PEAK PERFORMANCE
Interior displays details of dazzling craftsmanship with unparalleled build quality
I will start this dissertation on Pagani's incredible Roadster BC with two numbers: 791 horsepower and 1,250 kilograms. That's but 1.58 kilograms — the need for double-digit exactitude explained in just a minute — that every horsepower has to motivate.
The 5.0-litre Mustang GT you might remember as “really pinning me into my seat” uses just one horsepower to move a whopping 3.6 kg. For those with a taste for exotics, Lamborghini's fleetest track weapon, the absolutely amazing Huracán Perfomante, has to lug around 2.15 kg for each of its 5.2-L V10's 640 hp.
If you want to get into Pagani territory, you have to move all the way up to Ferrari's ferocious SF90 Stradale, which has to motivate the same 1.58 kg with each of its 986 hp. The fact they both have exactly the same performance-governing metric doesn't mean the two cars are even remotely alike. The Ferrari is powered by a high-revving turbocharged V8 fortified by three electric motors, while the Pagani is muscled around by a monstrous Mercedes-AMG twin-turboed V12 that eschews all those screaming rpm for 774 pound-feet of tarmac-melting torque.
And they feel so different. The Ferrari is frenetic while the Pagani is the very definition of relentless. One bursts off the line with an immediacy that is almost frightening, smoking through the first 100 km/ h faster than you can switch gears, while the other takes a fraction of a second to get, um, organized. But once those 12 cylinders start pushing in the same direction, the thing just doesn't ever let up.
What's even more interesting is what happens when the road gets twisty. The Ferrari — despite weighing 1,570 kg — feels light. the Pagani is light. And you can feel that at the wheel. It never feels twitchy, just eager. In slow hairpins, there's amazing mechanical grip, thanks to its super-sticky Pirelli P Zero Trofeo Rs — 265/30R20s in front, and extra meaty 355/25R21s in the rear. They are kept flat on the road by the Roadster's sophisticated suspension.
At higher speeds, up to 500 kg of aerodynamic down force push the Pagani into even closer association with tarmac. Even the exhaust system gets in on it, two extra exit pipes from the catalytic converter are aimed at the undertray to exploit a “blown diffuser principle,” to increase the weight holding tires to road.
Pagani says that the Roadster BC is capable of an incredible 1.9 Gs in a corner. I have no idea how many of those Gs we were pulling through the countless tournantes around Castelvetro di Modena, but
I'm pretty sure they were illegal even in Italy.
Even more impressive is what happens when the road gets lumpy. Most supercars, frankly, fall completely apart when faced with the moonscapes that pass for roads these days. Not the Pagani. Part of that is the Formula One-like computer-controlled rocker arm-actuated double-wishbone suspension. Its ability to eliminate body roll, while at the same time provide at least some compliance, is nothing short of amazing.
But the real magic here is Pagani's chassis. Remember, the BC is a roadster, there being no roof to enhance structural rigidity. In normal circumstances, a sports car with its top lopped off is either heavier — thanks to the reinforcements needed to regain the rigidity lost from dropping its lid — or squidgier, the framework literally bending under the enormous suspension and cornering loads. But not this roadster.
In fact, because of some spaceage — and proprietary — materials, the BC is lighter and stiffer than the coupe it's based on. Thanks to Pagani's trademark Carbo-Titanium — in which titanium filaments are woven into the carbon fibre to make it both stronger and less brittle — and new lighter and even stronger Carbo-Triax, the BC's chassis is utterly rigid.
As magnificent as the Roadster BC's performance is, it is not adequate reason to pay up to 3,085,000 euros — $4.6 million Canadian — for a Roadster BC. No, the reason six lucky — and very rich — Canadians have spent roughly six or seven times the cost of that aforementioned Ferrari is because of the Pagani's interior. We're talking the ultimate in craftsmanship here, an automotive interior that dazzles you every time you get behind the wheel. From the milled infotainment surround to the hand-stitched leather door trim, absolutely everything about the Pagani is bespoke. Even the emblems — both inside and out — are machined from a solid block of aluminum rather than just cast and then polished. No other car at any price comes close to a Pagani's build quality. And that's why you pay upwards of a Rosedale Road mansion or a Kitsilano backsplit for the right to park your behind in a Pagani Roadster BC.