Everything To Know About The Pagani Huayra's V-12 Engine

Pagani might not be the first name to come to mind when you think of supercars, but the Italian company founded by Argentinian-born Horacio Pagani has made some of the world's most strikingly beautiful and gut-bustingly powerful machines ever to burn rubber. Pagani introduced its debut car, the Zonda, in 1999 and built a custom Zonda 760 for seven-time Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton. Hamilton eventually sold his Zonda, calling it "terrible to drive" in an interview with the Sunday Times, but Pagani soldiered on, introducing the Huayra in 2012 and following up the introductory model with a series of special editions over the next decade and an updated version in 2020. 

The newest Huayra comes in just one trim: the BC roadster, which gets its initials from collector Benny Caiola, Pagani's first customer. It is powered by a mid-mounted twin-turbo 6.0-liter V12, producing 791 horsepower and 774 pound-feet of torque. The engine took the 2,755-pound Huayra from 0 to 60 in just 3.3 seconds during Car and Driver's official test session.

The Huayra's engine was built by Mercedes' AMG performance division, and according to Car and Driver, only 40 Huayra BC roadsters will be made. The engine vents its exhaust via six distinct pipes, and four intercoolers are employed to keep the motor from turning into a blob of molten metal. If you can get your hands on one of the 40 production version Huayara BC roadsters, it will cost you $3.5 million, but considering that gets you nearly 800 horsepower behind a car that weighs less than a Honda Accord, it's money well spent if you have it. 

The Huayra BC roadster set a lap record for production cars of 2:23.081 at Belgium's Spa Francorchamps road course, and Motor Trend's Jonny Lieberman was impressed to the point of intimidation by the power of the Huayra's V12. "I came off the throttle after a few seconds because, well, because I was frightened," he wrote. "The tires couldn't handle the torque, I couldn't handle the torque, nor could MotorTrend's insurance company." The current BC roadster will be the last version of the Huayra, but start saving your pennies because its beastly V12 will live on in Pagani's next car, the C10.