It took me just more than one lap in the 2022 Pagani Huayra R to forget founder and CEO Horacio Pagani’s plea from the night before: “Please, don’t crash it.”
We were at the Four Seasons hotel in Austin, Texas, having a nightcap after the penultimate day of the 2021 Pagani Raduno, an event for Pagani owners that this time culminated at Circuit of the Americas (COTA), the big, Texas-sized Formula 1 track. I was there specifically to drive the latest and perhaps most epic of Pagani’s creations to date, the all new 2022 Huayra R. As of this writing, the bare carbo-titanium with gold and white stripes Huayra R is not only the prototype, but the only R in existence, though 30 customer examples will soon join it. All 30 of the $3,500,000 Huayra Rs are sold, with 14 coming to the U.S. Want one? The waiting list is already 24 deep, so you can’t have one. Two future owners on the Raduno that plunked down hefty deposits for the track-only macchina—as Pagani calls his latest creation—received hot laps with hot shoe Jamie Morrow. I also got a few right seat laps with Morrow, but now I get to drive. MotorTrend is the only media outlet afforded this opportunity; don’t crash it, indeed. But let’s back up a bit.
Conceived, almost unbelievably, just 18 months ago, the 2022 Pagani Huayra R is the spiritual successor to the legendary track-only Zonda R. It’s almost an entirely new vehicle, too, but structurally and mechanically it shares more with the Zonda R than it does with any Huayra.
