Pagani credits hard work more than talent for his success.
Horacio Pagani is adamant you understand that everything he has created — his Modena Design company that invented carbotanium (carbon fibre and titanium filaments woven together), his hand-built, and incredibly powerful, Pagani supercars, even the little minibike he cobbled together from scratch when he was 14 — are not the result of inspiration, but perspiration.
“Many describe me as if I were an exceptional individual, because they see my business and think that it is the result of super powers,” says Pagani. “It is the result of method, obstinacy and rigour” always diminishing the import of talent in favour of hard work and dedication.
That dedication had a young Pagani carving balsa wood supercars (some that bear a striking similarity to the modern-day Zonda) armed with nothing more than a Gillette razor and a few sheets of sandpaper. It had him, at the tender age of 20, fabricating his own open-wheeler (to this day, the only pure race car Pagani has ever designed) to compete in Argentine F2 races. And it sent him to Italy, armed with only two bicycles and a tent (he and his new wife, Cristina, camped out), even though he knew that his promised job at Lamborghini had been rescinded.
Impressed with Pagani’s portfolio, Juan Manuel Fangio, a fellow Argentine and five-time Formula One champion, wrote to five manufacturers — Osella, Ferrari, Lamborghini, De Tomaso and Alfa Romeo. Such was Fangio’s influence that all the CEOs, save Enzo Ferrari, granted him an audience.
Those introductions led to a job (though delayed, thanks to a slowdown in supercar sales) with Lamborghini, which, though short-lived, led to Pagani becoming an expert in composite materials. Which led, in turn, to Modena Design, the aforementioned carbotanium and eventually his first supercar, the Zonda (which, by the way, had Lamborghini trying to rehire the designer and have his prototype become the new Diablo when it saw the end result of the talent it had let slip through its fingers).
The rest, as they say, is history.