Horatio Raul Pagani is the founder of Pagani Automobili SpA and the creator of sports cars such as Zonda and Huayra. Starting to develop cars in Argentina, he collaborated with Renault, and then moved to Italy to work at Lamborghini before he set up his own supercar company.
Early biography
Horatio Pagani was born on 11/10/1955 in the small Argentinean city of Casilda in the Santa Fe region. His great-grandfather Pietro arrived in Argentina at the end of the 19th century. from Italy and founded the bakery Panificación Pagani, which to this day remains a family business. Horatio's parents were Mario and Marta Pagani, who had two more sons - Nora and Alejandro. From a very early age, Horatio carved sports car models from wood. His idol was the Argentine racer Juan Manuel Fangio, the achievements of which he followed in sports news.
Pagani and his best friend Gustavo Marani between football matches built their own track to arrange toy car races there. This made it possible to put into practice the methods and skills that he acquired by carving models from wood. Horatio began instructing other children how to increase the efficiency of their cars, changing their aerodynamics, using cardboard and strategically placing lead sinkers.
Friends learned about the profession of car designer when they read about Pininfarina, Bertone and Giorgetto Giugiaro. And when Horatio saw a design center where people worked surrounded by drawings and sketches of innovative technical solutions, he realized what he wanted to do in life.
Pagani continued to quench his thirst for knowledge and obsession with large-scale models. In 1966, an electrified track for car models was opened in Casilda, and friends became regular visitors to it, arranging battles on the highway. Soon they began to modify these machines. Tito Ispani, the owner of a model store in Casilda, became a mentor for the children, helping to improve their cars and build up their knowledge and skills.
Motorcycle repair and manufacturing
In 1968, Horatio was already completely immersed in the world of cars, design and racing. He learned that the most important skills that a good designer should have were technical and aesthetic. An example was Leonardo da Vinci.
At age 15, he decided to start his first project with an internal combustion engine. Having bought the old but cheap Legnano, Horatio set out to repair it. He dismantled the motorcycle, restoring the parts that he was looking for a replacement in landfills and repair shops. The work was completed in a few weeks. Horatio enjoyed the process so much that after its completion he sold his motorcycle to start another similar project, this time at Alpino. The result for a 15-year-old teen with disabilities was just as impressive.
Then he and Gustavito decided to make mini-bikes from scratch, having previously studied the process in the journal Popular Mechanics. First, they collected all the details that they could find. After six long and stressful months, the mini-bikes were ready and looked brilliant. The result was so good that the owner of a toy store in Casilda exhibited them for several days in his window so that the neighbors could admire the result of the work of children.
Horatio's last school project was buggy. He found the company that made the fiberglass hull and installed it on the Renault Dauphine chassis found in a landfill. For this, Pagani completely disassembled the car, repaired or replaced the parts. The project lasted 5 months, but the result was worth it: the 17-year-old Horatio proudly drove a unique vehicle through the streets of Casilda.
Study
By 1974, Horatio Pagani was 18 years old, and he decided to become an engineer, enrolling in the Faculty of Fine Arts in La Plata, about 450 km from Casilda. But due to the unstable political situation in Argentina, classes were canceled, and all students were sent home. The following year, the situation did not change, and Horatio decided to enter the engineering department of the National University of Rosario, which was located far from the political epicenter. He spent the whole of 1975 there, but after a few months he showed a deep sense of disappointment. The university was not what he expected. He longed to immerse himself in projects like those he had been doing as a teenager. Instead, he faced long hours of theory lectures and exams. Deciding to follow his instinct, Horatio Pagani dropped out of school and returned to Casilda to start his own business.
Finding your own path
Parents did not welcome the decision of the son and were even more upset when he announced that he did not intend to work in the bakery, but wanted to open his own design studio. His father allocated him a piece of land on the outskirts of Casilda, which he had bought several years before. There Horatio built the headquarters of Horacio Pagani Design with the money received from the sale of buggies and personal belongings.
Orders were not long in coming. The first of these was to design tall chairs for the new bar in Casilda. They should have footrests, and the seat should be upholstered in leather. It took Horatio 2 weeks to finish them. Orders continued to flow, and after a few months he returned his investment, paid off debts and even saved a small amount.
Inspired by success, Pagani decided that he was capable of more, so he decided to build a van. After 6 months of hard work, Alpine was ready.
In September 1976, he showed it at an exhibition held annually in Casilda, where there were no problems finding a buyer. As expected, his talent was recognized, and after the exhibition he received several orders, from the construction of vans to the modification of pickups for the transport of large loads and even the equipment of the mobile studio of the local radio station Radio Casilda.
Horatio's recipe for success was an individual approach to customers. He met with all family members who had to use the car to fully understand their preferences and needs, and then presented them with a preliminary plan for approval. This approach was very beneficial for customers, so he uses it to this day.
The young designer focused on mastering the process of manufacturing fiberglass products. This method offered much greater flexibility in creating parts than sheet metal, and was faster and cheaper, so it quickly became Horatio's main working tool.
Pagani decided to invest his savings in expanding his workshop. He tiled the floor of the cabinet with his initials, filled the shelves with books collected over many years, placed a piano, a portrait of Mona Lisa da Vinci and a large drawing board.
Horatio constantly increased the complexity and complexity of his projects in order to achieve excellence in all areas of car design and production. He was engaged in the creation of agricultural machinery, vans and collaborated with Gustavito, who started his own enterprise for the production of beds and orthopedic equipment.
Passion for racing
Horatio Pagani always wanted to get into the racing world, and he had such an opportunity when Alberto Gentili turned to him. The Argentine driver wanted to improve the car, which had problems with reliability and power, which negatively affected the results of his performances.
This work was interesting because it allowed to improve knowledge of automotive dynamics. The Limitada Santafesina were small single-seaters with 4-cylinder rear engines mounted on a tubular chassis. Horatio worked tirelessly for 3 weeks and made deep changes in the design, reinforcing some parts and lightening the others. Gentili took the II place, which testifies to the incredible intuition of a young designer who took a car that he knew nothing about and completely reworked it in a short time without making any dynamic tests.
When it came to designing a car, Horatio presented a number of innovative solutions, some of which were inspired by Formula 1: suspension arms, central locking of the wheels, and its own brake design. Pagani carefully checked every detail and took parts home to keep thinking about them all night.
His team worked for a year preparing a car, which was presented at a dinner in the presence of 300 guests, including journalists, investors and representatives from the automotive industry. The press unanimously praised the Pagani F2. It remains only to find the driver and engine. Weeks passed, but the engine was never there. Horatio announced that the Pagani F2 will have a Renault engine and will become part of the official team.
Having loaded the car on the trailer, he went to Buenos Aires to meet with the board of Renault Argentina. He told them about the car and the team, but indifference awaited him. According to representatives of Renault, such proposals came to them every day. Pagani invited them to go down to the parking lot so that they could see the car with their own eyes. An hour later they went down, asked a few technical questions and returned for discussion. A few minutes later they returned, the chairman shook his hand, congratulated him and said that Renault would provide the engine and provide its support during the season.
It remains to find the driver. They contacted the previous season's champion Agustin Bimonte, who was looking for a car, and he came to Casilda. He immediately fell in love with the car and immediately signed a contract. In the first race, the car went off the track due to a brake problem. The rest of the season was marked by the overwhelming dominance of Pagani-Renault over the rest of the teams.
After 3 years of racing, Horatio again decided to reorganize his business. At that time, the political and economic situation in the country was appalling. The military dictatorship of Argentina almost completely destroyed the country's industry. Horatio realized that there would be no necessary environment for him and his business.
Dreams of Italy
Horatio was in love with 18-year-old Christina, who dreamed of becoming an English teacher. They represented a shared future away from Argentina. Pagani wanted to return to Italy - the land of his ancestors and Leonardo da Vinci, a paradise for the automotive industry.
One of his special orders came from the Road Laboratory in Rosario and dealt with the creation of two prototypes for measuring the roughness of the road. It was a high-tech job, the first of its kind in all of Latin America. Horatio turned to the famous Argentine auto engineer Oreste Berthe for the necessary computer equipment to perform some mathematical calculations. During this process, he mentioned the idea of leaving Argentina and asked for a meeting with Italian manufacturers. Oreste offered to go to Gordon Murray, a successful Formula 1 designer who worked for Braham at the time. However, Horatio was more inclined to sports rather than racing cars, so he sent him to Juan Manuel Fangio, who had a better idea of the European market thanks to his position in Mercedes-Benz, for which he played in Formula 1.
Pagani met with Fangio at Mercedes-Benz headquarters in Buenos Aires. He showed him photographs of all his projects - from wooden models and buggies to Pagani F2, explaining each of them. Pagani was impressed by the modest and calm Fangio, and he informed him of his intention to move to Italy. They agreed on a new meeting. Fangio sent letters to the founder of the Osella Formula 1 team, Enzo Osella, Carlo Chiti from Alfa Romeo, Giulio Alfieri from Lamborghini, Alejandro De Tomaso and Enzo Ferrari. Fangio admitted that he made many similar recommendations, but only two of them were successful.
Trip to Milan
Horatio completed his orders and in November 1982 flew to Milan with the intention of completing all the interviews in 2 weeks. There he visited with relatives in the small town of Appiano Gentile in the province of Como in northern Italy.
Pagani accidentally discovered that a car show was being held in Bologna at the weekend, which he did not know about, since at that time it was not known outside of Italy. He went there, found the Lamborghini booth, and made an appointment with Giulio Alfieri. On Monday, he was interviewed by him and Mauro Forgieri, technical director of the motorsport department at Ferrari. The latter praised his talent and youth, but could only offer a position in the Formula 1 team, and not a sports car designer. The interview with Alfieri went well, and he invited him from the middle of next year to join the development team of the military all-terrain vehicle LM.
The rest of the interviews went the same way: the executives praised Horatio's shown projects, but spoke about the need for broad-based specialists such as him, regretted the decline in the automotive industry and the impossibility of hiring new young talents like him.
Preparing for Departure
Pagani returned to Casilda in a good mood and with very clear ideas. He asked Christina to marry him in order to start a new life on the old continent, and she immediately agreed.
Three months later, on March 19, 1983, the young couple got married, spent their honeymoon in Argentina and went to Italy. Before the wedding, Horatio finished his last orders, closed the accounts of Horacio Pagani Design and sold the property that he could not bring with him, which allowed him to collect a small amount for the first time in Italy, until his new life settled down.
However, not everything was as rosy as they thought. On May 11, 1983, a letter arrived from Alfieri, in which he wrote that due to the financial crisis and delays in the development of new models, Lamborghini froze the hiring of new employees for an indefinite period. Horatio hid the letter and continued to act as if nothing had happened, confessing this only to Christina and close friend Hugo Racca.
New life
Arriving in Italy, Horatio stayed with relatives for several weeks. The couple worked in the workshop of one of the family members, firmly believing that he would soon find work in the automotive sector.
Pagani went to the Lamborghini to meet Alfieri again, who was very surprised to see him. Horatio said that he went to Italy to build the most beautiful car in the world, and that if necessary, he will clean the factory. Alfieri smiled and asked him to be patient so that he could realize his plan.
In the summer, Horatio and Cristina moved to the campsite because they did not want to spend their savings too quickly. They traveled, enjoying a new life in Italy, and went to visit the house of Leonardo da Vinci in Tuscany.
Work at Lamborghini
In September 1983, Lamborghini offered Pagani the position of chief of level 3. He was 27 years old when he joined a team of 5 people. Thanks to his extensive knowledge, Horatio was able to work on several aspects of the LM project, from the case and mechanics to the interior and the air conditioning system. The work was challenging and interesting.
Career Horatio Pagani in “Lamborghini” was not easy. Six months later, Alfieri offered him the leadership of the department, but he rejected the offer, because it was a position of an employee who was forced to retire ahead of time against his will.
Horatio agreed with Alfieri that he would give him small tasks from the work process of the rest of the team that would stimulate him, since they required research before the design and production stage. In compensation, he asked for complete freedom to enter and leave the factory at any time he wants, since he woke up at 5 a.m., went to work and did not leave until 8 p.m. This was a problem because at that time employees were not allowed to work after 5 p.m. And he wanted to be able to take a nap for lunch.
Lamborghini created a composite materials research unit, which at first was not very successful due to the resistance of older employees who preferred traditional aluminum. This ended with the engineer in charge of the project quitting. Horatio Pagani saw the unique characteristics of composite materials, such as lightness, strength and ease of manufacture. He led a small team of engineers who in 1985 created the prototype of the Countach Evoluzione with a large average V12 weighing just 1,050 kg - 450 kg less than the first car with a Countach QV5000 carbon fiber chassis. When they checked his tests, the car developed a top speed of 330 km / h, which at that time was an impressive result. But the leadership did not see the potential of this technology, and there were no improvements in this area for several more years.
Pagani was 32 years old when his second child, Leonardo, was born in 1987, and he became the brand’s chief designer. He was responsible for the P140 concept car, which was supposed to replace the Jalpa as an entry-level car. The project was not approved, but served as the basis for Lamborghini Calà, the predecessor of Gallardo, which was launched in 2003 under the auspices of Audi, and became the Lamborghini's best-selling model.
In 1988, he led the project dedicated to the 25th anniversary of the Countach brand, and in just 4 months he created the design and prototype. This time he was allowed to use carbon fiber for some body panels, but management refused to buy a device designed to apply pressure and temperature to pieces of carbon fiber during the production process due to its high cost and low return on investment in the short term. Horatio had only an industrial furnace. The car was commercially successful because with the new design, the Countach was recognized in the yet-uncharted US market. This provided much-needed financial support before the advent of Diablo in 1990.
In addition, Horatio was able to industrialize and streamline the production process, which almost doubled output with the same number of workers.
Modena design
Once, when an engineer Horatio Pagani was fed up with refusals to buy an autoclave, he decided to purchase it on credit and became an official Lamborghini supplier. Risking once again, he was several steps ahead of the industry. Thus, he could work independently without the restrictions imposed by such a large company as Lamborghini.
The first project, which was developed in the new Modena Design workshop, was the Countach front hood made entirely of carbon fiber. Pagani showed him at Lamborghini with great success. The finish was so good and the detail was so light that he was asked to make as many parts of this material as possible for the Diablo prototype, which was due in 1990. After analyzing every detail, Horatio decided to make bumpers, a front hood, door sills and some parts of the interior.
When Lamborghini finally realized all the advantages of the new technology, he was assigned to create a unit identical to his own.
The next project, which was proposed to him in 1991, was to create a car entirely from composite materials to mark the 30th anniversary of the brand. At that time, Horatio Pagani was also restyling the Lamborghini Diablo VT and planned to attract a large number of employees to move to a larger factory, as he was going to produce 300 chassis for the L30 in Modena Design.
These plans were frustrated due to the contraction of the global economy in 1990. Chrysler, who owned Lamborghini at the time, canceled all new projects and froze development, including the L30 Horacio. In the 30th anniversary of the brand, instead of the new model, Lamborghini introduced Diablo restyling.
This weakened the connection between Modena Design and Lamborghini, and Horatio began to look for other customers. The most famous works of this period are products such as ski boots, a stroller for horse racing and saddles for racing motorcycles. Modena Design collaborated with Aprilia, Dallara or Daihatsu.
The most beautiful car in the world
Around 1993, Horatio Pagani began work on a project that he had dreamed of since childhood. He decided to build his supercar in 1988 as a tribute to Fangio, with whom he agreed that if he ever builds a car in his honor, he will have a Mercedes engine. For many years he worked on the machine in parallel with his other work at Modena Design. After completing the design, he built a large model at a scale of 1: 5 to perform aerodynamic tests.
Pagani then built a full-scale prototype with removable parts, which later, due to financial constraints, served as molds for the production of carbon fiber parts. As Horatio became more involved in the project, it became obvious that he would be the culmination of his life. At some point, he had to put aside everything else and focus on it, in case of failure exposing himself, his family and his business to great risk.
By 1997, the financial position of the sector began to show clear signs of improvement, and Diablo, VT was preparing a restyling at Lamborghini. The management was not quite the proposed projects, so the marketing director introduced the prototype Pagani Zonda C8, proposing to convert it to Lamborghini and sell it as a completely new model. Modena Design was responsible for the design and construction of the chassis, and Lamborghini would supply mechanical components.
Accepting this proposal would make 42-year-old Horatio a wealthy man, but he would have to refuse a sports car with his name. Pagani decided to discuss this with his wife and children. At that time, he did not have the financial resources necessary to complete Zonda, so the sale made sense. The youngest son of Leonardo, who was 10 at the time, convinced his father to invest in the project.
And in 1998, a group of investors provided capital for testing and creating the first samples.
From Zonda to Pagani Huayra BC
In January 1999, the Zonda C12 was completed. Horatio decided to stun the world at the Geneva Motor Show, where he and his wife Christina presented a silver concept car. He chose this color as a tribute to Mercedes and his idol Fangio.
In 2010, the company launched a completely new Huayra model. It was a big step forward, as it had the right to be sold all over the world. This allowed the company to enter markets such as the USA, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, etc., where Zonda had to import. Thanks to this, Pagani has become a global brand that can compete with companies such as Bugatti, Koenigsegg or Ferrari, which significantly increased the demand for the already built Zonda and Huayra, which were resold 3 times their original price.
Around 1995, Horatio began building a modern factory on the outskirts of San Cesario sul Panaro to expand the scope of Modena Design. Later there was equipped a showroom and office facilities of Pagani Automobili (Modena).
This factory fully met production needs until 2008, when Horacio began to think about creating a more modern space in order to be able to increase production and have facilities for research, innovation and development of composite materials. A new factory was built with an area of about 5800 square meters. m with the ability to produce up to 300 cars per year.
Since 2004, a rally has been held, which starts every summer from the factory. The happy owners of Pagani travel around Italy for several days, staying in beautiful hotels.
In 2016, the Pagani Huayra BC appeared with an improved version of the engine with a capacity of 745 liters. from. The weight of the car was reduced by 132 kg due to the use of new material, which is 50% lighter and 20% stronger than ordinary carbon fiber.