When the Pagani Huayra R was announced, one thing that caught my attention were the statements
“designed from the ground up in partnership with HWA AG”
”The cutting-edge components especially created for the Huayra R include the brand new six-speed sequential gearbox which has been designed, along with the Huayra R’s engine, in collaboration with HWA AG to complete a tailor-made powertrain.”
which i assumed meant it was a brand new engine but recently read two articles which makes this confusing.
Wikipedia states:
The Huayra R uses the “Pagani V12-R”, a version of the 6.0 L naturally aspirated Mercedes-Benz V12 engine built from the ground up by HWA AG
Goodwoods states:
and the Huayra using a bespoke HWA V12, based loosely on a Mercedes casting.
So the engine is bespoke and built from the ground up and at the same time based on another engine ?? Isn’t that contradictory ??
I don’t mind/care, honestly. It’s certainly interesting, but the fact that I’ll likely never be able to own one of these, and that it sounds as insane as it does, and likely is an animal to experience… Makes me feel rather lenient on this potential factoid.
The top quote you posted says “designed from the ground up” and you later say “built from the ground up” and point to a conflict there. That’s where the delta is, built vs designed, right? They don’t claim every part is built bespoke, they claim it’s a custom design which allows for shared components. This is slicing semantics very thinly, though. Pagani uses AMG like Gordon Murray/McLaren used BMW for the F1 so I don’t see it as odd.
If I had a nickel every time a racing thing was marketed as being “built from the ground up” and in fact was not “built from the ground up” I would have 2 nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice.
Dammit. I’m returning mine for a refund.
Story Time! 10 years ago I worked at a consulting company on the 4 cylinder turbo now found in Jeep products. And ~9 years I got I worked on the Cadillac CT6-V Blackwing (the DOHC V8, limited production, although it wasn’t originally planned to be that low of volumes).
On the Jeep GMET4 engine we had big budgets. They were going to make millions of these things. We had multiple turbo suppliers lining up for the business, and had budget to get a ton of turbo prototypes to try out and compare for best torque curve, compressor surge, spool, etc.
On the Cadillac CT6-V Blackwing, we didn’t have jack for budget or resources. The first set of turbos we had had a number of problems with the design such as the wastegates needing to control boost better. The Cadillac vehicles cost way more money than a lease special Jeep. The volume were so low though that no suppliers were interested in doing the job. We only got the supplier to agree to do the bare minimum of work because they were strong armed by having other higher volume business with GM.
The lesson is, small volume vehicles actually don’t get a lot of focus. You usually can’t make any money off of it as a supplier, and suppliers do a large amount of the work. So don’t be surprised that so much of a Pagani is reused or lightly massaged existing parts. McLaren was using a Nissan engine for years.
McLaren was using a Nissan engine for years.
What?
Edit: mind blown,it is true
Story Time! 10 years ago I worked at a consulting company on the 4 cylinder turbo now found in Jeep products. And ~9 years I got I worked on the Cadillac CT6-V Blackwing (the DOHC V8, limited production, although it wasn’t originally planned to be that low of volumes).
On the Jeep GMET4 engine we had big budgets. They were going to make millions of these things. We had multiple turbo suppliers lining up for the business, and had budget to get a ton of turbo prototypes to try out and compare for best torque curve, compressor surge, spool, etc.
On the Cadillac CT6-V Blackwing, we didn’t have jack for budget or resources. The first set of turbos we had had a number of problems with the design such as the wastegates needing to control boost better. The Cadillac vehicles cost way more money than a lease special Jeep. The volume were so low though that no suppliers were interested in doing the job. We only got the supplier to agree to do the bare minimum of work because they were strong armed by having other higher volume business with GM.
The lesson is, small volume vehicles actually don’t get a lot of focus. You usually can’t make any money off of it as a supplier, and suppliers do a large amount of the work. So don’t be surprised that so much of a Pagani is reused or lightly massaged existing parts. McLaren was using a Nissan engine for years.