Fourteen and a half million dollars for a car. Nearly €13.5 million, to be precise. Even in the tight-knit world of hypercars, the price tag on the Pagani Huayra Codalunga raises eyebrows. Ten Speedsters only, each billed at about £11 million, i.e., close to $14.5 million, and yet all have found buyers. And there, inevitably, one wonders: what could possibly justify such a check?
A American journalist was invited this summer to the Pagani workshop near Modena. He says he initially barely noticed a Huayra Codalunga Speedster tucked away in a corner. In photos, this stretched version of the Huayra hadn’t appealed to him. Upon seeing it in person, its beauty literally took his breath away, to admit he had completely misjudged it. If the mere presence of the car provokes such a reaction, the price of this Pagani Huayra Codalunga Speedster is no longer just a number on a purchase order, but everything that lies behind it.
Pagani Huayra Codalunga: $14.5 Million for a Run of 10 Speedsters
Officially, the Codalunga line began in 2018, when two collectors asked Horacio Pagani for a longer-tailed Huayra, more elegant and streamlined, designed for concours d’élégance. The Italian maker from San Cesario sul Panaro first presented in 2022 five Codalunga coupes, priced around €7 million before tax, all pre-sold. The Speedster builds on that base, but takes exclusivity a step further: only ten units, each around £11 million, roughly $14.5 million, near €13.5 million. By comparison, a Bugatti Tourbillon runs around $4 million and a Gordon Murray T.50 about $3.6 million, while some Rolls-Royce coachbuilt projects push beyond $30 million.
The handful of hand-picked clients who signed up for a Pagani Codalunga aren’t discovering a whole new world. A British test driver notes that if you’re among the ten Speedster owners, you likely already own several other Pagani models, a Ferrari LaFerrari, a Lexus LFA, a Lamborghini Aventador SV, and perhaps even a McLaren F1. At this level, you’re not chasing another supercar to shave a tenth of a second off a lap time. These buyers are closer to major art collectors, used to living among Picasso, Da Vinci, Gauguin, or Cézanne. For them, this Pagani becomes a centerpiece of a collection, straddling a rolling sculpture, a prestige asset, and a status symbol.
Design, V12, and Grandi Complicazioni: What Lies Behind the Codalunga’s Price
In practical terms, those $14.5 million cover several very specific dimensions:
- a unique “long tail” design, developed only for a few units;
- a bespoke V12 powertrain, rare in 2026 and very costly to homologate;
- a level of interior and exterior craftsmanship close to haute horlogerie;
- a client co-creation program via the Pagani Grandi Complicazioni division.
The term “Codalunga” translates to “long tail.” At the rear, the engine cover is lengthened by roughly 360 mm compared to a standard Huayra, for a surface area of over 3.7 square meters. Pagani has removed the rear grille: the four titanium exhaust outlets, grouped at the center, hover almost in mid-air, like the prototypes at Le Mans in the 1960s. The lines are intentionally smooth, stripped of any superfluous elements, in Horacio Pagani’s “less is more” philosophy. The cabin follows the same art-object logic: aged braided leather, wood, hand-polished mass-produced aluminum parts, fabrics created specifically for the model. This work earned a design prize at the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este 2023—a detail that matters to collectors.
Under this bodywork, the specs sit at the level of the world’s finest hypercars. The 5.98-liter twin-turbo V12, developed by Mercedes‑AMG for Pagani, delivers 840 horsepower and 1,100 Nm on the Codalunga coupe, with the Speedster edging up to about 852 horsepower. All of it is paired with a dry weight around 1,280 kg, thanks to the Carbo-Titanium and Carbo-Triax monocoque, carbon-ceramic brakes, and a titanium exhaust weighing a mere 4.4 kg. The Speedster can even be equipped with a true 7-speed manual transmission—a rare feat with such a modern turbocharged V12, requiring dedicated development and homologation. The project demanded mockups, iterations, and years of tuning for… fifteen cars in total, including the coupes and the Speedster. On the road, early tests describe a machine of almost fragile beauty, yet capable of ferocious mechanical brutality and steering feedback that truly makes you feel connected to a living thing. In this universe, those who choose a Codalunga aren’t merely buyers of cars; they’re patrons of automotive art.
