If you are familiar with the history, struggles, and recent results of automaker Koenigsegg, welcome to a new era. If you’ve only recently discovered the Swedish manufacturer of high performance sports cars, you are in for an exciting, thrilling, and somewhat unbelievable adventure.
The automaker was started by Christian von Koenigsegg in 1994, who has a goal of producing a world-class sports car. It took him until 2002 to produce a street legal production car. Four years later, Koenigsegg started production of the CCX with a goal of building a car for sale worldwide, including the highly regulated United States market. In 2009, the CCXR was called “one of the world’s most beautiful cars” by Forbes Magazine.The Agera was named by the BBC’s Top Gear as the hypercar of the year. Since then, the company has been producing and selling exceptional hypercars with an environmentally-friendly focus. The company has been responsible for a number of technological advances including a camless piston engine. The challenge? Up until 2020, Koenigsegg was focused on 2-seater hypercars with little to no room for anything but its driver and passenger. That changed when its new camless engine was introduced in the 2020 Koenigsegg Gemera.
The company now had a more practical, environmentally friendly four-seater with luggage room on its roster. But this is no ordinary family sedan. The 2020 Koenigsegg Gemera has an engine that produces 1,700 horsepower. That is neither a typo nor odd Swedish mathematical conversion. 1,700 horsepower. It powers the Gemera from zero to 60, with family aboard, in 1.9 seconds. The stats continue to astound with 2,600 lb-ft of torque. The Gemera has all-wheel drive and all-wheel steering. It seats four, but only has two doors. Using a unique system that pivots the doors up vertically, access to all four seats is made easy. It must be seen to be appreciated. The Gemera makes the most of its interior space by using thin, carbon fiber seats which will accommodate four adults more comfortably than in any other four seat high performance car.
Innovations abound almost everywhere you look in the Gemera, including a steering wheel-mounted gauge cluster that remains upright even as the screen moves as the car turns, much like an image on a smart-phone.
The Gemera replaces side mounted mirrors with cameras that broadcast to screens inside the car. The dash has a rotating, floating round camera that constantly moves capturing images from all angles whether the car is parked or moving. The car includes a giant infotainment screen that is center mounted and even includes niceties like hot and cold cup holders.
All of this power and innovation, of course, comes at a price. In the case of the Koenigsegg Gemera, that price is $1.7 million.