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Story: Matt Tuccillo

This story first appeared in the Winter 2011 issue of 0-60 Magazine.

Check out the full Koenigsegg Agera photo gallery here.

I’m bearing witness to a four-way battle that’s happening all around me as I rocket down a rain-soaked runway in southern Sweden on a brisk Friday afternoon. Ahead are a few thousand feet of wide-open Swedish ex-military concrete. Behind, particles of rubber, a heavy, damp vapor trail and the most insane, concussive twin-turbo V8 exhaust crackle ever to be let loose upon the world.

My brain is losing a fight for self-preservation against my right foot, which tends to think only about what it wants—much like another body part. It’s also doing battle with a V8 engine that’s generating the kind of power normally measured in megatons. That fight is like a junkie chasing the dragon. Just a little more throttle and the motor will relinquish what I so desperately crave—more velocity. And for the title bout: motor versus traction. As I scream past 100 mph, the car’s toehold on the runway is in constant jeopardy by a monster wave of torque. Dear Koenigsegg Agera, please don’t kill me. I know we’ve only just met, but, well, I love you.

If there were 10 commandments for automotive enthusiasts to follow, one of the big ones would be “thou shall not worship false supercars.” A supercar should captivate every last bit of your attention—at all times, from behind the wheel or parked on the street. It should also be awesome, and not just in casual usage, but in the dictionary definition of leaving you awestruck. Finally, to be blunt, it should scare the living shit out of you. Following those guidelines, the list of actual supercars available for purchase these days is short. At the top of the pile are the offerings of a Swedish company that goes by the name Koenigsegg. Their latest creation, a continuation of the already ridiculous CCXR, is called the Agera. If you were ever in need of a supercar to worship, this would be a fabulous choice. I say this because I’ve been to the church of Koenigsegg. I’m a believer.

To get a grip on what indeed could be called Koenigseggism, one must direct their attention to the man himself, Christian Von Koenigsegg. With his shiny, smooth head and monogrammed shirts, Koenigsegg ghost logo embroidered on one cuff, he cuts an intense, visually intimidating figure. In truth, he might actually be the most affable man in the entire car industry, and one of the few automotive CEOs who rolls up his sleeves and gets elbow deep in every aspect of his cars’ production.

Earlier in the day, winging across the Øresund bridge from a temporary home base in Denmark, I’d been imagining what it must be like to possess the means to weave a supercar out of whole cloth. CVK joined the world of entrepreneurship at the age of 19, amassing a quick fortune from running Alpraaz, a Stockholm-based food-exporting business. By 22, an age when most young grads are anticipating an entry-level job and estimating car payments, he decided it was time to pursue a dream he’d harbored since childhood: to build his own supercar.