FEELS LIKE HEAVEN

Fancy a world exclusive first drive in Pagani's new V12 Utopia? Then step this way

- James Dennison

IT IS NOT OFTEN THAT YOU COME OUT SECOND best in a race with 864 hp on your side, but today I am surely doomed to defeat. For my competition is not a chainsmoking Italian tradesman nonchalantly squeezing every inch out of his 1989 FIAT Panda or even a moped-riding Giovanni willing to risk everything for nothing more than bragging rights. No, right now, my nemesis is Mother Nature.

Lumbering into view like an ashen avalanche bursting with a trillion water droplets, the raincloud at my two o'clock has kept a watching brief for most of the day but now the gloves are off. I have been in the Pagani Utopia (pronounced o00-tow-peeeeyah) for several hours now, but there is one road-a winding, intricate, asphalt spaghetti pass-that I am hellbent on reaching before the heavens open and the Pirelli P Zero Corsa tyres become a one-way ticket to Crashville.

Why am I so keen to experience this road? New Paganis do not come along very often-this car's predecessor, the Huayra, was first launched back in 2011-so squeezing the most out of our short time with the Utopia is crucial if we are to understand just what it offers in the complex world of contemporary supercars. The original 1990s Pagani, the Zonda, was born into an elaborate culture of wild automotive excess, one in which emissions were an afterthought and most people's experience of an electric vehicle was the one their milk arrived on.

Fast forward 25 years and you will find EVs with more than twice the power of the Utopia, capable of all-wheel-drive torque vectoring, 0-100 km/h in less than two seconds, and, crucially, zero tail-pipe emissions to show for it. The supercar landscape appears to be heading in one direction. But not for Horacio Pagani. In creating the Utopia, Pagani and his team have stayed focused on the demands of his small but discerning list of clients.