We know Koenigsegg is keen to have a go at the magical 300 mph mark and their Jesko Absolut will be the weapon of choice when they decide to do so.
The exact top speed remains unknown but according to company founder Christian von Koenigsegg, they will be ready to find out within a year. He is not sure where to do it though as the closed Nevada highway they previously used for the Agera is not smooth enough for the speeds the Jesko Absolut is capable of hitting.
While talking to Road & Track on the phone, Christian had the following to say;
“If you run the numbers, you take the frontal area, the cd, the power, the gear ratio, the power curve… the simulations say 532 km/h (330 mph), or something like that. It’s of course a theoretical number, but that’s what simulation tells us. We don’t really have the ambition to drive that fast. The end result will be location, driver willingness, and car’s capability. But theoretically, it looks extremely fast.”
The publication asked if Johnny Bohmer Proving Grounds would be suitable to which he said “It’s perfect, apart that it’s not long enough. We can go maybe 85 percent of the car’s top speed there.”
The best facility to try this would of course be VW’s Egra-Lessien proving grounds but Koenigsegg does not have access to this for rather obvious reasons.
If you are worried about tyres being tortured and becoming unsafe at these speeds, you will be glad to know that they have test spun the tyres used on the Agera RS to 330 mph for a minute without an issue. “Michelin, when they were there during our testing, they didn’t believe their eyes. How kind our cars are to their tyres.” Koenigsegg engineers will verify that the Absolut’s tyres will be able to handle the speeds if the opportunity to test comes up, but Christian isn’t worried.
Just 125 examples of the Jesko will be built, and Koenigsegg said he doesn’t yet know how many customers will go for the Absolut, as the configurator was just sent out recently.
Time will tell if we see Koenigsegg grabbing the title from Bugatti but no matter what the result is, they will be leaving the top-speed chase.
“This is the fastest Koenigsegg we will ever endeavour to make,” Koenigsegg said at the car’s reveal.