Automotive

Mr. Koenigsegg thrashes the Jesko "megacar" and its remarkable gearbox

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Koenigsegg has showed off a pre-production Jesko it says is extremely close to the final street car
Koenigsegg
Koenigsegg has showed off a pre-production Jesko it says is extremely close to the final street car
Koenigsegg
Watching those doors open is always a fun event
Koenigsegg
The frontal profile the Jesko will present to the wind as it approaches its target top speed of 300 mph
Koenigsegg
The enormous, active rear wing is mounted so as to provide a surprisingly decent view out of the rear-vision mirror
Koenigsegg
The Jesko sure does look quick
Koenigsegg
1,600 horsepower V8 engine is force-fed by huge twin turbochargers, which themselves are force-fed with blasts of compressed air. A combustion centipede, if you will.
Koenigsegg
Only 125 Jeskos will be built
Koenigsegg
The Jesko's light-speed "ultimate power on demand" transmission leaps between any two gears with almost no delay
Koenigsegg
Digital dash is built into the steering wheel, and designed to stay upright as you swivel the wheel
Koenigsegg
Koenigsegg wants to push the Jesko beyond 300 mph, and we're looking forward to seeing that
Koenigsegg
Reverse-boomerang active rear wing adds huge downforce for high-speed cornering and braking
Koenigsegg
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Man stands next to car and talks about it: it's a video format you've seen a thousand times. It does hit a bit different, though, when the guy's own name is on the back of the car. Christian Von Koenigsegg is one of a very short list of people who have proven themselves repeatedly at the very pointiest end of the high-performance auto world, and the extraordinary Jesko is a high-octane love letter to his father, who helped him get started in the supercar business.

We've written extensively about the 1,600-horsepower Koenigsegg Jesko before. In standard trim, it's aiming for 300 mph (483 km/h), and the "Jesko Absolut" model ditches the high-downforce rear wing with aspirations of going significantly faster than that. Koenigsegg says it's the fastest car the company will ever attempt to make, and that's saying something.

No production car has ever recorded a two-way official 300-mph top speed – well, the SSC Tuatara did, but under highly dodgy circumstances, and when it re-ran its attempt and took the title of world's fastest car, it only managed 282.9 mph (455.3 km/h).

Likewise, Bugatti released film of its Chiron Super Sport allegedly breaking the 300-mph barrier, but it was an unofficial attempt without proper oversight, and only done in one direction; you've got to do it both ways and offer your average speed on a record attempt, to cancel out any potential wind assistance. So the magic 300 is still there to be broken, as is the 500-km/h (310.7-mph) mark.

1,600 horsepower V8 engine is force-fed by huge twin turbochargers, which themselves are force-fed with blasts of compressed air. A combustion centipede, if you will.
Koenigsegg

Such goals are arbitrary, but the technology that's gone into creating the Jesko is not. It achieves its monster power output with a roaring 5-liter V8 whose massive twin turbochargers are force-fed by 20-bar (290 psi) air blasts from an onboard compressor to ensure instant response with no turbo lag.

This engine's crankshaft has no flywheel or clutch on it, removing as much rotational inertia as possible and allowing violently fast changes in RPM. Koenigsegg had to design it this way to accommodate an extraordinary multi-clutch "Ultimate Power On Demand" (UPOD) gearbox that can shift, nearly instantly, from any of the Jesko's nine speeds to any other. Hopefully with the exception of reverse.

In the new video, Von Koenigsegg talks us around a "very close" pre-production version of the car, pointing out elements of significance like the digital dash integrated into the steering wheel, which stays level as you rotate the wheel. He quietly slags off Gordon Murray's fan-assisted downforce approach, and that sort of thing is always fun.

Light-speed "ultimate power on demand" transmission leaps between any two gears with almost no delay
Koenigsegg

And then he drives the thing, hard, demonstrating exactly how that UPOD transmission works from a driver's standpoint. In essence, if you're cruising along in top gear and you feel the need to overtake with a level of dramatic flair well beyond "decisive," you just push the shift lever in further than normal, double-clicking it as it were, and the Jesko will figure out exactly which gear to drop you into for maximal eyeball-flattening. Inducing cardiac episodes in unsuspecting passengers has never been easier.

Enough from me. Hear and experience it with the man himself in the video below. If you've got your name on the waiting list for one of the 125 being built, congratulations! Deliveries begin in spring (Northern Hemisphere) of 2022. If you don't, then polish up the pointy bits on your pitchfork, prepare the torches and get ready to join me. When the revolution comes, I want to track one of these down and take it for a hoon.

Source: Koenigsegg

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11 comments
James Roberts
The colour of the car matches his tan perfectly…
yawood
Salivate, salivate
guzmanchinky
"Except Reverse" hhahhahaa! What an amazing piece of engineering! But I'd still rather have an electric hypercar. My friend owned a Murcielago and just to get an oil change was a nightmare in price and complexity. Changing a rear light bulb involved removing 2 radiators!!! This transmission is awesome, but one gear is better... :)
guzmanchinky
James is right!!!! Oh man that's great... :)
ChairmanLMAO
Orange car, good!
Jinpa
Reviewers of restaurants and fast cars should include decibel readings in their writeups.
Johannes
Scientists detect a slight change in Earth's rotational speed whenever Christian hits the paddle.
christopher
Meh. Tesla costs less and gets up to speed faster. What came first at the last Pikes Peak? Not any Koenigsegg, but a Tesla... No burnt fossils required.
EJ222
The CCR/CCX and even the original CC8S were more attractive.


But yeah... I'm no Tesla fanboy, but this seems awfully wasteful and nearly obsolete when hyper EVs are just around the corner.
ljaques
What color is that? Perfectly Pregnant Pumpkin. Want one?
That looks like a blast to drive, but it would create such dissonance; not worth it.
Besides, paddles are tres gauche. One needs to slam the shifter through the gates for the proper experience. I miss my '70 Javelin.
I wonder how many millions of dollars his cars provide to local ticket writers at the po-po...