This is the €5.5million Pagani Huayra Tricolore (2024)

External link to Top Gear Magazine Subscription – 5 issues for £5

Remember the Zonda Tricolore? Revealed back in 2010, the €1.3million roadster was built to celebrate the 50th birthday of Italy’s “Frecce Tricolori” – the Italian Air Force’s aerobatics team. Their Red Arrows, basically. Now, a decade later, Pagani has cooked-up a special Huayra to mark the squadron’s 60th. Welcome one and all to the 829bhp Pagani Huayra Tricolore.

Originally Pagani was going to build just the one Zonda Tricolore but, sensing an opportunity to make copious sums of money, it eventually built three. The Huayra Tricolore will also be limited to three cars, each costing an astounding €5.5million, or about £5,074,000 at today’s exchange rates. And they won’t simply be numbered one, two and three, but zero, one and ten after key members of the Frecce Tricolori. Aircraft one “leads the patrol during all aerobatic manoeuvres” while number ten “splits off from the group in the most spectacular sequences” to “show the high performance of the aircraft in flight”. Zero refers to the Commander, who “directs the display from the ground” and takes care of “all the stages of mission planning and training”.

The incredibly intricate design and detailing pays tribute to the Frecce Tricolori’s Aermacchi MB-339A P.A.N aircraft. First, the new aero package. Up front there’s a more pronounced front splitter for increased downforce and a new front bumper shaped to make the intercooler more efficient. Meanwhile the central airscoop has been fitted with “an innovative air conveying system that allows for an even greater flow of cold air directly to the engine”, the splitter has been redesigned and the new wing (with supports styled to look like the MB-339A’s tail-fin) gives “perfect aerodynamic balance” and compensates for the added downforce from the front splitter.

The most striking nod to the MB-339A is the Pitot tube – a little metal tube, here mounted centrally up front, used to measure the airspeed of an aircraft. It’s hooked up to a dial inside that gives your airspeed in knots. Of little use in a car, where what you want is ground speed, but quite fun all the same. All three cars wear the same livery – with a red/green/white graphic on the side, lots of little Tricolore logos and blue-tinted exposed carbon bodywork that most definitely does not come cheap. The wheels (20s at the front, 21s at the rear are styled to resemble a turbine.

As for the Tricolore’s tech spec – you’re looking at 829bhp and 811lb ft from the familiar twin-turbocharged, AMG-built 6.0-litre V12 engine. That’s 38bhp and 37lb ft more bhp than you get in a Huayra BC, which is Not Slow. It drives the rear wheels through a seven-speed single-clutch sequential gearbox and electromechanical differential. Pagani claims the “entire transmission system” is 35 per cent lighter than a DCT. The chassis is made from the “latest generation composite materials, such as Carbo-Titanium HP62 G2 and Carbo-Triax HP62”. Dry weight is 1,270kg.

Goodness.