The first time I heard about Koenigsegg was on AutoWeek magazine in 2006. On their annual new car issue there was one snippet about a car from a company I’d never seen before called Koenigsegg. I knew nothing about cars at the time. I didn’t understand the facts and figures at the bottom. I was only 14. I didn’t know how to drive at the time. However, the name Koenigsegg stuck with me. I loved the badge. It looked so royal and European, like all proper exotic brands should be. And there was one thing that got stamped in my mind: The Koenigsegg CCX had a top speed of 241mph.

The Second Fastest Car in The World

Only the Bugatti Veyron was faster at the time, with a top speed of 252mph. I remember the excerpt in that magazine said something along the lines of “If you can afford the Bugatti Veyron, the Koenigsegg CCX is not a bad consolation price.” As I grew up and I learned more and more about cars, and I discovered what it takes to build a car, I found just how impressive this brand is. I started finding out that a man named Christian von Koenigsegg built and designed everything from scratch. 

Because of this, fewer than 300 cars have been made since the company’s inception in 1998, and current models have a base price upwards of $3 million dollars. Save for me going to a few very specific places on the planet, the likelihood of me ever seeing one out in the wild was slim to none. Even then, from the time that I was 14 years old, until I was 31, never did I dream that I would find myself walking through the gates of one of the most exclusive car companies in the world. But I did. 

From Liechtenstein to Oklahoma to Sweden

When I was living in Lichtenstein in 2020, I met my friends Patrick and Lara. Patrick and Lara had high hopes of moving to Sweden. They were trying and trying, but for some reason or other they couldn’t. Fast forward to 2022. One day I was driving back to Arkansas from Dallas, and I was somewhere in the middle of Oklahoma when I got a message from Patrick saying “Hey, Raul, just thought I’d let you know. I have an interview tomorrow with Christian von Koenigsegg.”

I remember I got so excited, and I prayed right then and there for him saying something like “God, I pray you open doors for them! You know how much they have wanted this. So I pray that you bless Patrick. Amen!” About a month went by and I asked him, “Hey, by the way, what happened with that interview?” He responded saying “Oh yeah, I got the job. We’re moving to Sweden.” Praise God! 

The First Encounter

In 2023, I took another 3 month long trip through Europe. I spent time in Turkye, Georgia, Czechia, Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands. Then I went to Copenhagen. After three days there I made my way north to see Patrick and Lara in Sweden. 

They were living in a tiny town about 20 minutes north of Ängelholm, which is where the Koenigsegg factory is. When I was getting ready to go, Patrick told me to just meet them at the Ängelholm train station. Then he said “By the way, you are in for a surprise. When you get here, we’re going to go to the factory.” Well, it turned out that the day that I was going to go see them was the Koenigsegg Family Day. 

So they picked me up at around 10 in the morning and we went to a bakery. That bakery was on the same road as the Koenigsegg factory. We walked into the cute little building to get a snack. We hadn’t seen each other in two years, so we were there catching up, when all of a sudden I heard a grumble and roar outside. I looked up and saw 2 cars driving by. One of them was the Jesko Le Mans edition, according to Patrick, and the other one was an orange Jesko Attack. 

I started freaking out. In typical American fashion I started talking louder saying things like “Dude! No way! Those things sound so mean! They sound so aggressive!” To which Patrick, in the tone of someone who sees these cars every day, responded “These new ones have new regulations that limit the sound. You should hear one of the old Regera models when they were not restricted. You’ll probably see one soon.” 

The Koenigsegg Factory

We left the little bakery and I was feeling elated. We got to the factory and we parked next to a bunch of cars because, of course, there were a lot of families there. It was a beautiful bright and sunny day. The factory is next to a historic airport surrounded by golden fields of wheat and grass. The event had not yet started so there was a line forming outside the front doors. The men were wearing t-shirts and polos in light colors and white sneakers, and the women wore sundresses and sandals. It almost reminded me of the post-church hangouts after an Easter service.

We got in line and in front of us there was a beautiful black building with the unmistakable Koenigsegg logo on it. Everything was brand new. Patrick told us that the day before had been the official inauguration and a bunch of publications and famous YouTubers, including the CarWow, had been there. So much had been the hype that they had a red carpet rolled out for everybody walking in. How cool is that?!

Eventually they opened the doors and people started walking in. I remember as we were walking into the factory, Mrs. Koenigsegg was there to greet us. She shook our hand and welcomed us. That was such a special detail. She ushered us into the tall atrium. In the middle, they had placed a Gemera, their 4 seater model. At the back there was a whole wall three stories tall covered in live plants with their ghost logo on it. Everything was clean, precise and beautiful. It looked like the perfect mixture of art and science. 

The Atelier

Right as we walked in to our right there was a room separated by a wall of glass. They had a modern desk of metal and wood, white leather couches, and a table. On the wall there was a big screen TV and there were color swatches next to the TV. In the center of the room was a white Jesko, and next to it there was a stand displaying the Jesko engine: a twin turbocharged V8 engine that makes 1,280 hp. This was the Atelier, where clients and customers come to customize their incredible $3+ million car. 

The Atelier was reserved for customers only. The clientele that this company deals with is so exclusive that they even built a helipad just outside the front door branded with their giant ghost logo on it. There are three flagpoles outside. Patrick told me that when they have a customer coming in they fly the flag of their home country on one of the poles. I couldn’t help but wonder what kind of people got to be on the other side of that glass. 

During my visit I spent a lot of time looking at the cars, looking at the details, absorbing their shapes. It is truly incredible to see these shapes up close. I used to want to be a car designer. Many times I dreamt up shapes in my mind, and then I would sketch them, and try to form them on a two-dimensional plane, but it is an entirely new and beautiful thing to see those shapes be materialized, and to be able to hold them, and to be able to drive them. Christian von Koenigsegg is getting to do that. He is the man who started this company and, to this day, he is the person responsible for bringing these cars to life. That is incredible. 

All The Records on Display

There was an upstairs section. It was where all the offices were. All the spaces up here had floors covered in gray carpet and illuminated by cold LED lights, creating a sleek, professional look. This is where Patrick worked. The offices were divided by an open area that was sort of a loft. From the loft we could oversee the new factory space below. There was a big open space, with all the robotic arms and harnesses and wheeled carts and toolboxes that would help build the new cars all painted in white.

On the loft there was a wall with all the magazines and publications where Koenigsegg has been mentioned, including all the many records that these cars have broken. There was art everywhere and everything was branded with either their orange, yellow and blue crest or their ghost logo. They even had branded jewelry on display. They also had the pedestals with 1:18th scale down models of real production cars on display. 

Carbon Fiber Everything 

We eventually went back downstairs, and we started walking across that new factory floor. Here they had arranged a few tables with schematic drawings on them so we could see a bit of the engineering behind the cars. They also had set up a table with a bare carbon fiber seat, and a bare carbon wheel!

I picked up the seat, which was remarkably thin, and was amazed at how light it was. It felt like it was made of styrofoam! I guess it’s that way because supporting a human being doesn’t create that much stress on the material. The wheels, on the other hand, need to handle monumental amounts of pressure because of the centrifugal force, especially the ones in the rear. So they need to be extremely strong. I remember picking them up and feeling how light, yet dense they were.

Everything in the car is made of carbon fiber. There was a section in the old part of the factory where they had been manufacturing their cars where they had two or three assembly lines, and there were some bare carbon fiber pieces already on there. I could see the shape of the carbon and I could just feel the strength of it. I could see how extremely strong everything is. 

Past the tables with the carbon wheels they had one CCX and one CCXR on display, with a backdrop of black curtains behind them. They were both facing each other. There was an opening in the curtains between the cars. When we walked past them, it led outside under an awning and then into a huge open area, but right as we went outside, we were greeted by one of the most incredible lineups in car history. 

The Most Incredible Lineup

In honor of the opening of their new factory, Koenigsegg had prepared, especially for this family day, a lineup of every model that they’d ever produced.  Everything from their first production CC8 all the way to the latest Jesko Absolute, Jesko Attack, and even a Gemera Prototype. 13 cars in total. I can’t explain how exciting it was to see all these specific cars that I had seen in magazines and on YouTube and Instagram be all in one place. 

One of the most impressive cars present was the Koenigsegg CC850, which was made in commemoration of the original CC8. This was the only one in the world at the time and it happened to be Christian von Koenigsegg’s personal car. One could drive it as a gated manual, and it could be flipped to be automatic. What a mad creation!

I just stared at these things because they are so broad and so low. They looked like UFOs. I remember that in that magazine the retail price was something like $750,000. Nowadays the cheapest Koenigsegg cars one can find are at least a million and a half each. Some of them are going for $10 or $15 million. Indeed, those numbers are bonkers, yet there I was looking at them and feeling very, very, happy.

What Does a $7 Million Car Look Like? 

Everything about these cars is beautifully crafted, especially the parts that you can see. Every piece of carbon fiber is not only functional and ultra rigid, but also beautiful looking and perfectly balanced. All the carbon fiber that is exposed is perfectly matched and symmetrical. The paint is deep and beautifully finished.  

The perfect example of that is the Agera RS Naraya, which is a navy blue exposed carbon and gold car. And when I say gold, I mean, there’s literal gold woven into the carbon fiber. Looking at it up close, I could see the pattern of the gold. It had a rounded look to it like it had been hammered into the paint, yet it is perfectly aligned with the body panels. It is absolutely masterful work. 

To me, the most important and impressive parts were the interiors. Even with all these complex shapes, like the dashboard above the steering wheel, or even the center console, all of those parts had symmetrically shaped carbon. All of it was laid by hand. The seat upholstery is all custom, and even the color of the leather is all custom. 

The Family Day Event

Beyond all these amazing cars, there was also a whole bunch of stuff going on. It was like a small festival, so they had these Burning Man style tents out in the middle of the giant parking lot. Underneath the tent there were food trucks and beer garden style picnic tables set up so that you could sit down and eat. There was a stage with lights and speakers where they were playing music. They also had an area for employees to bring their cool and interesting cars and show them off. They even had an inflatable obstacle course for the kids.

It was really cool because these cars are usually sought out mostly by high profile men, yet there were families, and children, and spouses of workers, and older family relatives, and significant others, all who knew nothing about cars or didn’t really care much for them. I asked an older lady who was there looking at a Jesko if she liked the car. She said with a scowl “This one is too much for me.” I could see her point.

I noticed that there was almost a 50:50 ratio of men and women working at this company. I felt that that was unusually high for a factory, and also for a car company. Patrick let me know that since all of the upholstery is custom they needed to have a lot of crafts people, most of whom were women. How cool is that? 

After spending nearly two hours looking at all the cars, we went under the tent. We ordered food from one of the food trucks and we sat down to eat some hot wings. For whatever reason, hot wings are difficult to find in Europe. So I remember that these were delicious. Praise the Lord. 

The Koenigsegg Parade

Then came the parade. We got done eating and they announced over the intercom that there was going to be a parade. All of the cars under the awning were going to be driven by the factory test drivers and by key people in the company. They lined them up from the oldest model to the latest models and they drove them around the tent, creating a big loop around the parking lot.

Each of the cars were being driven on to the stage and they were being showcased. Christian von Koenigsegg himself went on stage and was talking about each of the models and why they were significant to the company’s history. The cars were always on and idling, so there was not much excitement there, but when the next car went up on stage and all the cars moved forward they revved their engines and it was so loud! So, I got to see Christian, the man himself, up on stage. What the heck! 

The Gemera 

When the parade ended, Patrick led us back inside the factory. When we were inside, he took us to a room that was like a showroom for announcements and conferences. There were a lot of people in this room, and all of them were looking at the stage. The room was dark and the only light was coming from some dimmed down LED lights lining the stage. Below the lights was a green car. 

I didn’t know this, but the day before, when the inauguration of this building happened, Christian von Konenigsegg revealed the latest Gemera. The original car was intended to have a 3-cylinder engine tuned out the wazoo plus some electric motors to make a modest 1250hp. The new Gemera, however, ditched the 3 cylinder and instead fitted the twin-turbo V8 from the Jesko plus the electric motors making well over 2000 horsepower. Which is insane. 

This is, according to them, the first Megacar ever. The name comes from the fact that it has a Megawatt of power, the equivalent of 2,300 horsepower. It’s a two door, 4 seater car, and the doors open vertically, the same way that all other Koenigsegg doors open. The car had been revealed just the day before, and I got to be present for something so special. 

The Perfect End to a Fantastic Day

The gist of this story is that Koenigsegg cars are very, very rare and the Koenigsegg factory is usually open and available only to people who are clients of this brand. I don’t know that I will ever be a client of this company, but I know that I got to be there. And that is a huge blessing that I will always and forever be grateful for. 

Soon after we saw the Gemera we left the factory. We were tired. I still had all my bags in the car from when they picked me up from the train station. Afterwards, we went to their house. I got to meet their dog, Molly, played with her on their yard, and then we went to the beach and had pizza and orange soda which was the perfect end to a most extraordinary, beautiful, and exciting day.

I hope this story is encouraging to you. If you know somebody that you think this might be encouraging to as well, go ahead and share it with them!