The Pagani Alisea concept celebrates the Zonda’s 25th birthday
Pagani has collaborated with the Istituto Europeo di Design in Turin to reinvent the Zonda as a hypercar of the future
It’s hard to overstate the titanic impact the Pagani Zonda had on the world when the covers first came off at the 1999 Geneva motor show. It was an instant design classic, and as the Zonda reaches its 25th birthday this year, Pagani is celebrating by bringing it back to life.
Meet the Alisea: a design study created in collaboration between Pagani and students from the Istituto Europeo di Design in Turin. The prototype remoulds iconic Zonda design cues into a sleek, futuristic form intended to resemble a hypercar from 2049.
The Alisea is very much a static concept car, so don’t expect it to take the mantle from the Utopia any time soon. What it does do is preview how Paganis could evolve in two or three decades, with an ultra-modern interpretation of the Zonda’s design cues.
At the front, the short, steeply-angled nose bears clear resemblance to the original, along with the tall peaks of the wheelarches and dual-element headlights. Pagani’s ellipse signature features on the lower bumper, and the Zonda’s Group C-style cab-forward proportions have been reinterpreted with cleaner, more minimalist lines.
A rising beltline leads into a Utopia-esque rear end with a pair of floating rear spoilers mounted either side of the company’s signature quad-tailpipes. It’s unlikely that the Alisea has been designed with production in mind, but its creators say that it houses a mid-mounted AMG V12. Continuing the analogue theme, you’ll find three pedals and a gear lever inside the prototype, along with a digitised Zonda-style dashboard and low scuttle.
Speaking on the project, Pagani’s Advanced Design Lead Alberto Piccolo said: ‘The shared experience between IED Torino students and us at Pagani Automobili has turned out to be extremely formative. We got the chance to lead young talents, tapping into the consolidated knowledge and everyday practices that we, as designers and automotive engineers, apply to the industry. At the same time, we have benefited from their fresh and uncontaminated approach.’
If this is a taste of where Pagani is headed in the next 25 years, consider us intrigued.
