Koenigsegg Regera Zooms into ‘Jay Leno’s Garage’: Cool Classic Clips
Regera and Agera RS hypercars are stunning automotive creations in their own ways. Christian von Koenigsegg himself shows Leno why.
Koenigsegg only makes one type of automobile: hypercar. No sedans. No sporty crossover coupes. Definitely no SUVs. Since 1994, the Swedish manufacturer has been building fast, powerful, and lightweight high-performance machines. In a cool clip from 2018, founder Christian von Koenigsegg showed up on Jay Leno’s Garage with his eponymous company’s two latest and greatest creations: the Regera and Agera RS.
Every Koenigsegg is special. The Agera RS is extra special. The sleek and swoopy targa-top exotic set the speed record for a car on a public road. For its record run, the company used a closed stretch of Nevada highway with a slight incline and made one pass in each direction. According to Koenigsegg, “Going … downhill, we hit the rev limiter at around 284 miles per hour, which was incredible. But even going uphill … we hit almost 250 per hour.” The Agera RS’s average speed was a staggering 277.9 mph. Achieving that number required advanced engineering and basic math. Koenigsegg produces its own carbon fiber and used it extensively in the RS model’s construction, including its lightweight wheels. As Christian von Koenigsegg said, “We have the patented hollow technology. So instead of being like a U-beam-shape spoke … it’s just a hollow tube. That is … a stronger construction than an open construction.”
Koenigsegg also makes its own engines. For the Agera RS, the company employed a twin-turbo 5.0-liter V8 with four valves per cylinder and coupled that with a seven-speed gearbox. On pump gas, the engine generates a stratospheric 1,360 horsepower. Combine that with a total weight of 3,130 pounds and that blistering speed makes total sense.
The Regera features even more power and stunning innovation. Although the twin-turbo 5.0 under its engine cover uses smaller turbos than the engine in the Agera RS, it gets plenty of help from a trio of electric motors, a performance-focused battery pack, and an 800-volt electrical system. One motor is at the crankshaft; the two others are positioned at each rear wheel, enabling torque vectoring. Combined gas and electric output of the Regera is a Bugatti Chiron-matching 1,500 horsepower.
That’s routed through Koenigsegg’s Direct Drive system. Christian von Koenigsegg explains it to Leno, saying, “You have only…a final differential… That’s connected to a … super-extreme billet aluminium torque converter with lockup. And this torque converter that we have developed in-house has to do the most extreme job in the world … because it has to transform those … 1,300-, 1,400-horsepower from the combustion engine and the little electrical motor on the combustion engine to the wheels and starting in, like, 7th gear.”
Leno and Koenigsegg eventually hop inside so Leno can experience the Regera on the highways of Southern California. With each push of the throttle, Leno pokes the monstrous V8, causing it to snarl and hiss in response. It’s more than fast. It’s beyond that. The Regera doesn’t just carry Leno from one place to another or from legal speeds to jail-worthy mph. The carbon fiber, gearless, hybrid hypercar makes him feel as if he’s in the future already.
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