Horacio Pagani spent 60 years dreaming of this Ferrari, then finally bought it
From carving balsa-wood models to owning the real thing
This is a proper petrolhead fairytale. Long before he built some of the world's most exotic hypercars, a young Horacio Pagani was a broke kid in Argentina, sketching cars and carving models out of balsa wood, mesmerised by a Ferrari he had seen on a magazine cover. Six decades later, he owns it, and has restored it to exactly the standard he always imagined.
A dream born on a magazine cover
Pagani's obsession began more than 60 years ago, when he saw a light-blue Ferrari 275 GTB on the cover of Argentine magazine Automundo. For a boy with barely a peso to his name, it was an impossible fantasy, but it lodged deep, feeding the drawings and hand-carved models that set him on the path to founding his own supercar company. That the man behind the Zonda and Huayra was shaped by a single Ferrari image is a wonderful piece of car history.
The very special car he found
In 2022, Pagani finally bought a 275 GTB4 at an RM Sotheby's sale, and not just any example. Chassis 09021 is the first pre-series car built, displayed at the Paris Motor Show and later used as a Ferrari demonstrator for clients and press, making it historically significant in its own right. It is one of just 280 275 GTB4s ever made. The 275 GTB4 itself is a landmark Ferrari, the road car that introduced the four-cam Colombo V12, with around 300 hp from its 3.3-litre engine and timeless Pininfarina lines.
Restored to perfection
True to his perfectionist reputation, Pagani did not simply preserve the car as found. He spent months on historical research with Ferrari Classiche expert Andrea Modena, before a full restoration by Kessel in Lugano. The standout detail is the paint: rather than approximate the shade, the team recreated the original Rosso Rubino using a tin of the 1960s colour that, remarkably, was still usable after all those decades. Every finish and surface was returned to the standard he felt the car deserved.
AutoNext Take
Every so often a car story cuts through the spec sheets and just makes you smile, and this is one of them. There is something deeply moving about a penniless kid who sketched a dream Ferrari growing up to build his own legendary marque, and then, decades later, buying and lovingly restoring the exact car that started it all. The obsessive touch of hunting down 1960s paint to get the colour perfect is pure Pagani, the same fanaticism that goes into his hypercars. Proof that the best cars are never really about the money, but about the emotion they stir. A lovely tale.
For more classic Ferrari magic, a Rosso Dino Enzo just set an online auction record, and Touring Superleggera reimagined a 550 as the Veloce12 Aperta. If you love classics like this, our royal Bugatti heads to the Zoute Concours.
