The weather in northern Italy in early February is a lottery. It can be sunny, wet or snowing, but in any case, it won't be warm. Snow had fallen over most of Northern Europe a few days before Pagani was due to wheel out its spectacular Zonda R at the Monza Circuit. By the time they did the white stuff was mostly gone, but then the heavens opened up.
The luckless mechanics worked frantically while the VIP guests and a small group of invited press fidgeted in the hospitality suite. When the rain showed no signs of abating, the order was given to change from slicks to rain tires. Black carbon bodywork lacking only racing numbers and sponsor stickers, the only Pagani Zonda R currently in existence was wheeled out of the box.
It's the nearest thing a civilian will get to owning a Le Mans sports prototype this side of actually buying one.
But unlike a prototype, the Zonda R promises a somewhat more user-friendly experience. While its boomerang-pattern LED taillights are a distinctive styling feature, most people don't notice the circular cluster of LED lights hidden under the four exhaust pipes and towing eye until they flash when the starter motor is engaged.
The V12 catches, its bark echoing down the pit lane, and everyone close by takes a step or two back. Quiet this car is not. Then the Zonda R rapidly departs the pit and we move to a nearby chicane to see how it looks on the fly. Despite far from ideal conditions for a 750-hp supercar, the Zonda R is still a sight to behold as it rockets around the sodden track, wet-weather tires and high-downforce aerodynamics encouraging an impressive plume of spray.
Even in these streaming wet conditions, the Pagani racer can pull serious retardation coming off the long straight. Merely watching it brake, arc into the turns and then depart into the distance, the howl of its race-tuned engine bouncing off the scenery, does not fully reveal the impressive lateral acceleration it can pull even in these conditions.
It was only after the car had passed through and I had the chance to examine a sequence of cornering shots on my camera that I noticed the unloaded rear wheel lifting the outer third of its tread clear of the tarmac. High rear roll stiffness apart, it takes some serious g-forces to do that in the wet.
The thundering engine is the most powerful incarnation of the M120 Mercedes V12 that AMG has offered Pagani, its 750 hp nearly doubling the standard-tune 400-hp unit that powered the original 3,042-pound Zonda C12 from 1999. With each successive model the Zonda has become lighter as well as more powerful; the R brief called for 2,469 pounds and 750 hp. The engineers exceeded themselves with the finished car tipping the scales at just 2,358. (The road-going Zonda F weighs 2,712 pounds, and its Clubsport version shaves off a further 55.)
Each of Pagani's partner companies in this bold venture had a senior team member present to be on hand to answer questions at the unveiling. I homed in on Wolf Zimmerman, development engineer and board member of Mercedes-AMG, for an engine rundown. "It is still the same basic M120-series V12 from the W140 Mercedes S-Class," he explained. "AMG first got involved with the C12 S where we used a 7.3-liter motor with 555 hp, and with each new model we have been able to turn the wick up even more. This culminated with the 620-hp version in the Zonda F. As the Zonda R is a highly focused track-day car, Horacio asked for something more specialized."
With a power-to-weight ratio of 1.43kg, or 3.15 pounds per horsepower unit, the Zonda R redefines the term "catapult" when describing acceleration. Where the Zonda F rockets to 62 mph in 3.6 seconds, the Zonda R does the same in just 2.7. And despite the drag created by its positive-downforce aerodynamics, it'll reach 350 km/h (218 mph) compared to the F's 345 km/h (214 mph).