Pagani Zonda S Roadster

Scope of this guide

This guide is scoped to the Pagani Zonda S 7.3 Roadster, the open-top, two-seat, mid-engine, rear-wheel drive Zonda that Pagani presented at the Geneva Motor Show in March 2003 with the 7.3L V12 naturally aspirated Mercedes-AMG engine of the S 7.3 coupe. It is not a guide to the Zonda S 7.3 coupe, to the earlier 7.0 litre C12 S, to the Zonda F coupe or the Zonda Roadster F of 2006 (650 PS and 780 Nm according to Wikipedia), to the five-car Zonda Cinque Roadster, or to the one-off cars built on the same V12 later on. Those cars have their own entries in this catalogue or none at all, and we say below where they differ, because an advert that says only "Zonda Roadster" can describe several of them.

The naming is untidy. Pagani's own page calls the car simply the Zonda Roadster. Supercar Nostalgia calls it the Zonda C12 S 7.3 Roadster. PistonHeads called a 2004 car a Zonda C12 Roadster, and our catalogue calls it the Zonda S Roadster. For this guide they are one car, the 7.3 litre Roadster of 2003 to 2005, and the end year is our inference from the launch of the Zonda F in 2005 and the Roadster F in 2006, not a date printed by any source we read.

We have not driven this model for this article. Everything here comes from three cited sources: Pagani's own Zonda Roadster page, PistonHeads' June 2011 report on a pink 2004 Roadster, and the government recall checker. We also read the Pagani Zonda S page, Wikipedia, a Supercar Nostalgia technical appraisal by Ben Tyer (6 August 2022) and Chris Harris's PistonHeads piece on the Zonda S (19 April 2013), and we flag every point that rests on them. Where sources disagree we say so rather than pick a winner quietly. Prices are history, not valuations.

The figures at a glance

• Engine: 7.3L V12 naturally aspirated, a Mercedes-Benz M 120 7.3 AMG 60 degree V12 of 7291 cc, mounted longitudinally behind the cabin.
• Power: 547 bhp. Pagani's page prints "(408) 555/5900" in its kilowatt and horsepower columns, so 408 kW and 555 at 5,900 rpm. 408 kW is 555 PS, and 555 PS is about 547 bhp (555 x 0.98632 is 547.4). Wikipedia agrees with 555 PS and 547 hp. PistonHeads and Supercar Nostalgia print 555bhp or 555hp for the same car, which looks like the metric figure under a British label. Our earlier catalogue value of 555 bhp had the same problem.
• Torque: 750 Nm at 4,050 rpm, per Pagani. Supercar Nostalgia and Wikipedia print 553 lb ft, which is the same figure. Chris Harris's 2013 spec box prints 546 lb ft, about 740 Nm by our conversion, so it is a slightly different number.
• 0-100 km/h: 3.7 seconds, as Pagani prints it. Supercar Nostalgia and Chris Harris give 3.7 seconds for 0-62 mph. We could not tell whether Pagani's time was measured or claimed, so treat it as a claim.
• Top speed: 335 km/h, which is Wikipedia's figure (208 mph). Supercar Nostalgia prints 211 mph, about 340 km/h by our conversion. Pagani's Roadster page does not list a top speed, and the 2011 PistonHeads report says only "200+mph". These are claims, not tested numbers.
• Drive: rear-wheel drive and mid-engine, with a mechanical six-speed manual gearbox plus reverse, a twin-plate clutch and a self-locking differential, all per Pagani.
• Weight: 1,280 kg dry on Pagani's spec sheet, which also prints a weight-to-power ratio of 2.30 kg/hp. Supercar Nostalgia gives 1,250 kg for the coupe and 1,280 kg for the Roadster, which is the 30 kg gain Wikipedia also states.
• Size: 4,395 mm long, 2,055 mm wide, 1,151 mm high, on a 2,730 mm wheelbase, per Pagani.

What the Roadster is

Pagani's page describes a central carbon-fibre chassis with front and rear chromium-molybdenum steel space frames, and says the full power is delivered "even during open top driving". It does not say how the roof works. Wikipedia says the Roadster is an open-top version of the S 7.3 with the same components, that Pagani claimed no loss of performance, and that stiffness was kept by strengthening the firewall structure, fitting billet alloy braces where the roof rails would have joined and reinforcing the windscreen instead of adding sill reinforcement. The same article then says the Roadster weighed 1,230 kg, which conflicts with Pagani's 1,280 kg, so we use the manufacturer's figure. Wikipedia describes the removable carbon-fibre roof and canvas side curtains only in its section on the Roadster F, not for this earlier car, and we could not confirm the 2003 car's roof arrangement from a primary source.

Supercar Nostalgia says the Zonda S 7.3 coupe was unveiled at Geneva in March 2002 and the Roadster a year later, and that the 7.3 engine made 555bhp at 5,900 rpm, up from 550bhp for the earlier 7.0 litre car. The torque peak of 553 lb ft at 4,050 rpm is, it says, the same as the 7.0 litre car. The same article reports a seven minute 44 second Nürburgring production-car record for a 7.3 litre Zonda S after launch. That was a coupe, so it is context, not a Roadster number.

How the later cars differ

The 2005 Zonda F coupe moved to a new M297 version of the 7.3 litre V12 with 602 PS and 760 Nm, and Wikipedia says 25 were made. The Zonda Roadster F followed in 2006, with 650 PS, 780 Nm and 25 units. Neither is the car in this guide. The Cinque Roadster of 2009 was a five-car run. If an advert quotes 602 PS, 650 PS or 760 Nm, it is not describing a 2003 Roadster as delivered.

That does not mean a 7.3 Roadster is always standard. The 2011 PistonHeads report is about a 2004 Roadster, originally yellow and repainted pink, that Pagani took back to the factory in 2008 for conversion to F specification: a new diffuser, a new exhaust and a reworked ECU. The report gives 555bhp before the work and 602bhp after, and a top speed of more than 210 mph afterwards compared with 200 mph plus before. So a car sold as a "Roadster" may have been upgraded, and the paperwork needs to say which.

How many were built

The count is the weakest number in this guide. Pagani's Roadster page says the cars are produced in a limited run of 40 units, and Wikipedia says a total of 40 roadsters were produced. Supercar Nostalgia says only 30 examples of the 7.3 litre Zonda S were built in all, 18 coupes and 12 Roadsters. Pagani gives no build years on its page. We cannot reconcile these figures, so our catalogue states no production count. Treat 40 as the announced limit, not a proven total. Ask Pagani for the chassis number and build record of any car you are offered.

Ownership notes

There is no published running-cost schedule for this car that we could find, and we do not invent one. What we do have is limited. Chris Harris wrote in 2013 that the Zonda dispelled the myth of the cottage-industry supercar as all looks and no durability, and that a 2002 test car with about 40,000 km on it felt as if it could do 400,000 km. That was a coupe, driven many years ago, and it is a single driver's impression, not a reliability statistic. A PistonHeads forum thread we saw only in summary claimed that engines have long been unavailable and that bodywork can cost very large sums, and we could not verify either claim, so ask Pagani about parts and repair before you commit.

The 2011 report also gives a sense of how these cars were once priced at auction: Bonhams estimated 200,000 to 250,000 pounds for the pink Roadster at the Goodwood Festival of Speed, and PistonHeads said a car in the EU would carry a 20 per cent import tax on top of the hammer price. Both facts are over a decade old and say nothing about current values.

What to check before buying

• Confirm which specification the car has: the original 547 bhp (555 PS) 7.3 litre, or an F-specification upgrade like the 2008 conversion described above. Ask for the factory records.
• Ask Pagani to confirm the chassis number, build date, owner history and any factory work. Do not rely on an advert's "one of 40" claim.
• Check how the roof panel is fitted, stored and sealed, and that the windscreen and its frame show no repair. This is our general advice for any open-top carbon car, not a source-backed fault.
• Inspect the carbon bodywork, the front splitter, the underbody and the wheels for kerb and track damage.
• Ask for the clutch, differential and tyre history. Clutch wear and tyre age matter on a car with this much torque, and old tyres are a safety question whatever the tread says. That is our general advice, not a source-backed fault.
• Have an independent specialist inspect the car, because there is no ordinary dealer network for a car like this.
• Run the registration, or the make, model and year, through the recall check described below.

Recalls and the DVSA check

We did not run the government checker, because we are not looking at a specific car. The page says you can check a car with its registration number on the MOT service, which shows safety recalls that have not been checked or fixed, or search by manufacturer, model and year if you have no registration. It also says the online checks cover safety recalls only and that a manufacturer will tell you about a recall for any other reason. We found no recall notice for the Zonda Roadster in any source, and absence from our sources is not a clean bill of health. A car imported from outside the UK may not appear on the checker, so also ask Pagani whether any service bulletin applies.

About the photograph

The picture at the top of this page shows a yellow car with a black roof panel fitted, photographed on 11 July 2024 according to the file's metadata and credited to Calreyn88 on Wikimedia Commons under CC BY-SA 4.0. The Commons file is titled "Pagani Zonda S Roadster" but describes it only as "Pagani Zonda", so we have not independently confirmed the exact model year or specification, and we use it to show the shape. We cropped it to 16:9 and resized it. We did not blur anything.

Verdict

The Zonda S 7.3 Roadster in this guide is 547 bhp (555 PS), 750 Nm, a claimed 3.7 seconds to 100 km/h and a claimed 335 km/h, rear-wheel drive and mid-engine, in a run of about 40 cars at most and possibly fewer. It is an open version of a hand-built carbon-fibre car, and its paperwork matters more than its headline figures. If you are shopping for one, confirm which of the several Roadster specifications you are looking at, insist on a full history and on Pagani's own confirmation of the chassis, and treat every published number as a claim with the caveats above. We have not driven it, so use the sources and a proper inspection to decide.