Australia's most expensive new car on sale

Pagani is now officially available Down Under. And the bespoke Italian supercar brand has straight away taken the honour as offering Australia’s most expensive new car.

Fully road legal, right-hand drive and with ADR compliance, the new Huayra Roadster  debuts Down Under at the eye-watering price-tag of $5.5m – before the on-road costs.

By definition, the Pagani Huayra Roadster is the first hypercar able to be registered for road use in Australia.

Melbourne-based prestige car specialist and Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Mclaren and Lamborghini Australia dealer, Zagame Automotive, is Pagani’s representative in Australia. The operation is one of just 24 authorised Pagani Automobili dealers globally.

The announcement was made today at the brand’s new Pagani showroom in Richmond (Vic). Pagani founder Horacio Pagani was also on hand.

The first local Pagani Raduno drive program corresponded with the local announcement.

The event will see a small number of the privately-owned Paganis air-freighted to Australia to attend the Australian F1 Grand Prix and take in some of Victoria’s best blacktop including The Great Ocean Road.

Zagame’s centre-piece at the Pagani announcement was an all-carbon Huayra Roadster. Each Pagani is hand-built over around four months at the company’s headquarters in San Cesario sul Panaro just south of Modena in Italy.

Zagame Automotive says “exclusivity is further assured with production allocation for down under limited to just a few of the 100 units to be built over the Huayra Roadster’s limited lifecycle”.

The Huayra Roadster weighs in at just 1280kg (lighter than its coupe counterpart) and is powered by a AMG-built 6.0-litre twin-turbo V12. The 562kW/1000Nm-plus engine is matched to a seven-speed automated gearbox supplied exclusively to Pagani by rally and racing gearbox specialist X-Track.

The rear-drive-only Huayra also features active aerodynamics. Appropriate, as the uber-roadster’s name is derived from the god of wind, worshipped by the Bolivian and Peruvian Andean Puruhá Quechuas and Aymaras tribes.

“Pagani is beyond the realms of what we call super cars,” Zagame Automotive boss, Bobby Zagame stated.

“These are hyper cars… Until you see a car like the Pagani Huayra, let alone drive one, the whole concept of a Pagani is almost unimaginable... This is a synthesis of art, jewellery and technology,” he enthused.

Zagame is a Melbourne automotive institution. The operation launched in 1999 in Fitzroy Street, St Kilda. Since then it has grown to represent 13 predominantly prestige brands and sell over 6000 new cars each year.