Pagani Huayra Roadster review

A convertible-roofed car should have an interior you’re proud to show off. Mission well and truly accomplished, here. This is very possibly the most spectacular car cabin of all time.

The doors, now conventionally opened with front-mounted hinges, swing wide open with uncanny lightness, and you stride over a chunky carbon sill, dropping low down into the snug, centralised cockpit. There’s very little space between the two slim seats – just enough for a couple of carbon-lidded stowage cubbies with a USB socket inside, that’ll just about swallow a smartphone. Crowding the seats together gives a racecar-like feel – more McLaren 720S / Ford GT than say, Lamborghini Aventador or Porsche 918. The footwells are shallow, the seats supportive and surprisingly comfy considering they’re barely-there slithers of carbon and leather. That odd lemon-juicer centrepiece between your legs is the height adjustment knob. There’s not much headroom with the lightweight roof panel in place, so best to leave the chair low.

All the main furniture is familiar from the hard-top Huayra, but no less stunning in 2019 than it was when we first clapped eyes on it seven years ago. The milled instruments are just as unreadable (you’ll depend heavily on the digital speedo between the clocks), the 67-piece gear selector stick remains the most tactile delight in any car, and the climate control switchgear and steering wheel buttons are as beautiful to ogle as they are fussy to operate. The clickety dials on the wheel for lights and driving modes (Wet, Comfort, Sport, Race, ESC off – gulp) are much more gratifying to twiddle.

There’s no plastic whatsoever. Everything is titanium, leather and carbon. Every switch and button has the feedback and solidity of a military-grade muscial instrument. And Pagani’s attention to detail isn’t just material-obsessed. The touchscreen, featuring Apple CarPlay, is sharper, quicker and simpler than oodles of mainstream manufacturers.

Seriously, there are only a few hundred Huayras in the world, and yet Pagani has shelled out for a touchscreen better than what giants like Renault, Nissan, Honda, Jaguar and Peugeot can do. The hi-fi is sensational, too. Old Paganis had notoriously crap radio reception, but the Huayra seems to have sussed that out for good.

As I’ve said, you can settle into a strangely untaxing cruise in this mad, mad car, Partly, that’s because the driving position is spot-on, McLaren style. The pedals allow for left-foot braking, the steering wheel glides miles out of the dash to suit your reach, and brings the instrument binnacle with it so the wheel rim never blocks the readouts. And it’s a good cabrio, too. For all the sense of occasion, it’d be a spectacular own goal if the wind played havoc in the cabin every time the car topped 17mph. Happily, the aero has been cleverly tidied up, so it’s possible to chat at A-road speeds – and maybe a little faster, ahem – with the sky invited in.

The roof needs two clips undoing and a tab pushing before it lifts away. It weighs nothing, but beware a gust of breeze dragging the carbon’n’glass section clean out of your butterfingers like a ship’s sail in the wind. Whoops. 

Your butler will have to stow the roof in your Rolls-Royce and follow you, by the way. There’s nowhere to stow it in the Huayra. Supercars are impractical. Who knew?