As limited-run Paganis go, this one takes the opposite approach to what we’ve seen before. The fussiness and addenda are stripped back, as the bodywork itself is elongated and smoothed.

“The Huayra Codalunga comprises very few essential elements,” Pagani has said of the project. “We have taken away rather than added. Simplifying is not at all straightforward, and this vehicle is, above all, the result of a complex pursuit of simple ideas.”

Indeed, there are no spoilers, no canards and barely a drop of garish exposed carbon fibre. 

Instead, it gains 360mm of length, most of which is in the engine cover and tail, while that tail has been stretched and redesigned, with the lights rearranged from their triangular formation into an upward-canting line. The clam engine cover now spans a monster 3.7m2, which is to say, don’t lift without assistance. Amazingly, but entirely in keeping with Pagani, this Huayra with all that extra bodywork weighs just 1,280kg.

At the front, the Huayra has been modernised and simplified. The very Zonda-esque integrated light units courtesy, we think, of the upcoming Huayra replacement, the C10, replace the four-per-side arrangement of the normal Huayra. The oval ‘mouth’ is retained – albeit with no aggressive splitter element below – as are the active winglet elements, which are also retained at the rear.

The Codalunga also inherits the buttress inlets first seen on the Huayra BC Roadster, which are also expected to feature on the C10. They’ll be feeding the 6.0-litre twin-turbo Mercedes-AMG V12 from the Huayra Tricolore that’s good for 841PS (618kW), which is also expected to live on in the C10. There are no performance numbers, but minus the drag of the usual Pagani aero frippery and with the added stability of an elongated rear end, we wouldn’t be surprised if this is a 240mph car.

The project was the brainchild of two particularly enthusiastic and persistent Pagani customers who’ve been nurturing the idea for some time. It’s proved the perfect breakout model for Pagani’s new Grandi Complicazioni division for special projects. The Codalunga has a price befitting a special project with so much new design and homologation required: £6million each and yes, all five are sold.