Words by Shubham Choukse
In August this year, Bugatti made sensations when they set a 0-400-0kmph record of just 42 seconds in the Chiron. The record attempt was made by former Formula 1 driver – Juan Pablo Montoya. Just about a month has passed and Koenigsegg, the Swedish car maker famous for its engineering finesse and insanely fast cars, has smashed the Bugatti Chiron’s record by over 5 seconds.
On October 1, Koenigsegg attempted the record in a Koenigsegg Agera RS at the Vandel Airfield in Denmark and finished the run in a blisteringly fast 36.44 seconds, breaking Chiron’s record by a fair margin of 5.5 seconds. The man behind the wheel was Koenigsegg’s factory driver Niklas Lilja and the car used was a newly built Agera RS powered by a 5-litre twin-turbo V8 petrol motor pumping out 1 MW (1341bhp) of power.
“It makes me so proud, so happy and excited to see what we have achieved as a team with the Agera RS. A result like this does not just happen. It may have only taken a few hours of driving to complete this run, but we cannot overlook all of the work that went into creating the car in the first place. Building these cars takes everything we have. We give it our all, every day of every week. Without this commitment to excellence, we would not be worthy of either the result or the reward,” Christian Von Koenigsegg, Founder and CEO Koenigsegg.
The Agera RS is shy in power by almost 150bhp when compared with the Bugatti Chiron, but then the Kerb Weight of the Agera RS is 1360kg which is fairly less than the Chiron’s Kerb weight of 1996Kg. Also the Vandel Airstrip where the Agera RS made the record was fairly rough when compared to the VW’s smooth and maintained elliptical track in Germany.
Here is the link to the official record attempt video.