(car revving)
- Christian von Koenigsegg always knew
what he wanted to be when he grew up.
Like all kids, he had a big dream,
but he didn't want to be an astronaut,
or a rock star, or a pro athlete,
He wanted to build cars and drive really freakin' fast!
(revving)
He held onto that dream and never wavered.
He's basically Lex Luthor without
the incessant desire to rule the world,
but he is just as bald.
(dings)
This is everything you need to know
to get up to speed on Koenigsegg.
(8-bit music)
As Christian Koenigsegg tells it,
his need for speed began at the tender age of five
when he saw Flaklypa Grand Prix,
a stop-motion animated movie in which a bicycle repairman
builds a race car with the help of some animal friends
and wins the big race against
a world-class Formula One driver.
That's a real movie, look it up
At that moment, Koenigsegg knew that
he wanted to start his own car company,
but he was five, so that dream had to wait.
Undeterred, he started driving anyway,
and just a year later, he took his first go-kart for a spin.
To this day, he refers to those initial moments
behind the wheel as the best of his life.
By the time he was eight, he had torn apart
and rebuilt a motorcycle, and just a few years after that,
he had a fleet of rebuilt and roadworthy mopeds for sale.
That's right, Koenigsegg became a used moped salesman at 15.
For Koenigsegg, the hits just kept on coming.
He knew he had to get a lot of money
from somewhere to start a car company,
and eventually landed on an idea
that helped him build what he had always imagined.
What helped him make his fortune?
Koenigsegg became a frozen chicken tycoon.
He created a company in which he did little more
than buy things and sell them for a profit.
In 1994, with nothing to lose and everything to gain,
he created the Koenigsegg car company.
So, how does a guy from Sweden,
who's new to the competitive market of supercars
make himself known as somebody to be reckoned with?
By creating a compact, agile mid-engine car
with a removable and stowable hardtop that didn't yet exist.
He figured that with the money he had amassed
in trading bags and chickens, he could find the right people
to help him build his first prototype within a year,
a timeline he now admits was more than a little ambitious.
- Looking back at that, that was, of course, insanity.
- He came up with the company's first prototype,
the Koenigsegg CC in 1996.
But it took another six years to sell
the first pre-series production model,
the Koenigsegg CC8S, which featured the short overhangs,
larger air intakes, and mid-engine design
Koenigsegg had drawn up in the early nineties.
With the CC8S just two weeks away
from showing at the Geneva Motor Show in 2003,
a fire engulfed the Koenigsegg factory.
But all was not lost!
Staffers who were onsite at the time of the blaze
managed to save the cars.
That's love, I wouldn't save (bleeps) from a fire.
Not even Bart or Nolan.
The fire was a small bump in the road
as Koenigsegg rolled onto great success.
Guinness proclaimed the CC8S's 655 horsepower engine
made it the world's most powerful production car ever!
And Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson was similarly blown away
by what Koenigsegg had accomplished, calling the CC8S his
favorite supercar in fierce competition.
Koenigsegg proved his fledgling car company
was on solid footing against older,
more established supercar brands.
From 2004 to 2006, the company produced the CCR,
which featured an upgraded body design.
The CCR's twin supercharged engine topped that of the CC8S
at a whopping 806 horsepower.
And it too broke records as it became
the fastest production car in the world.
(revving)
It also took the Top Gear lap record
with a time that stood for over two years.
The next model, the CCX
made it's debut in 2006
and while it had all the bells and whistles
of earlier Koenigseggs,
it was a new direction in automotive superiority
for the car company.
It was in that year that Koenigsegg truly went global,
as the CCX was the first model to be sold in the US.
It even set another record on the Top Gear test track,
where it reached speeds of 196 miles per hour,
and that record stayed in place for the next seven years.
Like an automotive Superman,
Koenigsegg was not only interested in speed,
but saving the planet,
and continues to release green versions
of the models he introduces.
In 2007 he launched the CCXR,
the first ever green hyper car in the world.
Sure, the CCXR ran on gas,
but it was also calibrated to run on E85 and E100 biofuel.
The CCX and CCXR edition models
followed in 2008
and featured clear carbon bodies, 11 spoke wheels,
bespoke aerodynamics and specifically tuned suspensions.
The CCXR Edition's output remained at 1,004 horsepower,
but the CCX's was up to 876 horsepower,
and again, Koenigsegg set several new speed records.
(revving)
And a performance benchmark of zero to 300 to zero
kilometers an our in just 29.2 seconds
and accelerated from zero to 200 kilometers an hour
in 9.3 seconds.
I don't know how fast that is, 'cause I'm American,
and I don't know what a (beeps) kilometer is.
- You naive American man-boy.
- The CCXR Trevita and the CCXR Special Edition
were up next in 2009.
The Trevita had an exclusive limited run
with just two cars created due to technical problems,
but the car had a body made entirely
of proprietary material consisting
of diamond-coated carbon fiber.
The Trevita and the Special Edition models
were very limited runs,
as were most of Koenigsegg's earlier models,
but they paved the way in design and creation
for Koenigsegg's most ambitious model yet.
In 2010 Koenigsegg introduced the supercar
that would change the game forever, the Agera.
(revving)
Designed with former models in mind,
it added to the tradition of a bigger and better supercar
with new features including a wider front track,
newer styling, aerodynamics and interiors.
It also featured a five liter, twin turbo v8
and a seven speed dual clutch transmission.
The Agera was everything Christian
imagined his Koenigsegg could be,
but being the enterprising genius he is,
he knew that he could make something better.
In 2014 Koenigsegg bestowed the One:1 on the world.
The most exclusive production car
ever imagined in the industry.
The One:1 had a power to weight ratio of one to one.
That's twice as good as a Bugatti Veyron.
It made 1,011 pound feet of torgue
and ran on normal gasoline, race fuel or E85.
The six production models made were sold out
before it even made it's official debut.
It paved the way for the next generation of sports car
by building on the highest performance standard
of any car manufacturer to date.
The Agera continued production until 2017.
Going out in a blaze of glory
by cementing it's legend on a dusty stretch
of closed Nevada highway.
Powered by an engine that produced 1,160 horsepower
and 944 pound feet of torque
it reached a top verified speed
of 277.87 miles per hour,
- Are you sure about that?
(revving)
("Frolic" by Luciano Michelini)
Making it the fastest production car in the world.
So, where does Koenigsegg go from there?
In 2015 he introduced the Regera Hybrid Hyper Car
which utilizes a twin turbocharged v8, three electric motors
and gearless Koenigsegg direct drive.
So, it too can reach speeds of over 250 miles an hour.
(revving)
The company plans to produce 80 of the cars
and even though they have yet to leave the production line,
they're already sold out.
Christian von Koenigsegg is someone I look up to.
He never gave up, he saw what he wanted to do,
and he went after it with all he had.
He didn't settle for less, he didn't settle for good enough,
he wanted his cars to be better
than the establishment in every way.
- Why would you buy a car from
a small, obscure Swedish car manufacturer?
Because no one else can do what we're doing.
If you want that, you can't get it anywhere else.
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