.
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INTERVIEWER: So tell me the story again
about how you got involved.

In order to become the test driver you had to do
everything?
DAVIDE TESTI: Yes.
Before I can start working Pagani, he sent me off to the
Ferrari school.
And right then I speak with Mr. Pagani.
I say, Mr, Pagani, what I can do?
And I believe I want drive your car.
OK.
In time, step-by-step.
Before, you need to understand very well the
production of the car.
And this is, I can start in the production of the carbon
fiber department.
INTERVIEWER: OK.
DAVIDE TESTI: And after this I can learn the
assembly of the car.
And after three years, I can start driving the car with the
other test driver.
And after this, step-by-step, and now I am--
INTERVIEWER: And now you test drive all of them?
DAVIDE TESTI: Yeah.
It is good.
INTERVIEWER: It seems like a great job.
DAVIDE TESTI: Yeah.
I am happy.
[CAR ACCELERATING]
INTERVIEWER: What do you think defines a Pagani
when you drive it?
What does it feel like?
DAVIDE TESTI: The feeling is a light car.
And you have much problem but in [? second gear ?] it's
possible to understand very well what [INAUDIBLE]
drive.
Because the car gives some information to the driver.
It's possible to feel it with the steering.
And you understand exactly how your tires on the street
[INAUDIBLE].
And let's see it's a cool car, extremely cool car.
But very easy to drive.
This is one of the big components of this car.
[CAR ACCELERATING]
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

INTERVIEWER: Now these are the first customer cars.
This is actually a right-hand drive vehicle.
And so right now in this facility they actually can
only produce about 20 vehicles, Huayras and Zondas
over there.
But they're moving to a new facility at
the end of the year.
And they hope to boost production by
double to 40 a year.
And they need to because they've already
sold about 80 of these.
So they're already two years behind schedule, which is
incredible.
[CAR ACCELERATING]
INTERVIEWER: In here you'll find, well, if you look over
here, these are the molds for all the carbon fiber pieces.
Again, they produce all the carbon
fiber pieces here in-house.
So this is the rear mold of a Zonda.
I think the top roof of the Huayra up there.
You can see them cleaning, refining.
And to see pieces just strewn around is pretty incredible.
Back over here you actually see the houses.
Actually, come here.
You see where they store all the pieces that get made.
It's a little bit clustered, but what's very cool.
All the very detailed pieces are kind of put on display
even before they go on the car, everything.
Look at this.
I don't know what this is but it looks very, very expensive.
These Huayra badges are actually CNC'd all by
themselves from a solid block of aluminum.
What's very cool, come here.

So this is the gauge cluster for the Huayra.
And it's made out of titanium.
This piece alone with these clusters, it's about $8,000.
I feel like a kid in a candy store here.
I'm enthusiastic to be walking around here looking.
And it's very Italian.
Oh, don't worry.
Shoot whatever you want.
We always go into these places, is there anything we
can't shoot?
Ah, no.
That car right there.
That's a future Zonda that you don't know about.
But hey, we can film it.
So these are the autoclaves.
This is where the carbon fiber actually
gets squeezed together.
Think of it almost as like plywood.
When you look at plywood with the different sheets of glue
in between the wood, and they compress together.
The glue gets squeezed out.
Carbon fiber is a lot like that,
but they use an autoclave.
And that's where the chassis come out of.
The amount of carbon fiber in this shop is just surreal.
The carbon fiber titanium weave is about-- a square
meter costs about $300.
A square meter, $300 before it gets molded into
a Zonda or a Huayra.
This is chassis number 8, Huayra.
And you look at carbon fiber and you think, oh, it just
comes out of the mold.
It's ready to go.
But they actually have to refine it, sand it
down, polish it.
It takes a lot of work to get the tolerances that are
required out of every Pagani.
And sure enough, Mr. Pagani, you do see him walking around
here and checking the tolerances, making sure it's
up to his standards.
It's very, very incredible.
[CAR ACCELERATING]
INTERVIEWER: In order to make this an international car,
it's actually quite sad.
They have to built 11 for USDOT certification for crash
testing, 11 of these cars.
Yes, some of them can be crashed twice, from the rear,
from the front.
But 11 will be destroyed just to make them USD street legal.
And they have to do it.
They have to make that investment because this is
going to be a huge car for the US market.
They've already sold quite a few Zondas.
When then Zondas came out, most of them were just sold in
China and the Middle East because the crash standards
weren't up to par.
Even though they were safe, there are a lot of rules you
have to follow by.
And that money, that investment is surreal.
It's easy for a company like Toyota or BMW to make that
investment into a smart air bag.
It's like $4.5 million.
But these guys, $4.5 million is two cars.
There's over 4,000 parts that are designed
specifically for this car.
And it's designed here.
There are very few suppliers.
And for a company, when you think about the amount of
effort that goes into these cars, you think that there's a
huge investment behind the scenes.
When In fact 96% of this company is actually owned by
the Pagani family.
That says a lot.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

INTERVIEWER: This is actually the most interesting piece of
equipment in this entire building.
This is actually the tub for one of their test cars.
This monocoque has crashed, I believe it's seven times so
far for US homologation.
And from what I understand, it's been crashed so many
times that--
what happens is the monocoque is what really
needs to stay intact.
And they can build pieces off the end, the
front and the rear.
This is actually the rear assembly here.
It's exactly as they would buy it minus some interior pieces,
which don't affect safety.
But what's very interesting is that it's been
crashed seven times.
There's been no damage, minus one cracked windshield which
is very, very incredible.
You can just see how it's incredibly strong.
This is a Tricolore.
You actually see this in a film that was produced in
reference to the Italian Air Force.
And it's got this beautiful blue tint to the carbon.
It's absolutely, absolutely beautiful.
[SPEAKING FOREIGN LANGUAGE]

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