Pagani Zonda S Roadster vs Koenigsegg CCXR Edition: the dawn of the hypercar

While the Bugatti Veyron, Ferrari Enzo and Porsche Carrera GT that joined them in the early-century hypercar league were technically more advanced – the Bugatti and Ferrari had paddle-operated transmissions, for example – they were essentially the work of committees, funded by large, profitable manufacturers.

Which is why they are absent here, leaving this Latin/Swedish pair to fight it out alone around Dunsfold’s famous test track.

The observant will note that these specific models were launched a couple of years apart, but the series from which they each derive – the Zonda S, with its 7.2-litre, atmospheric V12, and the CCX with its 4.7-litre, twin-supercharged V8 – were on sale concurrently, albeit in tiny numbers.

The Koenigsegg (right) pips the Pagani in an outright drag race, but the Zonda’s character works its way into your affections

But as a brand, it was Pagani that first broke cover with a production-ready car.

Horacio Pagani’s path to eventual hypercar royalty had started when he left his native Argentina for Italy in 1983, with the ambition of becoming an automotive engineer.

A letter of introduction from his good friend Juan Manuel Fangio had helped secure a job in Lamborghini’s engineering department, and by the end of the decade he was heading up a team focused on composites technology.

This, in turn, lead to the development of the Countach Evoluzione concept, used to prove the strength and weight benefits of carbonfibre in a supercar’s construction.

‘The Pagani Zonda S Roadster’s cabin is a slice of pure science fiction’

Lamborghini saw no immediate advantage, however, and Horacio, who had become a cheerleader for the new material, chose to leave the company and establish his own business, Pagani Composite Research, in 1988.

There, he continued to work for Lamborghini, as well as Ferrari, Daimler and various Formula One clients, as interest in carbonfibre escalated.

But Horacio’s ambition was the creation of a complete production car, pulling together all the experience he’d gained during his time in Italy.

The Pagani Zonda S Roadster’s two-part rear wing helps to keep things in check at high speeds

In 1991 he formed Modena Design, then, a year later, Pagani Automobili SpA to start development of an all-new model that would break fresh ground in the supercar class (‘hypercar’ being very much a noughties term).

Project C8 was the germ of what would ultimately go into production, and by 1993 it was being tested at Dallara’s wind tunnel in Varano, near Parma.

A deal with Mercedes-Benz’s AMG division was struck the following year to supply all future Pagani models with powertrains, and the name ‘Fangio F1’ was mooted for the production model.

However, after his mentor Juan Manuel died in 1995, Horacio renamed the car ‘Zonda’ – a hot, strong wind in his native language.

The Pagani Zonda S Roadster’s canvas roof is most evident in profile

The Pagani Zonda C12 that was revealed at the Geneva Salon in 1999 was a visual and technical tour de force from a firm that was all but unknown.

With its radically cab-forward profile, and an expansive rear deck housing a longitudinally mid-mounted Mercedes-AMG M120 V12, the design was daring yet somehow credible, compared with the other supercar start-ups.

Inspired by Horacio’s fondness for the late-’80s Sauber-Mercedes C9 sports-racers – right down to the circular grouping of its quad exhausts in the centre of the rear panel – the Zonda had the look of a Le Mans refugee, even though it was never conceived for motorsport.

The Zonda’s glorious bespoke Mercedes-Benz V12 was offered to Pagani after an introduction from Juan Manuel Fangio

The naturally aspirated, all-alloy 5987cc AMG unit produced an easy 402bhp, delivered through a five-speed manual ’box to the rear wheels.

And with it weighing just 1250kg, it was no surprise that performance was startling, with 0-60mph in 4 secs and a top speed of 185mph.

That relatively sylphlike mass came down to Pagani’s expertise with composites.

Comprising a carbonfibre monocoque, with chrome-molybdenum subframes to carry the mechanicals and composite panels, the Zonda was not only light, but also immensely strong.

‘The Pagani Zonda had the look of a Le Mans refugee, even though it was never conceived for motorsport’

That the Zonda, in its numerous production guises and one-off bespoke iterations, lasted 20 years tells you all you need to know about the model’s enduring success.

The Zonda S Roadster with us today was launched four years after the original C12 in 2003, and is one of only 12 such cars produced by Pagani.

Like the hardtop S introduced a year earlier, it’s powered by a larger-capacity version of the AMG V12 displacing 7291cc, and producing a cool 555bhp at 5900rpm and 553lb ft of torque at 4050rpm (with more than 80% from just 2000rpm).

The Pagani Zonda’s toggle switches were modelled on those of the Alfa Romeo Giulietta

Traction control and ABS were standardised, and, among a plethora of detail upgrades, Ohlins adjustable dampers were employed, while the C12’s OZ alloys were replaced by gorgeous Fomb APP forged one-piece items.

If you thought the Zonda’s exterior looked otherworldly, its cabin is a slice of pure science fiction.

You sit low on a sculpted, quilted-leather-trimmed seat with your feet brushing rounded, floor-mounted pedals cast from aluminium.

Facing you, through a flat-bottomed wheel made of wood, leather and polished aluminium, is a Porsche-style set of overlapping dials set into a skeletal alloy pod.

Founder Horacio Pagani had input in every detail of the Zonda

Swathes of carbonfibre surround you: on the doorcards, the deep inner sills and the central transmission tunnel.

Elsewhere, artfully disguised, Fiat-sourced heater controls don’t look too out of place across the brushed-metal centre stack, along with four neatly crafted aluminium toggles performing secondary functions.

With the doors open – here they’re conventionally hinged, unlike on the CCXR – buckled leather straps secure the front and rear clams on to the shut facings.

Alas, the heavens open before we can remove either the Pagani or Koenigsegg’s carbon roof panels, each of which involves more than the work of a minute.

‘You sit low on a sculpted, quilted-leather-trimmed seat with your feet brushing rounded, floor-mounted pedals cast from aluminium’

Frankly, though, open-air motoring here would be a mere distraction.

Thumb the red starter button, let into the top of the Zonda’s alloy-topped gearlever, and the AMG V12 settles into a cultured murmur behind you.

Move away and the car is instantly user-friendly: a medium-weight clutch; light, but slightly notchy gearshift; and decent all-round vision, with the door mirrors mounted halfway up each A-pillar.

The steering is lighter than expected, making the Zonda feel a deal more agile and biddable than the CCXR, but the hydraulically assisted rack, while sensibly geared for a car with such a high maximum speed, only offers a modicum of feedback before you start to really gather pace.

The Pagani Zonda S Roadster is still outrageous some two decades on

Which you do very rapidly indeed.

The V12’s delivery is smooth and linear – no turbos to spoil the show, here – and accompanied by a spine-tingling bellow: think muted early ’90s V12 F1 car.

There’s no coarseness on your journey to the 7000rpm redline, thanks to the AMG unit’s inherent dynamic balance, and the Zonda feels every bit as explosive under acceleration as its 0-100mph figure of 7 secs suggests.

A few attempts at high-speed runs along Dunsfold’s main straight produce 175mph at around 6500rpm, and, given how blustery the conditions are, the Zonda remains superbly stable, without a whiff of any waywardness.

This Pagani Zonda S Roadster is one of just 12 produced

But this is not a car to be messed with. On our damp – but not soaking wet – track, the Zonda goads you into taking liberties.

Large, ventilated iron rotors feel impervious to fade after a few quick laps, and only under full-bore-from-standstill acceleration does the traction control temporarily and abruptly kill the power.

Overall grip levels, though, are bewilderingly high, especially at the front, where understeer is all but absent.

The steering’s low-speed numbness is replaced with a richer seam of information reaching you through the wheel as you push harder in every corner (it’s strange in a car of this type not to see a telltale stability-control light flashing at you).

The dawn of the hypercar was about more than raw speed, and few convey its sense of shock and awe like the Pagani Zonda and Koenigsegg CCXR

But try to trim your speed through a bend, even slightly, and the rear end starts to rotate quickly and enthusiastically.

There is little warning, too, so a quick and decisive correction is vital.

Don’t get me wrong, the Pagani Zonda remains a rare treat for any enthusiastic driver, but this is a hypercar you must always approach with the utmost respect.

Perhaps that’s the price you would pay for buying into either Pagani or Koenigsegg ownership.

Where the Pagani makes do with conventional doors, the Koenigsegg – as in so many respects – goes its own way

Even 20 years ago, this duo’s rivals would have been much further down the road in developing systems to protect drivers from their worst excesses.

But not necessarily when it came to producing cars with earth-shattering performance, at least on the evidence of the Koenigsegg CCXR Edition.

Christian von Koenigsegg was just 22 years old when he formed his eponymous company in 1994.

Originally from Stockholm, his family was descended from German nobility (the design of the Koenigsegg badge represents the family’s coat of arms), and a passion for car design and engineering had drawn Christian into the industry.

‘Even 20 years ago, this duo’s rivals were much further down the road in developing systems to protect drivers from their worst excesses’

His vision of creating one of the fastest cars on Earth was never going to come cheap, though.

His first CC prototype was part funded by a combination of family money and a Swedish government grant, as well as developmental support from Volvo and Saab (the former providing the use of its wind tunnel).

Various powertrains were trialled, with Christian settling on a twin-supercharged unit based around Ford’s 4.6-litre V8 Modular engine, which, in atmospheric form, powered the Lincoln Continental and Ford Thunderbird.

The CC’s design – still recognisable in ‘our’ CCXR – was penned by Christian and, like the Zonda, employed a carbonfibre monocoque with chrome-molybdenum subframes.

The Koenigsegg CCXR Edition’s speedometer won’t stop until it reaches 249mph

But it wasn’t until 2003 that Koenigsegg’s first production car, the 655bhp CC8S, was revealed at the Geneva Salon, picking up a Guinness World Record along the way for having the planet’s most powerful production engine.

After just six cars were produced, Koenigsegg developed the engine further for the 2004 CCR model.

Still twin-supercharged, but now with a slightly surreal 806bhp, the CCR lifted Koenigsegg into the hypercar major league, especially when it stole the World’s Fastest Production Car title from the iconic McLaren F1 by just over 1kph, after hitting 387.86kph (241mph) at the Nardò test track in Italy.

The brutal Koenigsegg CCXR looks less lithe than the Pagani Zonda S

Then, in 2006, Christian upped his game still further with the CCX, to which our test car is closely related.

Described as a ‘completely new car’, and powered by its own in-house 4700cc V8 unit, it was still recognisably from the same lineage as the CC8S and CCR, and shared the same structure and powertrain, but was modified to comply with safety and emissions regulations in key markets, such as the USA.

This in turn led to the CCXR, equipped with a ‘flex-fuel’ sensor, allowing it to run on regular fuel or E85/E100 (85-100% ethanol), giving it a potential output of 1018bhp.

The CCX replaced the original CC concept car’s Ford-based unit with a twin-supercharged V8 of Koenigsegg’s own design

This CCXR Edition is, I’m guessing, running on plain old E5 today, so we’ll have to put up with a mere 806bhp.

It’s a sinister-looking device: low, unfeasibly wide and, from the front, ever so slightly generic in appearance, compared with the distinctive features of the Pagani.

But from the rear, the CCXR is a feast of voluptuous bodywork valleys reaching up to its detachable ‘double-bubble’ roof, between which are a vestigial rear ’screen and a glazed engine panel displaying Koenigsegg’s ghost symbol – a nod to the Swedish Air Force squadron that used to be based at the firm’s former Ängelholm manufacturing site.

Open the huge rear clamshell and the CCXR’s rear-mid-mounted powertrain is laid bare.

The Koenigsegg CCXR Edition’s 11-spoke, centre-lock wheels

Being dry-sumped, the 32-valve, all-alloy engine is mounted low in the chassis, with its carbon cam covers and intake dominating your view.

Support struts for the semi-stressed engine and ’box also provide pick-up points for the two-way adjustable dampers with their coil-over Eibach springs and separate hydraulic reservoirs, mounted horizontally across the back of the engine.

It’s a work of art, all framed by giant 345-section Michelin Pilot Sports on the elegant 11-spoke, centre-lock wheels.

Small fins control the airflow into the Koenigsegg CCXR’s gaping intake

Equally dramatic is your entry to the CCXR’s cabin.

Reach into the driver’s door air-scoop, press a hidden button and the dihedral door raises skyward and forward, leaving generous access over the broad carbon sills.

Once inside, with the door down, you’re truly ensconced.

The view out through the deeply curved ’screen with its single wiper parked dead-centre brings to mind the cockpit of a Halo-equipped F1 car. But not by any means the controls facing you.

The fixed rear wing helps tame the Koenigsegg CCXR Edition’s notorious tendency to twitch

There’s something faintly industrial-looking about the cream-coloured column stalks, central fascia, gearlever and instrument binnacle that feels at odds with the rest of the CCXR’s aesthetic.

But while it can’t touch the Pagani’s cabin for outright sophistication, there are no ergonomic howlers, and the simplicity of its control layout leaves you to focus on driving on this increasingly slippery track.

And it was at this very circuit where a CCXR claimed BBC Top Gear’s lap record, posting a time of 1 min 17.6 secs, which stood for seven years.

The Koenigsegg CCXR Edition’s steering wheel feels a touch less bespoke than the Pagani’s, but it is otherwise similarly dramatic from within

We’ve no chance of coming anywhere close to that today, but, even being circumspect, the Koenigsegg exposes a radically different character to that of the über-cool Pagani.

From its He-Man gearshift to the generally heavy but communicative steering, the CCXR feels the more substantial car, even though at 1280kg its (dry) weight is identical to the Zonda’s.

The engine’s volume adds to the old-school muscle-car feel, being loud even at idle, combined with more vibration through its control surfaces.

‘Each upchange just brings greater thrust, and even in a straight line the Koenigsegg CCXR feels mildly unhinged’

Then you nail the relatively short-travel throttle… and welcome to Armageddon.

Acceleratively, there’s little between the CCXR and the Zonda, with their 0-100mph times just 0.6 secs apart (at 6.4 and 7.0 respectively), but where the Pagani is the consummate sophisticate, the Koenigsegg is a roadgoing Can-Am racer.

It’s difficult to describe the sheer ferocity of the V8’s delivery, boosted by its twin centrifugal Rotrex superchargers, as it bolts towards the horizon.

Each upchange just brings greater thrust, and even in a straight line the CCXR feels mildly unhinged.

The Koenigsegg CCXR Edition’s rear wing keeps the car steady

Despite its brutality, though, it remains utterly composed and stable at higher speeds (Koenigsegg claims 350kg of downforce at 155mph).

Through the corners, it will understeer markedly compared to the Zonda, but its transition into oversteer is more progressive, and you don’t feel that it’s going to bite you like the Pagani can.

There is also the matter of an extra 269bhp compared with the Zonda, even on pump fuel, which ultimately allows the CCXR to forge through the air at nearly 250mph – 40mph faster than its rival.

Relevant? As a feat of engineering and aerodynamics, absolutely.

But in the real world – albeit one where money were no object – I’d want my hypercar to be more multi-layered in its abilities, and shout ‘bespoke’ from every weave of its carbonfibre body. Just like the Pagani Zonda.

Images: Max Edleston

Thanks to: Joe Macari; Will Stone; Dunsfold Park

Factfiles

Pagani Zonda S Roadster 

• Sold/number built 2003-‘06/12
• Construction carbonfibre monocoque with chrome-molybdenum subframes and composite panels
• Engine all-alloy, dohc-per-bank, 48v 7291cc 60° V12, electronic engine management, sequential fuel injection
• Max power 555bhp @ 5900rpm
• Max torque 553lb ft @ 4050rpm
• Transmission six-speed manual, RWD via self-locking differential
• Suspension double wishbones, coil springs, Ohlins adjustable telescopic dampers, anti-roll bar f/r
• Steering power-assisted rack and pinion
• Brakes ventilated discs, four-piston calipers, with servo and ABS
• Length 14ft 5in (4395mm)
• Width 6ft 8in (2055mm)
• Height 3ft 9½in (1151mm)
• Wheelbase 8ft 11½in (2730mm)
• Weight 2822lb (1280kg)
• Mpg 16.9
• 0-60mph 3.7 secs
• Top speed 208mph
• Price new £285,000 (Zonda S)
• Price now £5,000,000*

Koenigsegg CCXR Edition

• Sold/number built 2008/four
• Construction carbonfibre monocoque with chrome-molybdenum subframes and composite panels
• Engine all-alloy, dohc-per-bank, 32v 4700cc V8, twin centrifugal Rotrex superchargers, electronic engine management, sequential fuel injection
• Max power 806bhp @ 7000rpm (regular E5 fuel)
• Max torque 679lb ft @ 5500rpm (regular E5 fuel)
• Transmission six-speed manual, RWD via limited-slip differential
• Suspension double wishbones, coil springs, two-way adjustable gas/hydraulic pushrod dampers, anti-roll bar f/r
• Steering power-assisted rack and pinion
• Brakes ventilated discs, eight-/six-piston calipers front/rear, with servo and ABS
• Length 14ft 1in (4293mm)
• Width 6ft 6in (1996mm)
• Height 3ft 8in (1120mm)
• Wheelbase 8ft 8in (2660mm)
• Weight 2822lb (1280kg)
• Mpg n/a
• 0-60mph 3.1 secs
• Top speed 249mph
• Price new £415,000 (CCX)
• Price now £3,000,000*

_{*Prices correct at date of original publication}

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