With Pagani’s first supercar, the Zonda, never officially being sold in the U.S., there was always going to be some pent-up-demand among the nation’s One-Percenters for the Italian marque’s latest model, the Huayra, which has been approved for local sale. What’s surprising is the level of that pent-up-demand.
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Even with hypercars from Ferrari, McLaren and Porsche all launching in the past 12 months, and Koenigsegg also setting up shop here, Pagani has revealed that 40 percent of its Huayra production for the first six months of the year are cars destined for the U.S. Of course, the Huayra has been on sale elsewhere since 2011, but even in catch-up mode we're already the marque’s biggest market.
In fact, the U.S. is so important for Pagani that the marque has even chosen to establish its main sales division on local soil. Pagani Worldwide is based in San Francisco, California and handles Pagani sales not only for the U.S. but for a number of other nations around the globe as well.
You may be wondering what took Pagani so long to bring its Huayra here. The answer is meeting safety and environmental regulations, which is extremely cost prohibitive for manufacturers producing low-volume supercars. Pagani is quick to point out that it’s the only small automaker in the world (less than 100 cars per year) that has both European and American (EPA and CARB) certification for one of its models.
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This has pushed the car’s price up substantially, however. Originally slated to cost about $1.1 million, a Huayra will now cost you in excess of $1.4 million (we’re sure few of its buyers will be complaining, though).
"We always knew that the demand for Pagani vehicles from the United States was very high,” Pagani CEO and founder Horacio Pagani said in a statement. “The enthusiastic feedback from our US customers and the commercial success only encourages us to further invest in the development of our products."
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