Shmee150 gets the special opportunity to ride shotgun in the Pagani Huayra Codalunga factory prototype for a ride up and down the hill climb at the Goodwood Festival of Speed. Along the way, he does some high-end car spotting, including quite a few of the latest and greatest hypercars.
The driver at the wheel points out that the Goodwood hill climb is surprisingly challenging. First, it's not a race course. For much of the year, the road functions as the driveway for the Goodwood House estate, so there are imperfections in the asphalt.
Gallery: Pagani Huayra Codalunga
Plus, a wide array of vehicles go up the hill during the Festival of Speed. Many of them are older vehicles that can leave bits of oil or other slippery substances on the track.
The hypercars are often running on cold tires, too. There isn't much room to warm up the rubber before taking on the hill climb, so the vehicles don't have optimum amounts of grip.
"Codalunga" means long tail in Italian. The resculpted Huayra is 14.17 inches (360 millimeters) longer and features a flowing rear section that evokes the appearance of endurance race cars from the 1960s. There are active flaps at the back. The tail also has three circular taillights in an arch on each side and ceramic-coated quad exhausts in the center.
Inside, there are re-engineered controls compared to other Huayra variants. It has seats with a checkerboard pattern on the bolsters. The same styling motif is on the fitted luggage that comes with the car.
The Pagani Huayra Codalunga uses a mid-mounted 6.0-liter twin-turbo V12 that makes 840 horsepower (617 kilowatts) and 811 pound-feet (1,100 Newton-meters) of torque. Each one comes with a pair of exhaust pipes that buyers can fit: a loud, straight setup or a quieter, restricted layout. In all, the hypercar weighs just 2,822 pounds (1,290 kilograms).
Pagani is only making five examples of the Codalunga for €7 million each. All of them already have customers. The company is also working on its Huayra successor, which goes by the codename C10, and debuts on September 12.
