Bugatti vs Jet

Koenigsegg believes it has created thefastest production auto in the world -- again.If the prototype One:1 reaches its computer-simulated top speed of 439kph in roadway tests this summer, the company long for regain -- by an impressive 24kph -- the call it lost in 2005 to the Bugatti Veyron.

The head office of supercar manufacturer Koenigsegg Automotive AB is in a former air force basis on an industrial playground in ngelholm, southern Sweden. A decommissioned F-10 fighter jet perches on a plinth at the entrance and theres a flight museum next door. The proximity to these aeronautical secret language serves Koenigsegg well: the company permanently rents one of the two 1,400-metre former runways so that it know how to perform the intense acceleration and braking tests on the vehicles it manufactures.

We know how to do nought to 320kph and then back to nought and still have span left over, says production manager Manuel Berglund. The locals were used to the ground shaking from the jets, and then it went quiet for a though. Then we came here.

A Koenigsegg in the companys Dyno span where the electronics, gearbox and engine are tested otherwise the carcass panels are emotionally involved. It takes eight months for every model to compel to it by means of the seven assembly stations to completion Tom Nagy Koenigsegg has in the environs of 25 per cent of the market for hypercars -- limited-edition, handbuilt vehicles that cost in excess of 600,000. Yet it is engaged in a battle for supremacy with main rivals Pagani Automobili and Bugatti Automobiles.

The strong was founded in 1994 by the then 22-year-old Christian von Koenigsegg, who at the age of five became fixated with a Norwegian animated film, Flklypa Good Prix, in which a bicycle repairman makes a racing auto. This movie ignited a dream that one day he would set up his own. The initial prototype, a carbon-fibre model named CC was unveiled in 1996 bar it wasnt until 2002 that the initial Koenigsegg customer took delivery of a crimson CC8S at the Geneva Motor Show. Since then the company has formed 12 to 20 cars annually and has brought a new model to market every year or two -- many of them breaking records for their speed.

The a good number significant of these was achieved in February 2005 in Nard in Italy, when the Koenigsegg CCR broke the Guinnessrecord for the longest production auto in the world, reaching 388.87kph and beating the speed under arrest by the McLaren F1. The accolade stood until September that year, when the Bugatti Veyron hit 408.47kph. Now, having had this feel of automotive superstardom, von Koenigsegg desires it for a second time -- with his latest design, the One:1.

The paint place is the third of seven stages by means of which the care passes. Koenigsegg lays down a 150-micron clear coat (three times the deepness of the clear coat sprayed on an be around auto) on top of the grief to resist chips and scratches. Achieving a perfectly silky surface takes seven coats Tom Nagy The One:1 is a mid-engined type of Koenigseggs 2011 Agera R. Only seven long for be built and the whole have already been pre-sold for 1.7 million every. The name came from Koenigseggs aim to tone with the cars power-to-weight ratio. We played safe, says Jon Gunner, the companys scientific director. We had further power than we needed and backed off to tone with the weight 1,360kg. It turned disallowed to be the initial megawatt auto -- 1,360hp is one megawatt. Its 1,014kW at 7,500rpm, to be precise -- which propels the auto from nought to 400kph in 20 seconds.

As you move up into high speeds the cars supplies grow to be different. It effectively becomes two cars, Gunner says. With the Agera we pushed as far as we could to combine roadway wants with speed, bar it had its limitations. We had a reorganize with the One:1. We required the best of both.

To set up this hybrid, Gunner found the solution in dynamic surfaces: panels that change shape as the auto requires. The One:1 know how to moreover download telemetry from the cloud as it travels to set up the vehicle on the rush.

Engine assembly and preliminary testing take place off the production line. On the wall is the badge designed in 1994 by Jacob Laftman and based on the Koenigsegg family shield. A phantom insignia is sited on every auto in tribute to the flight team that used to be stationed in the factory Tom Nagy So if you approach the Nrburgring racetrack in Germany, for example, the auto long for automatically download settings for that roadway. The auto alters its setup constantly, says Gunner. Once upon a time the controller identifies it is on the roadway there long for be a co-ordination handshake amid the cloud, the auto and the GPS. Then we worth the steering wheel and speed sensors to identify positioning on the roadway. From here we long for have set up every corner with the correct settings for the auto.

Ride height, spring extremity, suspension clicks, the rear dynamic wing and the front dynamic aeroflaps long for the whole be remotely forbidden. And the auto itself long for override these settings taking into account g-forces and breaking events to give the optimal set-up for doesn't matter what situation the One:1 is in.

Koenigsegg manufactures 95 per cent of every auto from cut to achieve optimised accomplishment from every component. With this level of forensic fabrication, incontestably the company could, if commissioned by an obsessive benefactor, compel to a Koenigsegg boat or plane? Oh, I reflect so, yes, Gunner says. In fact, that has move toward up. Bar we are too busy taking care of business.