Pagani Huayra Roadster BC First Ride: The Pagani that was Never Meant to Be

With sprayed-on designer jeans, featherweight black driving shoes, a black T-shirt, and a chunky Panerai watch on his left wrist, Andrea Palma looks like the Italian test driver from central casting. "Ready?" he says and punches the gas. The open-top Pagani launches like an F/A-18 off an aircraft carrier, the keening howl of the big V-12 at our shoulders accompanied by whooshes and whistles from the turbochargers. Noise, thrust, speed: sensory overload wrapped in hand-crafted carbon fiber, leather, and titanium. Meet the Pagani Huayra Roadster BC.

Quicker and more agile, with a new engine, a new aero package, revised suspension, and a new carbon-fiber chassis, the Huayra Roadster BC is the Pagani that was never meant to be. After the Huayra Roadster launched at the 2017 Geneva Motor Show, Horacio Pagani was expecting to turn his attention toward the design and development of the C10, the replacement for the Huayra. But as he traveled back to Modena with five completely unsolicited deposits for a BC version of the Roadster, he thought: "Maybe we ought to build one."

The BC moniker refers to Italian-born New York real estate mogul and Ferrari collector Benny Caiola, who in 2000 bought the very first Zonda. The Huayra Coupe BC was launched in 2016 as a tribute to Caiola, who had become a close personal friend of Horacio and who died suddenly in 2010. The Coupe BC was designed to be the ultimate Huayra, re-engineered from the wheels up to be lighter and more powerful, faster and more capable. Only 20 were made, all snapped up before the first car was completed.

Drawing on lessons learned from the Huayra Coupe BC, the design and engineering brief for the Roadster BC was straightforward, says Francesco Perini, head of concept and composite design: "What can we do to make it more sporty, more track oriented?" The answer was simple: less weight, more power, more grip. The execution, however, is anything but.

It starts with a chassis that has been completely redone in a special new generation of ultra-light titanium-weave carbon fiber that also delivers a 12 percent increase in torsional stiffness and a 20 percent increase in bending stiffness. "The intention was that the Roadster BC's chassis would be as rigid as that of the Coupe BC," Perini says. It is, but at a price: A 450 percent increase in cost compared with the material used for the regular Huayra Roadster chassis. "That was the last piece of information I gave to Mr. Pagani," Perini says with a rueful smile.

Increased downforce—1,102 pounds at 174 mph—was another key design goal. No surprise, then, that a collection of splitters and flicks, vents, and wings adorn the Roadster BC. But the aero upgrades are more fundamental than mere add-ons. The BC shares no body panels with the regular Roadster. The front splitter is bigger and wider, the front intake is larger, and the redesigned hood allows greater airflow to increase cooling and improve downforce on the front axle. The front fenders feature massive topside vents that help bleed hot air from the front wheelwells and reduce turbulence. The removable roof features two vestigial fins that help direct air toward a gracefully curved freestanding rear wing. (Pagani expects the customers who track their Roadster BCs will do so with the roof on.)