2014 Pagani Zonda Revolución Spark - S3565 (resin)
Published 07/10/18
Horacio Pagani started working at Lamborghini n 1982, as manager of the manufacturer’s composites department. In 1988 he left Lamborghini and founded Pagani Composite Research. However, he still had a straight relation with Sant’Agata Bolognese, participating in many of the manufacturer’s projects. By the late 80’s he started to work on the design of his own car, and in 1992 he founded Pagani Automobili S.p.A., in San Cesario sul Panaro, near Modena, Italy. He needed an engine, so he made a deal with Mercedes-Benz to supply him with V12 engines. At last, during the 1999 Geneva Motor Show he unveiled the brand’s first car, the Zonda C12. The Zonda was a mid-engine street legal race car powered by a modified version of AMG’s 6 l V12 M120 engine. Only five of the C12 s were built, and one of them was used for crash testing.
After the first C12s, Pagani started producing the Zonda in a series format, with small improvements from one to the next, and visually all are very similar to one another. In total, Pagani produced about 35 series, plus quite a few “Special Editions”. Each car was almost a build-to-order affair, so it’s really hard to find two Zondas with the same configuration. In 2014 the final (in theory) Zonda series was ready, the Zonda Revolución.
The engine of the carbon fiber and titanium beast is based on Mercedes-Benz AMG’s M120. It’s a V12 (@60°) with 48 valves and DOHC displacing 5987 cm³ that produces 789 hp. Thus, to keep things manageable, some serious electronic controls are necessary. So you get a DRS system (down-force control system), state-of-the-art Bosch traction control and a nice ABS system to make the car’s 1070 kg stop. At a cost of $2.87 million (plus taxes) new, this was the fastest and lightest of all the Zondas.
Adding all that up, do we get a street rocket that is essentially a fighter jet without wings? The 12yo in me not only says “Yes!” but “HELL YES!!!”, and here it is. Yeah, yeah, it’s kind of fugly next to the flowing lines of a 1960’s Italian sports car. Also, it isn’t as graceful as a sculpture by François Auguste René Rodin. But graceful aesthetics was not the objective, it just needs to be FAST, a car to challenge Sauron’s ride. In scale, Spark produced a beautiful model, with very crisp lines. What I really like about the model is the very nice carbon fiber texture of the body. The model looks very realistic but I guess the rocket ship looks isn’t for everybody. For me, however, this is awesome 😉.