Pagani Joins Motor Valley's V12 Manual Revival

Pagani has announced the Huayra 70 Derecho, a roofless supercar equipped with a twin-turbo AMG V12 engine and a gated manual gearbox, according to Motor1. The car is the second of three special models created to mark Horacio Pagani's 70th birthday and represents another statement from an Emilia-Romagna manufacturer that mechanical engagement still holds appeal for elite buyers.

The move mirrors Ferrari's recent launch of a limited-edition 12-cylinder model with manual transmission, Reuters reported in early July. Both manufacturers are betting that a cohort of wealthy enthusiasts will value the tactile connection of a gated shifter and hand-operated clutch over the efficiency and speed of modern automatics, even as the industry pivots toward electrification.

Motor Valley—the stretch of the Emilia-Romagna plain that houses Ferrari in Maranello, Lamborghini in Sant'Agata Bolognese, Pagani in San Cesario sul Panaro, and Ducati in Bologna—has long defined itself through engineering precision and the marriage of mechanical sophistication with raw power. The Huayra 70 Derecho signals that this identity extends to resisting the industry's broader shift toward hybrid and electric drivetrains, at least for a privileged subset of customers willing to pay for nostalgia.

Pagani, founded in 1992, has built its reputation on carbon-fiber construction and hand-assembled engines. The new roadster's gated shifter—a mechanical selector that requires deliberate physical input from the driver—echoes the manual boxes that defined supercars in the 1980s and 1990s, before paddle-shift automatics and dual-clutch systems became standard. Autoweek reported in early July that Lamborghini, the third major Motor Valley producer, has taken a different path with its new Fenomeno Roadster, a 1,065-horsepower hybrid that points toward the region's electrified future.

The tension between these two approaches—Pagani and Ferrari doubling down on mechanical tradition, Lamborghini embracing hybrid power—reflects a broader reckoning across the region's luxury engineering sector. For Pagani, the birthday tribute to its founder appears designed to position manual transmissions not as backward-looking nostalgia but as a deliberate choice for discerning drivers. Whether that argument holds as emissions regulations tighten and battery technology improves remains an open question for Motor Valley.