Christian von Koenigsegg

Christian next to one of Koenigsegg's supercars

Christian Erland Harald von Koenigsegg (born July 2, 1972) is the founder of the Swedish high-performance automobile manufacturer Koenigsegg Automotive AB.

When Koenigsegg was five years old, he saw the Norwegian animated film Flåklypa Grand Prix; in the movie a local bicycle repairman makes his own racing car. This gave Koenigsegg the dream of creating the perfect sports car.^[1] After several years of planning he launched the Koenigsegg project in 1994.^[1] Designer David Craaford provided a design concept following Koenigsegg’s guidelines. The prototype enabled the foundation of Koenigsegg Automotive AB.

Koenigsegg and his wife, Halldora von Koenigsegg, are active in the company's management.

Early life

Koenigsegg showed an interest in cars from an early age, starting at the age of five when he watched a stop-motion film, Flåklypa Grand Prix, about a bicycle builder who built a racing car, Il Tempo Gigante. When he was six years old, he drove a go-kart for the first time in his life, and he vividly recalls this as "one of the best days of his life".^[2] His first summer job was at a Suzuki dealership outside of Stockholm, Sweden, cleaning cars. At around this time, his hobby was tuning mopeds and was well known in his area.

Innovations

Another novel idea of Koenigsegg's is triplex suspension. Basically, it is a rear suspension system used in current Koenigsegg models that allows for maximum comfort, and straight-line speed. It uses a transversely-mounted shock-absorber that connects the two rear wheels, as well as independent suspension systems for each wheel.^[3] Another innovation that the company is pursuing is free valve technology. This is a technology that uses electronics and air-pressure to actuate intake and exhaust valves with very high precision and unlimited control of timing, instead of the traditional camshaft technology for their cars, allowing for engines to be much more efficient by reducing weight and size of engines, while making each cylinder able to be controlled independently, allowing for more complete combustion.^[4]

Koenigsegg Automotive

In 2003, a fire devastated the factory. Although the building was destroyed, most of the equipment and all of the cars under production were saved. They moved to their current location, a former Swedish airplane hangar. In 2004, a new model was introduced, the Koenigsegg CCR. Up until then, Koenigsegg's cars only complied with regional safety and emissions tests, but with the Koenigsegg CCX, released in 2005, they were able to expand to the whole world. In 2010, Koenigsegg came out with their Koenigsegg Agera. In 2014, Koenigsegg built the Koenigsegg One:1, a mega car(having 1,341bhp, or 1 megawatt of power), with a power to weight ratio of 1 to 1. In 2015, Koenigsegg released the Koenigsegg Regera, a high performance luxury supercar, at the 2015 Geneva Auto Show in March. At the same time, they released the Agera RS. ^[5]

References

http://www.automobile-sportive.com/guide/koenigsegg/ageraone1_en.php