Flat out in the £8m Koenigsegg Chimera: a car that "rips holes in the fabric of physics"

What you’re looking at is an Agera RS. Well, it was an Agera RS, belonging to the president of the FIA – Mohammed Ben Sulayem – who one day had an idea. Could you cram the ‘big turbo’ 5.1-litre flat-plane crank V8 from the Jesko, plus the CC850’s trick simulated manual gearbox (that piggybacks the already trick ‘Light Speed’ nine-speed auto) into the more petite frame of the Agera RS?

Photography: John Wycherley 

Normally this would be destined to languish at the bottom of the suggestion box for all of eternity, but when it’s Christian you’re dealing with there’s always a chance he’s up for some self-flagellation. This is a man who would replace his own organs with in-house designed and manufactured components if he could improve the efficiency and flow rate. And sure enough, he accepted the challenge, justifying it by using the Chimera as a test bed for the ongoing CC850 gearbox project.

“It turned out to be about twice as much work as I had run through in my head,” Christian admits, playing down the stress bomb of his own making. “We’re talking 10-year-old technology being fused with newer computer systems, screen systems and control systems. And then taking the cradle of a more modern car with an elastomeric mounted engine and transmission and putting it in a car that originally had a stressed engine and transmission, which brought with it a lot of interesting and exciting challenges.”

Which raises the question, why didn’t Mohammed Ben Sulayem just buy a Jesko, or a CC850? “Oh, he’s got both of those on order too, in fact he has a standing order for any new model we make, we just send an invoice. This is about the engineering challenge and having something nobody else does. Honestly though, it would have been easier to start from scratch.”

And so, after a surreal cold call from the FIA president – a big fan of Top Gear apparently, a man of consummate taste – inviting us to sample his cut and shut project, we find ourselves at Koenigsegg’s test track (a disused runway really, but with zero noise restrictions so they can run test mules and shake down customer cars 24 hours a day if required) in Ängelholm, Sweden. Our first opportunity then to try this clutch and gearshift by wire manual box that appears to have stirred something inside Christian.

“A manual shift is emotional and exciting, it’s celebrating the history of driving and makes the car no better than yourself. It’s the perfect exoskeleton of a car from the human body. What I realised is you drive with your eyes, pre-work your clutch and slip your kiss point so you drive with a better flow. It actually improves the performance, maybe not in seconds up a mountain pass, but certainly how smoothly you can operate the car.”

I concur, but in case you don’t the Chimera goes one step further than the CC850: as well as full manual and full auto modes, there’s also the option of using the paddles behind the wheel. All bases covered, and a strong answer to the inevitable question – why not just bolt on a regular manual? For the record, you’d also need a flywheel, which would erode one of this engine’s USPs (the fact it revs like a superbike on nitrous), the powertrain would be heavier and need homologating all over again, and there are actually nine ratios in the auto gearbox it piggybacks, so the ratios corresponding to each number in the six-slot open gate can change based on the driving mode.

The mental leap here is accepting that it’s closer to the real thing than it seems. Your left foot is still moving a clutch pack and the gearstick is still engaging gears, they’re just doing it with precision electronics rather than squeezing hydraulic fluid or physically moving metal bits.

We first approach it in full peacock mode, innards exposed, naked carbon gleaming. Knowing the torture the engineering team have put themselves through, the finish is immaculate – you’d genuinely never know the butchery that’s occurred beneath. The wooden lever, exposed linkage and chromed open gate manual are particularly stunning, celebrated and perched at the heart of everything. This is an Agera RS, so slimmer and lighter than a Jesko, with smaller wheels and manual dihedral doors, but there’s nothing small about the engine.

We’re running 1,262bhp today on regular unleaded, but juice it up on E85 and that’ll jump to 1,578bhp. A few years back when I drove an early prototype of the Jesko Absolut on this very runway, I had trouble pulling the paddles fast enough to grab the next gear before we boosted into the limiter... how I’m going to keep up with a manual shifter, I’m not entirely sure.

We start slow, feeling our way in with gentle speeds for photography, and already there are answers to the big question: would I know this was a simulated manual if nobody told me? While the software and functionality are brilliantly thought through – you can stall it, slip the clutch, heel and toe on downshifts, all the good stuff – there are a couple of giveaways. The bite point has to be judged more with your ears than an obvious sensation through the clutch pedal.

I didn’t stall it, but with such a razor responsive engine it’s a constant looming possibility when moving away. The gearlever moves with a heavily sprung slickness as it clacks about the gate, but could do with more mechanical grit and a fraction more resistance to make the shift more forceful and positive. The joy of a Koenigsegg, of course, is that the cars are always in development, these are two things I’m assured are being worked on.

Once you’re up and cantering though, that lack of resistance and light clutch action are a joy – letting you dip and flick about without fear of hitting the wrong slot (money shifts aren’t permitted in the software of course, right now you can slot into a low gear but if the revs are too high, the computer won’t give it to you. Soon there’ll be a detent stopping the gearlever from going there altogether).

The greatest compliment I can pay is that when tonking up and down the runway, wafting about on the road and crawling about for photography, I try the paddleshift and auto modes, but always default back to manual control. It simply makes all situations more fun, which shows just how well finessed and developed it is. It’s like the fake noise pumped into a Hyundai Ioniq 5 N – you’re never fooled into thinking there are actual explosions going on under the bonnet, but it enhances the driving experience nonetheless.

As if the Koenigsegg driving experience required any enhancement. Weighing around 100kg less than a Jesko, but with all the firepower, the Chimera rips holes in the fabric of physics. Leave the traction control on and it’ll spit five foot flames out the back, turn it off and you’re dealing with something weighing the same as a McLaren 750S, but with twice the power... and all sent through the rear tyres. The turbo rush when you keep your foot in leaves you clinging on to the wheel one handed while fumbling for the next gear. It’s a wild ride that you acclimatise to eventually, but one I can only compute in short measures. The brain scramble is real, the turbo rush and V8 crack insane, the sheer supernatural force of the Chimera otherworldly.

This isn’t a track, but that’s not to say you can’t wang it around at either end of the runway – let’s call them brackets to the frightening straight line sentence in the middle. The engine has lost the Agera RS’s buzzsaw harshness, but the steering is still quick, light and clean. Body roll, dive during braking and squat under acceleration barely exist too, which means you can almost forget you’re in a car probably worth the fat end of £8m, and enjoy the flickability, the bottomless reserves of, well... everything.

Koenigseggs have always been brave in their engineering approach, phenomenal to look at, delivered numbers from another planet, but this project proves their dedication to the hard road. And the manual sorcery adds another dimension, a stronger connection between man and machine. A simple interaction that consumes you in the process of progress, that makes driving this ridiculously potent car rewarding, even within the speed limits on public roads, not full of straining at the leash frustration.

In a world of hypercars where the choice and performance is swelling almost as fast as the ranks of billionaires who can afford them, differentiation and exclusivity is required. And personalisation doesn’t come any better than being able to work on your very own one-off science project with the maddest company of them all. Why Christian took it on when the order books are full for the next five years and a new factory is about to triple his company’s annual output, we’ll never quite know – more reps in the engineering gym I suppose. Selfishly, I’m delighted he did. Give it up for Christian von Koenigsegg – the undisputed GOAT.