Full Throttle in Sweden

Before we left for Copenhagen, we had a phone call from our contact at Koenigsegg, the CCX-R that we were scheduled to drive was no longer available. So there we were, 24 hours away from our shoot, all hotels, car rentals, accommodation booked and no car to drive.

We really didn’t know what to do, but we decided to leave Milan for Sweden anyway, just in case something changed. After all, Koenigsegg was the hero car of this trip. Karl, Jan and Anthony had all been dying to spend time with the Koenigsegg and it all seemed to be falling apart.

This morning 7.30am came and Anthony’s phone started to ring, it was a loud and purposeful ring that woke me up. We both looked at the phone wondering who would call us at this time of the morning. It was an angel from Koenigsegg. Haldora Von Koenigsegg to be precise.

A Koenigsegg CCX was available, she said. Our nightmare had just been turned upside down. The Swedes had pulled out all stops and come through with a car in the last minute.

I calmly got out of my bed and sent Karl, who was in the next room, an SMS. “Wake up, Koenigsegg back in”. “Yeah, right.” Came back the reply. “No I’m serious, wake up”. Loud foot steps followed and Karl broke into our room within seconds. “Are you serious?” – “Yes, we’re go!”.

We made our way from Denmark to Sweden on a ferry and found ourselves on a runway with not just one, but two Koenigseggs (CCX and CCXR). Given there are only 71 Koenigseggs ever made in total, it was a pretty good view.

We battled rain and freezing weather and continued filming for hours. The Koenigsegg is out of this world. Our one-off CCX review car has a price tag of more than one million Euro (about A$2,000,000+tax).

The freedom of a runway mixed in with arguably the world’s fastest car was a godsend. Having driven the Bugatti Veyron before, the Koenigsegg is officially Europe’s second fastest car (but much faster around a racetrack than its German/French rival).

From the airport we headed to the factory where we spent hours dazzled by the level of detail and precision that goes into manufacturing a Koenigsegg.

The company will only sell 20 CCX variants each year and has very exciting plans for its new electric car, which we are not allowed to discuss in detail.

Tomorrow we head back into Sweden and straight on to the airfield where we will wrap up the final day of shooting for our Full Throttle trip.