A few car brands tend to dominate the list of the most expensive cars globally, and this year, it was Pagani. At a price tag that starts at about $3.4 million, the Pagani Huayra is one of the most expensive production cars in the world. However, it’s not the most costly. That honor goes to a related car, the Pagani Huayra Tricolore. 

Pagani’s small tribute to the Italian Air Force

Like The Drive wrote, at $6.5 million, the Tricolore is currently the most expensive production car globally. It’s not that close of a race, either. The runner-up was the Bugatti Chiron Pur Sport, which cost about $3.6 million. This means that the Tricolore costs almost $3 million more than the next most expensive car. 

However, there’s some debate about whether the Tricolore counts as a production car in the first place. This is because the most expensive production cars tend to be hypercars. Those cars tend to have limited production runs. There are no hard and fast rules here, but many of the vehicles that made The Drive’s list only have a few dozen units rolling around. The Tricolore takes this to an extreme, as Pagani only built three of them. 

This low production number puts some doubt about whether it qualifies, but Pagani only made three for a reason. According to CNET, that was because Pagani wanted to honor the Italian Air Force with the Tricolore. Each Tricolore has a unique number that honors a specific plane in the Italian Air Force’s aerobatic’s team. There’s the No. 0, the No. 1, and the No. 10.  

The hypercar performance of the Pagani Huayra Tricolore

According to The Drive, the Tricolore is ultimately a modified Huayra. While it has many unique features and parts, it’s fundamentally very similar to a regular Huayra, which is still a pretty powerful vehicle. It has a 6.0-liter twin-turbocharged V12 engine.

The Tricolore’s V12 has been slightly modified. According to CNET, it should get 829 hp and 811 lb-ft of torque. This represents a modest increase in power over the regular Huayra. The Tricolore’s V12 should get about 38 hp and 37 lb-ft of torque, more than the standard Huayra. It’s not clear how fast the Tricolore is, but the older Huayra could go from 0 to 60 mph in 3.2 seconds and top out at 230 mph.

A light and luxurious design

Compared to hypercars with engines that generate over 1,000 hp, the Tricolore’s numbers may not seem too impressive. However, like any other hypercar, its V12 can do a lot of work, largely thanks to how light the car is. As CNET wrote, this is because Pagani used a lot of carbon fiber and aluminum on the vehicle.

This is true on both the outside and on the inside of the Tricolore. The Huayra was known for having a strange interior, so it’s no surprise that it’s the same story as the Tricolore. For example, while the Tricolore has the usual hypercar amenities such as leather seats, racing harnesses, and a lot of unique badging, it also has a sort of useless accessory. 

CNET said that the Tricolore has a Pitot tube on the car’s nose, which is not very common on a production car. This device is used to measure airspeed on planes, which isn’t very useful on a vehicle. But, since the Tricolore only has seats for two people, practicality isn’t a big deal.