Argentine Horacio Pagani is the owner and founder of an Italian specialty auto-maker Pagani Automobili S.p.A. in 1992 and is based in San Cesario sul Panaro, near Modena, Italy. The first car he produced was the Zonda and it took seven years to complete. He has an estimated net worth of $15 million that he earned while working as a composite specialist for Lamborghini and his ownership of his own company. Born on November 10, 1955 in Casilda, Argentina, his father was a descendant of Italian emigrants. He enjoyed designing cars out of balsa wood at a very young age. These designs can now be seen in the Pagani showroom.

In 1983, Pagani moved to Italy with a letter of recommendation by Juan Manuel Fangio to pursue his dream of building a supercar. He had designed and built his first F3 racer at the age of 20 which he worked for as a composite specialist in the 80s. He was a chief engineer at Lamborghini and built the Countach Evoluzione concept. He tried to persuade Lamborghini to buy an autoclave so they could extend the production of the carbon parts for the Evoluzione yet they refused. They said that neither did Ferrari have an autoclave, nor did the Lamborghini need one. In late 1987, he took the credit to buy an autoclave. In 1988, he founded Pagani Composite Research and worked with Lamborghini on various projects. These include the resylingofthe 25th Anniversary Countach, the Lamborghini LM002, the P140 design concept, and the Diablo. He began designing his own car. He referred to it as the “C8 Project” and he planned to rename it the “Fangio F1” to honour his five-time Argentinian F1 champion friend Fangio.

In 1991, Horacio Pagani left the company and founded his own consultancy called Modena Design. It continues to make carbon fiber composites for Formula One clients such as Daimler, Ferrari and Aprilia. He began the construction of the Fangio F1 prototype in 1992 and it was tested at the Dallara wind tunnerl with positive results in 1993. Mercedes-Benz agreed to supply him with V12 engines in 1994. The total cost of the cars is $2.3 million and its final name was Zonda C12. The Fangio F1 name was dropped out of respect for Fangio who died in 1995. It was first presented at the 1999 Geneva Motor Show. He announced in 2005 that it will triple the production output within the next three years and will enter the market in 2007. On July 26, 2010, he claimed a new record for production based cars using the Pagani Zonda R and completing the Nürburgring in 6:47, beating the Ferrari 599XX.