"OK, hippies, I have had it UP TO HERE with your clunky french fry machines." ... At some point in time that phrase was uttered in Swedish, and a pen was put to paper.
We all have to dream. If you don't dream, then life can easily turn into a bland, wearisome existence slowly grinding out your days balancing your fiber intake with the grand excitement of a sale bin at Wal-Mart. There is simply more to life, and Koenigsegg's Agera R proves this.
This is why we buy lottery tickets and find faith in the heavens and why people flock to the Geneva Motor Show every year (not just for their Natural Gas vehicle booth). Machines like this are triumphs of humanity, they are the poems of innovators and engineers. In Swedish, "Agera" means to "take action" in much the same way the word "karma" is derived from the word "action" in Sanskrit. The ancient Greeks had a word, "Ageratos," and it meant a state of agelessness. These are the words spoken by the remarkable and unique growl of the Agera R coming from it's titanium exhaust. It is also heard nicely with the roof removed, as the Agera´s unique carbon fibre monocoque chassis allows you to go topless with no loss of performance. With the top on, you have the option of using the Thule Lightning custom carbon fiber roof top box, dubbed the fast roof top box ever, for all of the luggage you'll need to take with you; part of the Koenigsegg "winter package" is a winter resort experience in Åre - Sweden's most popular snow resort and the place where Koenigsegg makes their skis.
EV car buffs will get a small grin out of the use of a Intelligent Lifepo4 Battery, a very lightweight and intelligent battery that is highly sought after for use in Electric Cars.
Engineering fanatics that didn't already have enough to drool over should take note of the rear wing. This is NOT some "stroller" - there is a lot of tech here. According to the official site, "The wing changes its angle of attack, not with the help of hydraulics, but with the pressure of the wind. It is therefore dynamically controlled by the speed or wind resistance at any given moment in time and thus actually compensates for headwind or tailwind at the same given speed. This is an intelligent way of dealing with adaptive aerodynamics, as the system becomes lighter, less complex and more intuitive... Furthermore, an interesting multifunction feature of the adaptive wing is that the pylons for the wing also act as air extrusion channels. The air channels goes from the engine bay to the back of the pylons, thereby creating an air passage. This causes a venturi effect, from the air rushing past the pylon, evacuating hot engine bay gases, reducing pressure in the engine bay and increasing the flow of cooling air through the side radiators. This also means that the pressure under the car is reduced and giving more low drag down force."
Koenigsegg approached this machine with a sense of minimalism uncommon to such "hypercars," but you can find a degree of existentialism throughout, just under the surface of the details. Nothing is wasteful or overly opulent or unnecessary. There is something more than machine, and somewhat "alive" about the Agera R. Perhaps this stems from the fact that Koenigsegg is a rarity among the rare - they develop and produce their engines in house, something other hypercar manufacturers dismiss as impossible or too expensive to be practical (yes, even here an element of practicality is found.)
Koenigsegg not only shows that this is possible, but having done so, are also able to claim they produce the lightest and most compact hypercar engine. The aluminum and carbon fiber "flex fuel" 5.0 liter bi-turbo engine in the Agera R puts out over 1100 horsepower ON E85 BIOFUEL (over 900hp on standard 95 octane!), and outperforms the best diesel and gasoline engines in terms of efficiency per liter. All this while being able to pass the most stringent emissions (EU5 and LEV2) standards in the world, passing tough US crash standards.... oh, and having a top speed of 245mph and being able to go from 0 to 124mph and back to a complete stop in 12.7 seconds. Truly astonishing.
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