Absolute Power

EDITOR’S NOTE: In line with our Fast, Present & Future theme, we decided to have our resident speed freak James Deakin write about one of the most exclusive super cars ever produced. James is the first (perhaps even last?) motoring journalist to test drive the Pagani Zonda Cinque, a car so rare that there are only five in the world. If he sounds a bit awestruck throughout the piece, it’s because driving this car would be comparable to climbing Mount Everest for a mountaineer. James, old chap, it’s downhill from here…

MANILA, Philippines – “What do you mean they’re building just 5? You mean five a month, surely?” I said to my traveling buddy Kevin as we pulled off the autostrada and headed into Modena. “No. Five, as in one, two, three, four, five. Then finito.” Kevin snapped back quicker than the gear change on the DSG of the Ferrari California we were driving in. “Hence the name Cinque. Don’t you listen to anything I say?”

There was an unusually long silence after that as I tried to digest the concept of developing one of the world’s most incredible supercars and then stopping at just five; I mean, seriously, there are not even diseases that are as rare as that. All of a sudden, even the Bugatti Veyron just seemed so pedestrian.

To put it in perspective, just going by the odds, you would need to spot forty Veyrons on the road before seeing one of these; and just the mere thought of driving something that exclusive was both arousing and intimidating at the same time. Never mind the fact that I was told that I would be the first journalist (and probably the last) in the entire world to get a crack at it, but to crank up the excitement another notch, I was driving the prototype version with a significant boost in power and an even more significant boost of pressure. And I’m not talking about a turbo, either...

Just imagine crashing it; not only would I be up for 2.1 million dollars (not including tax), but I would have earned the distinction of being the fool who single-handedly wiped out 20 percent of the entire model line.

We pull up to the modest gates of the Pagani factory in the more industrial part of Modena. Horacio Pagani was ready to catch a flight but waited around just so he could personally welcome us and tour us through his factory. After a brief exchange of pleasantries, and a remarkably simple waiver that I needed to sign (I’ve had to fill up more detailed ones for a Suzuki Alto test drive. I’m serious.), we were off.

Pressing that starter button for the first time felt just like how I would imagine Obama might have felt turning the knob to the front door of the White House on his first day as President. The power lurking inside both of these incredible structures are both intoxicating, corrupting and need to be given the utmost respect or they will end up being the death of you.

As if the last Zonda F I drove (which broke the Nurburgring record for the fastest production car in the world) wasn’t disturbingly powerful enough, aside from the engine mods, which bumps up the power to almost 700hp, the Cinque now gets an entirely new sequential manual gearbox and a new carbon fiber body that has been reinforced with titanium; it is the strongest, lightest and most aero dynamic body ever put together by the talented team, and is capable of sustaining up to 1.45g of cornering force.

The test driver leads us to some familiar curves. Here, he says, the Carabinieri are few and far between and a lot more tolerant. I strap into the five point harness and call up first gear. There’s a sharp snap of the tacho as I give it the obligatory rev up. There’s no foot clutch to fuss around with, but there’s a mighty audible thud as it engages. I know I have a whole afternoon to milk this car but I waste no time and floor it as soon as I see a clean patch of road ahead.

The thrust is nothing short of devastating. If it weren’t built by man, it would qualify as a natural disaster. Comparing it to any road car would be like comparing a typewriter to a computer; no, this ain’t no road car – this can only be fairly compared to an F3 car. It made the Ferrari California that we drove in feel like a wet couch.

Aside from the F1 car I tested in France, I have never driven anything so brutal in my life. The g force under full acceleration is so intense that your senses barely have time to process the information; you simply look at your turn in point and you’re already 10 meters past it. God never intended man to travel this fast on four wheels. You need to reprogram your brain to anticipate the speed and make your moves early.

The shifting from the new 6-speed Cima Sequential Clutch Gearbox is far more rapid than the old stick shift, but it is still an entire generation away from DSG. The 100 millisecond gap may seem trivial enough, but when you’re talking about 575 lb ft of torque that gets briefly interrupted and then released again, each upshift feels like you’ve been kicked in the spleen.

The interior is typically Pagani, which means an awful lot of shiny bits and intricately designed bezels and switches. there’s absolutely no sound insulation and the car allows you to feel every texture of the road. You won’t only know when you’ve run over a leaf, but you could probably tell which tree it came from. The down side is the Cinque is a very hard package to live with outside of a racetrack – it is wide, long, extremely firm, and has the turning circle of the Love Boat.

More amazing than the fact that there will only ever be five of these cars ever built is that all of them have been pre sold to a Hong Kong based Pagani dealer, SPS Automotive Performance. In fact, initially it was meant to be called Zonda SPS.

As amazing as it was to spend an entire afternoon flogging a 2 million dollar super-car around the streets of Modena, it was also bitter sweet as the Cinque officially marks the end of the life cycle of the Zonda, and the use of the V12 AMG engine. I have had some pretty incredible experiences over the years as a motoring journalist, but what greater story can there be than being a part of history?