The article was originally produced on September 10, 2013, some facts and prices may have changed since then.

Koenigsegg Agera R

Describing the Koenigsegg Agera R must be done with a certain melancholy between the superlatives. 

The Discovery TV channel showed a documentary about volcanoes and seismologists in their work. A young scientist is interviewed after a volcano erupts. When asked how he feels, he answers that he feels depressed and sad. The reason is that he saw an entire mountain practically disappear in the violent explosion caused by the eruption. An experience that exceeds anything he will probably ever experience during the rest of his life, this at the age of only 21 years. In the same way, one can describe the feelings that arise after driving the Koenigsegg Agera R - what else is there to drive that can exceed this? The simple answer is nothing.

In Ängelholm on the Swedish west coast, hyper sports cars have been built for twenty years. By now, most people should be familiar with Christian and his tenacious work to put the Koenigsegg brand on the world map. Neither fires, financial crises nor crashed Saab deals have put an end to him. The latest addition to the models that the small factory produces is called Agera R. Christian says that the name Agera came about after the Saab deal, together with the Norwegian entrepreneur Bård Eker, did not go through. After this, the company had to "act" to survive and hence the model name. 

There is no doubt that Christian's time is short, when he arrives at the factory he has just been to a meeting in Malmö and has to rush off to another one as soon as a tour and handover of the car is done. Despite this, Christian is seen as anything but stressed, he takes the time to show around and excitedly explains all the things that have changed over the years. He tells us that from the beginning much of the production was outsourced to external companies. In recent years, virtually all manufacturing has been brought home under the same roof, in this way the quality level has been raised considerably and you have much better control over all pieces in production. 

- It has been said many times by ignorant people that we use a Ford block for our engine, says Christian. 

Something that is not right, the V8 engine of 5 liters with twin turbo units has been completely in-house manufactured for many years. With ethanol in the tank, the engine delivers 1,144 horsepower to the rear tires via the 7-speed dual clutch gearbox. On regular gasoline, the output is 960 horsepower. If you look at what all this power means in performance, it becomes really interesting, a lot of numbers, but unique ones. 0-100 goes in 2.8 seconds, here the Agera R is in the same time as, for example, the Lamborghini Aventador and the significantly cheaper Nissan GT-R. The time it takes to reach 200 km/h, on the other hand, is more impressive with its 7.8 seconds. What is more astonishing, however, is the time it takes to reach 300 km/h, which is only 12.6 seconds, i.e. almost 3 seconds faster than the Bugatti Veyron SS itself. Finally, if we look at the time it takes the Agera R to go 0 to 300 to 0 which is 21.19 seconds, well then it is a world record, one of six world records set in 2012.

The respect that comes when a Koenigsegg stands in front of you is very special, it doesn't matter how many Ferraris or Lamborghinis you've seen, this is something completely different. You can get the car pretty much exactly how you want it, each car is completely made based on the buyer's choice and no two are the same. Either you can choose to have a lacquer which is of such high quality that it looks more like porcelain than lacquered metal. Or you choose to have naked polished carbon fiber with clear lacquer, a material that makes the heart beat a few extra beats. Once inside the car and in the driver's seat, the heart continues to beat twice. The digital dashboard is more reminiscent of sitting in an advanced fighter aircraft. And the brushed aluminum panel between the alcantara upholstered seats is nicely futuristically designed with a ring of controls and the start button in the middle. When pressed, the Hulk is brought to life from his slumber. The twin-turbocharged V8 roars to life, telling everyone within a kilometer that something powerful has been brought to life. The sound coming out of the big exhaust pipe in the middle back there is brutal!

The shift controls, which are of the paddle type behind the steering wheel, are easy to operate, first gear is engaged and the car starts. A couple of quiet scratches to feel how the car behaves before testing a 0-300-0 stint for the first time. The car catapults out of its starting block like Ben Johnson when he was at his most pumped up on anabolics. The acceleration is so powerful that the driver even feels roller-coaster heaves in the stomach. When the speedometer reaches 300 km/h and the giant brakes take hold of the carbon fiber ceramic brake discs, the brain does not follow, but is hurled like a rubber band forward into the skull. The effect is so out of the ordinary that words to describe it all shine by their absence. But what is absolutely clear is that what has just been experienced is something the body has not experienced before in the form of something on four wheels and a steering wheel. Actera R is not only a crazy machine forward and on braking down the same force. Thanks to incredibly high downforce, you can easily make powerful evasive maneuvers with the car at speeds of up to 250 km/h, the Agera R steers where you want without any instability whatsoever. Trying to do similar maneuvers in a passenger car at speeds over 110 could lead to serious consequences.