Five Minutes of the Best Sounding Car Ever: the V12 Pagani Zonda

Or check out that moment where a Mercedes-AMG A45 somehow gets in the middle of a Zonda parade. Not only does it look like a sheep lost among the wolves, but it also sounds like telephone ring tone compared to a car alarm. And make no mistake: even with the 2.0-liter four-cylinder engine, the A45 is a nice sounding car when not surrounded by hundreds of Italian naturally aspirated cylinders.

There's also a scene where the Zonda is closely followed by a Huayra. The second Pagani hypercar wins the beauty contest, when the time comes to open its mouth, what comes out of it is no match for Zonda's tune. The Mercedes-AMG 6.0-liter bi-turbo V12 engine desperately needs a very good exhaust system to sound the par, and even then it struggles to be anywhere near.

The Pagani Zonda was the quintessential Italian supercar. Forget about Ferrari or Lamborghini - those two are already mainstream. Yes, they do make a few models that are more exclusive than unicorns, but the brands themselves have gotten a bit diluted over time. They're in no danger of rivaling the like of Volkswagen just yet, but you have to agree that you're at least twenty times more likely to come across a Ferrari than a Pagani.

The Zonda actually used a variety of engines throughout the 13 years it has been in production, but they were all V12s ant they all came from Affalterbach. And they are probably all featured in this video, from the "smallest" 6.0-liter to the 7.0-liter, and the largest one, the 7.3-liter. No matter the displacement, they all sound marvelous, and for once, it's not about the exhaust.

An Italian hypercar with a German heart, then? Yes, you could say that, but its soul definitely also comes from the boot-shaped peninsula.