Some cars define a career. Others are a part of a lifetime. For Horacio Pagani, the Ferrari 275 GTB4 It has never been just a car: it is the dream that has been with him since his childhood in Argentina—a dream he was finally able to realize only after nearly sixty years of waiting. The founder of Pagani, now recognized as one of the world’s leading supercar manufacturers, has just shared the very personal story that connects him to this Ferrari exceptional. A story that begins long before the Zonda or the Huayra, in the Argentine pampas.
A Ferrari spotted in a magazine
In the 1960s, young Horacio grew up in a community of Italian immigrants in the province of Santa Fe. One day, he came across the cover of a car magazine Automundo. It shows a Ferrari 275 GTB photographed alongside Enzo Ferrari. At the time, the publication was almost entirely in black and white, but this image appears in color.
The impact was immediate. That light blue Ferrari became the car of his dreams. Even after he moved to Italy and went on to create his own brand, that fascination never faded. For decades, Pagani continued to think about that car he had admired when he had neither the money nor any prospect of ever owning one.
Not just any Ferrari 275 GTB4
The dream finally came true in 2022. But Horacio Pagani didn’t buy just any Ferrari 275 GTB4. He acquired chassis No. 09021, the very first pre-production model unveiled at the 1966 Paris Motor Show. This car is one of only 280 Ferrari 275 GTB4s ever produced. After its debut in Paris, it was used as a demonstration car in France before passing through the hands of several prestigious owners. Among them was French race car driver Jean-Pierre Beltoise, who had test-driven it at the time to Auto-Journal. He described the Ferrari at the time as a true «thoroughbred,» capable of covering long distances at impressive speeds while maintaining remarkable comfort.
An Obsessive Restoration
When Horacio Pagani got the car back, it had been out of commission for a long time. The manufacturer then decided to undertake a complete restoration. «I’m a perfectionist, and everything has to be flawless,» he explains.
The most surprising detail concerns its color. Unsatisfied with the initial repaint, Pagani conducted research with Ferrari Classiche. This led to an extraordinary discovery: Egidio Bonfatti, a former craftsman who had worked on certain special Italian bodywork projects at the time, still had a can of the original Rosso Rubino paint in his garage. More than fifty years later, this paint made it possible to recreate the car’s exact shade thanks to numerous tests conducted over several months.
«I feel the same excitement I did as a child»
Today, when Horacio Pagani gets behind the wheel of his Ferrari 275 GTB4, he relives the feelings he had as a young Argentine boy. He recalls the roar of the V12, the rev counter vibrating, and shifting into first gear before taking off. Despite an exceptional career and the creation of some of the world’s most exclusive hypercars, this Ferrari still holds a special place in his heart.
«When I drive it, I feel the same excitement I did as a child, when I didn’t have a penny to my name and could only dream of these cars,» he says. For Horacio Pagani, it took nearly sixty years to rediscover the Ferrari that had changed his life even before he began building his own cars.
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