2017 Koenigsegg Regera 248 mph 1500hp

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Tellingly, Christian von Koenigsegg tells TopGear.com that the only car capable of beating his new Regera is… another Koenigsegg. Welcome, everyone, to the most insane luxury hypercar on Planet Earth.

It’s Koenigsegg’s ‘Regera’ - translated as ‘to reign’ in Swedish - and is a milestone in the history of Top Gear’s favourite Swedish hypercar manufacturer, because it’s been built as a luxurious car with crushing speed.

Just how crushing will blow your minds. The Regera sits on a highly modified Agera chassis, here significantly changed to accommodate a 9kW battery pack in the centre of the car, which we’ll get to shortly.

This means the entire front end had to be reworked, while the rear chassis - in a first for Koenigsegg - was fitted with new rubber mounts instead of solid ones, to provide more comfort and quietness.

Then there’s the drivetrain: Koenigsegg’s proven 5.0-litre twin-turbo V8 sits proudly in the middle, pumping out a healthy 1100bhp alone, direct to the rear wheels.

But instead of being attached to a normal transmission, the Regera uses something called the Koenigsegg Direct Drive system. There’s a small, crank-mounted electric motor to fill the torque gap (and act as a starter motor) together with a hydraulic coupling.

Each rear wheel then gets its own electric motor, and we’re told that triplet of electric motors amounts to around 700bhp alone. Christian tells us that from take-off, with the coupling open, you power off purely on electric drive, with no need for a gearbox. As soon as it gains a few more revs, the hydraulic coupling begins to close, and the smaller crank-mounted electric motor joins in to help the bottom part of the torque curve.

And then finally, once the engine gets up to speed, that kicks in from around 30mph upwards. “We managed to take a heavy, expensive lump out of the equation [the transmission], without sacrificing the ability of the combustion engine to provide drive to the rear wheels,” Christian tells TG.

The Regera is rear wheel drive only, so 0-62mph takes a relatively tardy 2.7 seconds. “We can’t go any faster than that because of traction,” Christian says. 0-186mph takes 12 seconds flat, while 0-250mph takes under 20 seconds. It’ll go from 93mph to 155mph in just 3.2 seconds, and top out at 255mph. Let those numbers swirl around your head for a moment.
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Because it’s a petrol-electric hybrid, you can travel up to around 18 miles on pure electric power alone, but we suspect with a twin-turbo 5.0-litre V8 on board, you’ll likely want to utilise everything. In total, Koenigsegg reckons on an output somewhere close to 1800bhp and 1475lb ft of torque.

Why remove the transmission completely? “I’ve been wanting to create something like this without a CVT’s horrible elasticity, and the weight and complexity transmissions bring,” Christian tells TG. “I came up with the idea last summer, and calculated that there is no need to have any gears. It was a eureka moment for me!”

The body is a marvel, with all sorts of aero going on: witness the monster side scoops, the front diffuser arrangement and the sleek bodywork.

There’s also a foldable top mounted rear wing, an active chassis with active shock absorber stiffness front and back, active aero flaps underneath the car - both left and right - that you can control individually as on the One:1, and ‘soft-close’ doors. The front tyres are also wider than the rears, to compensate for the weight distribution of that battery pack.

Inside there’s a 9.1-inch infotainment system, and six-way adjustable carbon memory seats, too.

Want one? The Regera’s base price is $1,890,000 - just over £1.2m - and Christian is only building 80 units. “We’ve already sold four even before anybody has seen the car,” he tells us, “so the mood for this feels very positive”.

This show-stand beauty is car number one, and is around ‘95 per cent finished’. After the Geneva show, it’ll be completed, and then ‘beaten up’ around the track to finalise its development. We can’t wait to have a go.