i found this article on autoemirates.com

Forget the Ferrari Enzo. Move over Merc SLR. And that goes for you too, Carrera GT. Bugatti Veyron? Don’t bother. Why?

Because here is a car with the potential to surpass them all. And to top it all up, it isn’t even built by any of the big corporations whose badges are seen all around the world – on the streets or on the race tracks.

So what is this car, you ask and where does it come from? Well, to answer the last bit first, it comes from Sweden and the name is Koenigsegg.

This car is built by a gentleman having the same last name and who has the looks of a very young Telly Savalas – bald pate and all. Christian von Koenigsegg is the full name of this young Swede who had the passion for all things cars and who had this unrelenting dream of building his own super car ever since he saw a Norwegian movie about a bicycle maker surmounting the odds and making his own car – he was five at that time.

Having an astute and uncanny business acumen and entrepreneurial skills, Christian took his first steps in the world of business 23 years ago when he started a trading company called Alpraaz in Stockholm, Sweden. While running a trading company gave him the necessary financial standing, the young Christian’s heart was aching to do what he always aspired. And that was to make a car that would be so exclusive that only a select few could afford it but at the same time would exceed the limits of the world’s fastest cars.

Characterising himself as an inventor, Christian began his automotive journey and laid the groundwork for what is today the “most powerful production car” on the planet (duly certified by the Guinness Book of World Records). He has patented many of his engineering innovations, which can be seen on the Koenigsegg CCR and CC8S models. These include the unique door hinge mechanism, detachable hardtop, supercharger response system and the catalytic converter that has been suitably worked upon to reduce emissions even further while aiding in generating better power.

Depending on your point of view the 806 bhp, 242 mph (400+ kph) Koenigsegg CCR is either inspired or insane; an impressive statement or a vain attempt at glorifying a small company’s ego in taking on the big boys. It’s not so much whether the world needs another 200-plus mph supercar; its whether anyone will take one with a relatively unknown badge seriously.

But Christian von Koenigsegg is deadly serious about his creations that are hand-made by a full regime of 44 employees, including the engineering, design and production staff. One can see the gleam as his eyes light up when he is talking about his cars. He says: “When I started out 23 years ago I had the dream to build a fast sports car. Back then it was just an idea and now it has turned into a reality. The ambition to build the fastest road car in the world has been my motivation right from the start and I am happy that we have achieved this milestone.”

“Right from the beginning, our intention was to take small but firm steps towards our goal and the journey has been a long one. We were very clear in the DNA we would infuse in our cars. They had to have performance and technology as the benchmark in the category while retaining all the ethos of being true blue driver’s cars. That is to say, whilst we used the best technology available whilst making the car, we refrained from adding a lot of driving aids and complex electronics that would have only diverted the onus from the driver. So we have retained the traditional rear wheel drive layout, along with a six-speed manual gearbox, giving the driver the means to truly experience the joys of driving this super car.”

Koenigsegg builds two models – the CCR and the CC8S. The first production unit left the company’s premises in 2002 and since then 23 more units have gone through the gates. Christian’s sales target for this year are an ambitious 25 units and he seems confident of getting to this number. One of the reasons for his confidence stems from the fact that he has set up a good dealer network all around the globe excluding the lucrative US market. He has not made any move to shift some of his outrageously fast cars Stateside. This is not because the vehicles are not emission or crash tested as such – they being extremely proficient in these department as they are in their all round capabilities.

Just for the record, the Koenigsegg CC8S is one of the first supercars that have passed the new offset frontal and side impact crash tests, with the Swedish Autoliv crash test centre claiming that the CC8S was one of the safest cars they have ever tested.

Sweden is not exactly in the centre of the world when it comes to super cars. Places that spring to mind are more likely to be Italy, Germany and the UK etc. Sweden is more renowned for its minimalistic approach to design, witness the range of furniture and other household accessories from Ikea and, in the automotive world, Volvo and Saab. For sure, the Volvos and Saabs of today are decidedly much more curvaceous than before but the fact remains they still retain their Swedishness. And so is the case with the Koenigsegg. In a land of around 8 million people, the Swedes are highly automotive intense with a high knowledge base and for them a Swedish supercar makes for some smiling faces. This is a car with an honest approach and is minimalistic to the core, giving a focused design.