Koenigsegg - Everything You Need to Know | Up to Speed

(car accelerating) - 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, rock star or professional athlete. He wanted to build cars and drive incredibly fast! (

speed

ing up) He held on to that dream and never wavered. He's basically Lex Luthor without the incessant desire to rule the world, but he's just as bald. (bangs) This is

everything

you

need

to

know

to get up to

speed

with Koenigsegg. (8-bit music) As Christian Koenigsegg tells it, his

need

for speed began at the tender age of five when he watched Flaklypa Grand Prix, a stop-motion animated film in which a bicycle repairman builds a racing car with the help of some animal friends and win the big race against a world-class Formula One driver.

That's a real movie, look it up. At that moment, Koenigsegg knew he wanted to start his own car company, but he was five years old, 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. When he was eight years old, he had taken apart and rebuilt a motorcycle, and just a few years later, he had a fleet of rebuilt, roadworthy mopeds for sale. That's right, Koenigsegg became a used moped seller at the age of 15.

For Koenigsegg, the successes kept coming. He knew that he had to get a lot of money from somewhere to start a car company and eventually he came up with an idea that helped him build what he had always imagined. What helped you make your fortune? Koenigsegg became a frozen chicken magnate. 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 automobile company. So how can a Swedish guy, new to the competitive supercar market, make himself

know

n as someone to be reckoned with?

Creating a compact and agile mid-engined car with a removable and folding hardtop that didn't exist yet. He thought that with the money he had accumulated trading bags and chickens, he could find the right people to help him build the first prototype of it within a year, a timeline that he now admits was more than a little ambitious. - Remembering that, that was, of course, madness. -He came up with the company's first prototype, the Koenigsegg CC in 1996. But it took another six years to sell the first series production model, the Koenigsegg CC8S, which featured short overhangs, larger air intakes and a mid-engine. design that Koenigsegg had developed in the early nineties.

When the CC8S was just two weeks away from being unveiled at the 2003 Geneva Motor Show, a fire devastated the Koenigsegg factory. But not all is lost! Employees who were at the scene at the time of the fire 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 achieved great success. Guinness proclaimed that the CC8S's 655 horsepower engine made it the most powerful production car in the world. And Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson was equally impressed by what Koenigsegg had achieved, calling the CC8S his favorite supercar in fierce competition.

Koenigsegg showed that his fledgling car company had a solid footing against older, more established supercar brands. From 2004 to 2006, the company produced the CCR, which featured an improved body design. The CCR's twin supercharged motor surpassed that of the CC8S with a whopping 806 horsepower. And it also broke records by becoming the fastest production car in the world. (speeding up) He also took Top Gear's lap record with a time that stood for over two years. The next model, the CCX, made its debut in 2006 and while it had all the features of previous Koenigseggs, it was a new direction in automotive superiority for the car company.

It was that year when Koenigsegg truly went global, as the CCX was the first model sold in the United States. He even set another record at the Top Gear test track, where he reached speeds of 196 miles per hour, and that record stood for the next seven years. Like an automotive Superman, Koenigsegg was not only interested in speed, but also in saving the planet, and continues to release eco-friendly versions of the models he introduces. In 2007 it launched the CCXR, the world's first green hypercar. Sure, the CCXR ran on gasoline, but it was also calibrated to run on E85 and E100 biofuels.

CCX and CCXR edition models followed in 2008 and featured clear carbon bodies, 11-spoke wheels, custom aerodynamics and specifically tuned suspensions. The output of the CCXR edition remained at 1,004 horsepower, but the CCX's reached 876 horsepower, and again, Koenigsegg set several new speed records. (accelerating) And a performance benchmark from zero to 300 kilometers per hour in just 29.2 seconds and accelerated from zero to 200 kilometers per hour in 9.3 seconds. I don't know how fast that is, because I'm American and I don't know what a (bleep) kilometer is. - You are a naive American boy. - The CCXR Trevita and CCXR Special Edition were next in 2009.

The Trevita had an exclusive limited edition with only two cars created due to technical problems, but the car had a body made entirely of proprietary material consisting of coated carbon fiber diamond . The Trevita and Special Edition models were very limited runs, as were most of Koenigsegg's previous models, but they paved the way in the design and creation of Koenigsegg's most ambitious model yet. In 2010, Koenigsegg introduced the supercar that would change the rules of the game forever: the Agera. (accelerating) Designed with previous models in mind, it added to the tradition of a bigger, better supercar with new features including a wider front track, newer styling, aerodynamics and interiors.

It also had 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 entrepreneurial genius that he is, he knew he could do something better. In 2014, Koenigsegg delivered the One:1 to 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 produced 1,011 pound-feet of torque and ran on regular gasoline, race fuel, or E85. All six production models manufactured were sold out even before it made its official debut.

It paved the way for the next generation of sports cars based on the highest performance standard of any automaker to date. The Agera continued production until 2017. It went out in a blaze of glory, cementing its 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 verified top speed of 277.87 miles per hour. Are you sure about that? (accelerating) ("Frolic" by Luciano Michelini) Making it the fastest production car in the world. So where does Koenigsegg go from there? In 2015, it introduced the Regera Hybrid Hyper Car, which uses a twin-turbo V8, three electric motors and gearless Koenigsegg direct transmission.

Therefore, it can also reach speeds of more than 400 kilometers per hour. (speeding up) The company plans to produce 80 of these cars, and although they haven't rolled off the production line yet, they are already sold out. Christian von Koenigsegg is someone I admire. He never gave up, he saw what he wanted to do and pursued it with all his might. 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, unknown Swedish manufacturer? Because no one else can do what we are doing.

If you want that, you won't be able to get it anywhere else. - Hey, we make videos like every day. To make sure you don't miss any of them, click this here. It's a subscribe button. Do you like supercars? Check out this update from Lamborghini. This car has a lot of aerodynamics, do you want to know how they work? Check out this episode of Science Garage. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter @jamespumphrey. Follow Donut @donutmedia. Or if you want some cool Donut products, visit shop.donut.media. I love you.