Wallpapers: Pagani’s incredible Zonda LM

Outside Pagani’s factory test drivers and the lucky owner, only Top Gear shall drive the one-off Zonda LM.

So it wasn’t exactly the greatest of starts when our stubby-fingered writer Jason Barlow managed to break it.

But before you fill the comments section with bile, it wasn’t in a crashy-crashy-oh-that’s-expensive way.

While getting to grips with the 700bhp-plus carbon-bodied exotic, a not-unimportant piece of switchgear failed. It was the ASR traction-control button (a parts-bin Mercedes item, ironically), which disappeared into the area beneath the gear selector.

Not knowing whether the traction control is on is a bit of a problem when AMG’s 7.3-litre engine is bolted in behind your head, north of 700bhp is under your right foot, and Gran Sasso – a vast and twisty tract of impossibly beautiful national park on Italy’s eastern seaboard – is your view out of the windscreen.

But traction issues aside, Gran Sasso was the perfect place to take the LM: Horacio’s bespoke four-wheeled sculpture.

The LM is as outrageous as road-legal Zondas get. It’s a step beyond even the Cinque, basically a road-going echo of the positively potty Pagani Zonda R.

With a new front end making it look like Italy’s own Group C throwback, a roof-mounted air intake and fin, plus a rear-wing fit for Le Mans, the LM could well be the most outrageous-looking and aero-effective road car of all time.

“Never mind trees and hedges blurring past,” eulogised our man Barlow. “The Zonda LM can make entire mountains disappear. It’s surreal and unreal. It’s emotional.”

To read the full story, click these blue words.

Once you’re done, do your desktop the courtesy of plastering it with Pagani. Just click the full screen/make-it-big icon in bottom-right of the gallery above, and save the super hi-res images to your desktop.