Prime undeniable example why euro cars are superior.
First Drive: 2008 Koenigsegg CCXR Edition
Supercharged 1,004 Horsepower — on Biofuel
By John Barker, Contributor
Date posted: 06-23-2008
Christian von Koenigsegg lines up his latest creation, the 2008 Koenigsegg CCXR Edition, at the start of his personal airstrip. It’s a wide, finely grained blanket of asphalt located only 100 yards from the converted fighter-jet hangars in Angelhom, Sweden, where his company builds its cars.
He eases out the clutch, gets the car rolling, selects 2nd gear, then 3rd, then nails the throttle. As you’d expect with more than 1,000 horsepower and a dry weight of 2,822 pounds, the CCXR’s initial kick is strong, but it’s when the engine hits its stride that the Koenigsegg supercar takes you into another dimension.
Somewhere in the midrange the V8 finds its pure voice — a deep, solid V8 bellow — and immediately the acceleration begins to escalate. But this is just a preamble. In the next instant, the V8 goes ballistic and revs so hard it feels like the rear tires have hit ice, but the spike of G-force that buries you into the seatback tells you they’re hooked up all right. A thousand horsepower? We believe. From here on it’s a riot of acceleration interrupted briefly by gearchanges.
The best part? The twin supercharged 2008 Koenigsegg CCXR Edition runs on E85 bioethanol fuel. Take that, Mr. Gore.
1,004 HP
Indeed, it’s because the Koenigsegg’s engine is optimized to take advantage of E85’s 104-octane rating that it is able to produce its astonishing output — a cool 1,004 hp. On 98 octane unleaded gasoline, it makes a mere 876 hp.
In fact, the CCXR Edition just pips the 1,000-hp Bugatti Veyron, and at $2,400,000 or so it would be the most expensive production car in the world had Bugatti not announced the $2,450,000 Hermès version of the Veyron at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show.
Koenigsegg is unlikely to be concerned, as the company he founded in 1994 is turning a corner. From the start of production in 2001 to the end of 2007, Koenigsegg had sold 55 cars, but this year it will build between 22 and 25, including 20 Koenigsegg Editions, six E85-drinking CCXRs and 14 876-hp gasoline-only CCXs.
“Production is now like a heartbeat,” says von Koenigsegg. Homologation in Europe has been followed by homologation in the U.S. (including California emissions compliance, which has opened up a new market), but customers are spread right around the globe.
More Boost
The modifications required to allow the Koenigsegg’s twin-supercharged V8 to exploit bioethanol are considerable and vastly expensive.
The regular twin fuel pumps are replaced by a quartet of stainless steel items. Four are needed because although E85 (a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline) has a higher octane rating than gasoline, it contains about a third less energy per liter, so more needs to be supplied. Fuel consumption on E85 is therefore a third higher.
Further along the CCXR’s fuel-delivery system there are new fuel rails and injectors, two per cylinder. Inside the engine there are new pistons that raise the compression ratio to 9.2:1 and increase the displacement of the midmounted V8 from 4.7 to 4.8 liters. There are new spark plugs and ignition coils to cope with the higher cylinder pressures, and new pulleys for the pair of Rotrex superchargers to raise peak boost from 19 psi to 23.
Finally, there is a higher-capacity mass airflow meter, new engine management programming and a “flex-fuel” module so the engine can detect whether it is being fed E85 or regular gasoline.
Lots of Carbon
The staggering power isn’t all that’s special about the 2008 Koenigsegg CCXR Edition. The weave of its carbon-fiber body is on show beneath a clear coat of lacquer. It’s the work of GE Aerospace in the U.K., and carbon-fiber weave forms a perfect herringbone pattern along the car’s center line — an accomplishment that takes almost twice as long as producing an ordinary carbon-fiber body.
Koenigsegg also offers wheels with carbon-fiber rims, but today the Edition wears forged aluminum wheels. They weigh as little as the carbon items — just 20 pounds for the 19-by-9.5-inch fronts and 22.5 pounds for the 20-by-12.5-inch rears — and are nestled even more snugly into the fender wells by a slight drop in the ride height.
Although not fitted to this car, there’s also a new transmission. Developed with Xtrac, the well-known manufacturer of racing transmissions, it’s an automated manual, but it has been designed from the outset for automated shifts, so the shift mechanism and electronics are integrated rather than bolted on. The design also features a sort of “super synchro” that equalizes the shaft speeds of the meshing gears for cleaner, faster changes.
Our Turn To Drive
Slip a hand into the shadow of the air intake, find the hidden door-release button and watch with childlike glee as the door does a seemingly effortless and smooth forward roll. And with the Edition’s red seats and distinctive circular switchgear on the center console, the Koenigsegg is a genuine crowd-pleaser.
Push the start button and the starter churns with a sound like grinding metal before the engine catches and assumes an idle with plenty of bass but a gravelly undertone and a plethora of metallic ticks. With its special cast-aluminum block, the DOHC V8 (based on the Ford V8 but engineered by Grainger & Worrall in Britain) weighs less than 441 pounds, which is impressive given its output, but musical it is not.
We pick a big gear and floor the throttle from just above tickover. It’s at about 4,000 rpm that the engine note intensifies and the shove in the back starts to become insistent. The fuse is lit. Even though we’ve just experienced it, the way the power delivery ramps up when the V8 gets to 6,000 rpm is shocking. The sudden massive thump in the back and the sound of the revs spiraling crazily is thrilling and scary in equal measure.
Ready for Takeoff
After a couple of runs, we dial back the traction control for added drama and set off up the airstrip, the fat rear Michelins fizzing up in 1st and 2nd when the top-end power kicks in. Koenigsegg himself claims 60 mph arrives in 2.9 seconds. Lying bastard: The car feels quicker than that.
With room to spare — thanks partly to the exceptionally powerful carbon-ceramic brakes (15-inch front rotors with eight-piston Brembo calipers; 14-inch rear with six-piston AP Racing calipers) — we get to the rev limiter in 5th. The speedo is playing up, reading accurately only up to 250 km/h (155 mph), and it’s a little later that a quick calculation reveals 7,500 rpm in 5th to be 217 mph.
For such a light car, the Koenigsegg, which is suspended by double wishbones, coil springs and pushrod-operated gas dampers, has rock-solid stability at speed and a satisfyingly weighty feel through the steering. Koenigsegg also claims a top end of 254 mph. We’ll take his word for it.
Green Costs Green
Finished at the runway, we drive to the local Shell filling station, where we shun the V Power pumps and refuel at the blue-nozzled bioethanol stand. The phrase “having your cake and eating it” comes to mind, and not just in regard to the Koenigsegg’s performance. The 2008 Koenigsegg CCXR Edition’s dynamics, especially its ride, seem to have suffered no compromise, offering high-speed composure with remarkable suppleness over the sort of lumpy, pockmarked roads that would agitate a hot hatch.
As ever, it’s a wonderfully tactile car, with clean, accurate steering, perfectly weighted pedal action and a precise, engaging shift action. And when you do get the opportunity to get the throttle pedal all the way to its stop on the road, the pace of the CCXR Edition is utterly devastating.
As it ought to be, for while the world’s greenest production supercar is also the most powerful, there’s no getting away from that seven-digit price tag — but, hey, nobody said saving the planet was going to be cheap.
Sauce:Edmunds