This Is the Face of a Boy Told He Can Sit in His $1.15 Million Dream 'Hypercar

The Huayra by Italian car manufacturer Pagani Automobili represents seven years of research and 4,000 components (not including the engine or gear box) backed a 700 horsepower Mercedes-AMG twin turbo engine with 1100 NM of torque, which Pagani describes as "the brute force of an airplane taking off."

But for one 11-year-old from Los Angeles, it also represents his dream car.

DRIVE, a YouTube channel that "celebrates the culture of cars," recently made an appearance at the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance in Monterey Bay, Calif., and, like many spectators, was drawn to the $1, 150,000 car. It was among the onlookers though that DRIVE found someone equally as amazing as the car itself. It was a boy who arguably loved the car more than anyone else in the crowd. He knew the minute details of the vehicle -- one which many may not even know exists -- and has posters of it plastered on his bedroom wall.

To him, "it represents everything that is Italian."

"It's made out of exotic materials and carbon fiber. And it's made by people in lab coats and stuff. It's all scientific," he said.

When asked if he wants the chance to sit in the $1.15 million car, the boy is speechless. When he regains some vocal function the phrases he is able to eek out as he makes his way toward the drivers' side and slides behind the wheel are "oh my God," "wow," and "this is amazing."

Jokingly suggesting the boy buy the car, he asks "how much does it cost?" They respond, "for you, a dollar," clearly enjoying his response to the vehicle he has only seen on TV ("Top Gear," the British version) and in video games.

"It just feels so exotic," he said, explaining how it felt to sit in the supercar. "Knowing that it's the most exotic Italian car and I'm only an 11-year-old boy with posters of this on my wall, and I actually get to sit in one."

Watch his reaction for yourself:

Dan Neil for the Wall Street Journal recently got to review the Huayra (pronounced Why-ra) and wrote that it is "beautiful, sculptural, harmonious, enlightened, as elemental as the air for which it is named." Here's more on what he had to say about the "hypercar" and how it matched other supercars he has seen:

I want you to know I’ve seen a lot of million-dollar artisanal hypercars. I’ve seen massively overblown V12 engines before, heard the supersonic yelps of twin turbos in perdition. I’ve seen laser-etched monogrammed titanium bolts all torqued to face the same precise direction; I’ve seen carbon-titanium monocoques, gold-anodized aluminum pushrod suspension links, chrome-moly subframes with titanium heim-joints and obsessive, horological displays of precision machining. Seen it. Bugatti EB110, Koenigsegg, Spyker, to name a few.

None of those cars does what this car does. Get this: By virtue of four computer-controlled, electrically actuated flight control surfaces—elevators at the trailing edge of the car and ailerons in the nose, between the front wheel wells—the Huayra aero-stabilizes. The control surfaces, acting independently or together with a variable angle of attack of up to 20 degrees (front) and 40 degrees (rear), move the car’s center of aerodynamic balance around to compensate for the forces of pitch, roll, yaw and high-speed lift.

Be sure to read more of Neil's piece in the Wall Street Journal for more details on the car here.

According to a press release by the company in March, Huayra has 85 confirmed orders and has begun delivery in Europe and Asia. The company spokesperson in the video above says the car will be making its way to American buyers by mid-2013.

Gaining more manufacturing space by the end of this year, the Pagani will produce 40 Huayras per year, allowing them to "keep our exclusivity," the spokesperson said.

“In 2012 25 Huayras will see the light of day, another 40 will follow in 2013," Alberto Giovanilli, head of sales at Pagani Automobili, said in the March press release. "The Pagani dealership family has grown in 2011 and 2012 with new dealerships in Chile, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Thailand, the United Kingdom and in the United States, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco. Nonetheless Pagani is very strict about safeguarding the exclusivity of its small volume production in the respective markets.”

The release also touts the car having the lowest carbon dioxide emissions and the highest fuel efficiency of any 12-cylinder sportscar.

(H/T: Jalopnik)