Today I had an exclusive opportunity to shoot a 2016 Pagani Huayra at PFAFF Reserve, with Alex Lakatos. If you've been following the blog, you may recognize this showroom from the Bugatti Chiron shoot we did for the Cars Without Limits YouTube channel!
Last year during one of the local rally's here, Sparky had brought his Pagani down and unfortunately I didn't get a chance to see it. All I could do was watch the Instagram stories and posts as they flooded my feed - all while I worked my days away in a shopping mall. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed working retail - but as a manager you will literally have no weekends and can sometimes be working very late.
That being said, I'm kind of glad I got the chance to see this Huayra in a showroom setting, because if this were in the streets it would just be completely surrounded by people. As a result, I was able to walk around freely and take in all of the very unique details to this car - and there were an endless amount of them. From leather buckles around the door hinges, a replica model of the car for a key fob, gull wing doors - there really is just too many unique features to name!
For some reason, the headlights of the Huayra remind me of a fly with thousands of small eyes. Its just got that look to it because there are 4 similar sized bulbs close together. I don't know, maybe its just me, but I just thought I would share haha.
I was pretty stoked for this shoot with Alex as I have been following his work for a while now and have been really impressed by it. If you haven't already, you should check out his Instagram here. He's got a great eye for detail, so I'm glad I can work alongside him for future shoots.
Here's there leather buckles I was talking about. First picture is with the door closed, second is with the door open. To me, this is such a rare sight to see a vehicle that's faster than many cars on this Earth be using leather buckles to hold something in place - not quite sure. What happens to these leather buckles if they stretch? Do they stretch? Do they actually function?I have so many questions.
After opening up the gull wing doors, take in how beautiful and thoughtful the interior is. The steering column was by far one of the most interesting things to the interior, as it has a good amount of clusters with a high level of detail to them. Each cluster reminds me of the watch face of a Rolex, as it appears to be built out of some very strong metal components.
I did get the chance to sit in the Huayra as well, and without any surprise it was just as difficult (for me) to get into as the Bugatti Chiron. I mean, maybe if I owned this car it would be easier to get into as I would be in an out of this often - but I managed today just fine!
Being behind the wheel it felt pretty comfortable, although I did start to heat up quite a bit from being inside a car of this value and how delicate things could be. Literally every move I did in this car was carefully calculated and thought out long before my body parts moved an inch haha.
Above is one of the clusters I was mentioning. If you're able to, enlarge the photo and look at how the "Park" is illuminated. It is all of these small dots placed close together to form the shape. That to me looks like a great attention to detail for someone shelling out a considerable amount for this car. I believe over $1.5 million (starting).
When I saw the clusters I started to get this steam punk vibe. Some of them seemed to lean on the side of excessive, but at the same time very unique and consistent. It was no different when it came to the switches for most common car functions like opening the door and turning on lights. I didn't get to flip any of the switches, but if I could have, I'd imagine they would feel heavy (in a good way).
Some of these switches are something that I might see in a historic, classic car - and this wouldn't be a bad thing since a lot of those classic cars are partly made timeless because of those components.
The seats were a soft, comfortable leather with what appears to be a suede material to help line the inner portion of the seat. These seats match the leather buckles that can be found on the outside, so having the seats spec'd like this was only fitting.
Would love to see, and hear what it's like to shift the gear selector in this car. The fact that it looks so raw in a modern vehicle is just so cool. I would feel smarter just using it haha.
One thing I was not expecting was this huge Pagani sound speaker which was in the door - this photo was taken with the door up to the sky. If you were in this car, what's the first song your playing in it? Would you blast it or play it quietly?
Can the launch button put you into the future? Maybe. So epic the way that it's just dead center at the top - makes me think of a cockpit in a plane... not that I know my way around one but you get the point.
Was pretty surprised with how many shots I was able to get within the hour we were there. The lighting was a bit difficult to play with, and at some points I had to bump up my ISO settings really high which caused noise in my photos, but otherwise most came out the way I was hoping for!
Really excited to shoot again with the Cars Without Limits team. Stay tuned for the video on this car for a more in-depth tour of this beast. I was amazed, you will be too!
