While the Indian supercar market is all hullabaloo about the entry of newer competition day by day, the Indian car buyers are as much misinformed about these cars as they are about others. Only the other day, one of my colleagues came upto me and asked me if the Aston Martin cars are much like the Mercedes cars? So this stands as a pointer as to how exactly the common public perceives this cars. Today, I have got the preview of the Koenigsegg Agera in India. While this car may not ring a bell in the minds of many, it has been recently launched in India through The Estd. People bored of the Porsches and Ferraris can take a deep hard look at this piece of exotica.
In the looks department, this car couldn’t have come any better. Its Swedish design themes just like the new breed of Volvos is fresh. It however doesn’t look as good as an Audi R8 or even the Lamborghini Aventador. Now this may be a personal thing however a quick poll amongst the Indiandrives staffers revealed that none liked the images of the Koenigsegg Agera. Only the sharp head lamp design stands out with its all LED configuration. Then there is the hewn in feeling coming out of the bumpers and rest of the parts. The air flaps next to the bonnet look a bit cheesy though whereas the egg shaped outside rear view mirrors look good. The Koenigsegg logo sitting atop the long bonnet is a strapped on one and maybe an industry first. Two shark fins in the rear and a scooped out bonnet complete the rear. Lest I forget, the pentagonal all LED tail lamps and the single chunky tail pipe at the rear looks fantastic and worthy of being on a Ferrari. In simple terms, the rear looks much better than the front end. Oh, did I forget the 21 inch wheels with their blackened effect? It looks oh too good to be described in words.
The name Agera symbolizes “to act” and this is in Swedish. Nonetheless, to get inside this car would require some practice plus some aerobic sessions with a certain Mr Baba Ramdev. Yes, it is said that to get into this car, its even difficult than the Audi R8 or even the Aventador. The interiors are also not that jazzy or flashy as one would expect it to be. Infact, they aren’t as jazzier as say the ones on the Audi R8, forget the Lamborghini Aventador. But once inside the driver’s seat, it is all about comfort. There aren’t many toys to be played around with but everything feels well put together, the sort of things one expects from a car costing upwards of Rs 12.4 crores. Though the materials feel exotic, they don’t look as good as say a Ferrari’s. The hand brake lever is covered with leather and the yellow stitchings on it look awesome. The central console is finished in brushed aluminium while the analogue speedometer with its power reserve booster markings look classy. This is a mid engined hyper car and hence has storage space under the front hood. Two cup holders in the front console plus a scoop in the dashboard are all that are there as far as storage spaces go. The visibility all around, as far as super cars go, is good but the rear most portion is akin to that of a keyhole. The reverse parking sensors come into play for this one. But then the Agera was never built to be a car which one can use for everyday traveling. Hell, it can’t even be used for high profile parties where one can’t get out of the car properly. Ladies, beware of flashing your knickers. Yana Gupta, don’t tell me that I didn’t warn you earlier.
While it is usually a neglected fact that super cars tend to handle almost as well as sports cars, the Koenigsegg Agera begs to differ. Neither does it have the perfect precision of a Ferrari or Lambo in slow moving traffic and or the bone jarring ride quality of either. Below a certain speed limit, its steering lacks precision and even the brake as also accelerator pedal lacks feel. What it can do is potter around in 3rd gear in town at speeds of 30 and with some push on the accelerator, go all the way to 200 kmph in the same 3rd gear. The ride quality feels a bit absorbent however the ride height of only 100 mm seems negligible as far as Indian roads are concerned. Pushing a button around in the cabin yields 6 mm more of the ride height. But is it enough for our roads? Nah, most wouldn’t even care and by this, I mean the speed breakers. You don’t discuss NVH in a hyper car. Though Koenigsegg don’t tune the exhaust note in some air tunnel or by acoustics engineers, they have ensured that customers wouldn’t complain of the lack of aural delights when the throttle is blipped in a particular gear.
The engine in the Koenigsegg Agera in India is a 5 liter twin turbo V8 petrol motor with 940 Bhp on tap and 1100 Nm of torque available. This car isn’t a 4 wheel drive car and is a rear wheel driven one. A 7 speed automatic transmission with paddle shifts is on offer. Official claims put the Agera just .2 seconds behind that of the Lamborghini Aventador and this means a lap time of 3 seconds for the 0-100 kmph dash. Top speed is a claimed 400 kmph however there are no roads in India where one can test the Agera’s maximum speed without hitting a road block or even an animal. What this means is calling for trouble. At city speeds, as mentioned earlier, the Koenigsegg Agera’s brakes may not call for much stopping power however once past the 100 kmph mark, the brakes call in for an urgency which is totally unfathomed. All the necessary electronic aids are present in this car. Safety is as per the industry standards for super cars and this isn’t a problem with the Agera. Fuel efficiency? It is approximately 3.1 kmpl in city and 5.6 kmpl on the highway. It has got an 80 liters fuel tank.
Christian Von Koenigsegg, the man behind the creation of the Koenigsegg cars was actually inspired by a Norwegian movie. This Norwegian movie Flaklypa Grand Prix was actually about a bicycle repairman who actually visualizes a race car design. This design is stolen by some one and that person makes it real big. Vowing to take revenge, the bicycle repairman gets down on building his own race car and eventually goes onto win each and every racing competition, not to mention accolades worldwide. After coming out of the theatre, the 5 year old Christian told his dad that he would be building his own super car when he grew up. He started his own car company way back in 1994 but then the first Koenigsegg Agera CC85 was delivered to a customer in 2002. During all these years, Christian self educated himself with the various nuances of car building and also evolving design themes. He went through an informal, self educated imparted education format on construction of cars and their philosophies. During the period from 1994-2002, for mere survival, he ran a food company plus invested in stocks and real estate. After the first car delivery happened, there was no looking back and in no time, he had about 50 people working under him. Unfortunately a fire in his factory in 2003 halted production and took about a year for Koenigsegg to be back in the reckoning. As of now, the company operates from a hangar. Christian says that the company as of produces about 15 cars each year. It is a relatively unknown fact that Koenigsegg manufactures their own engines and this is the reason why the entire manufacture of a car takes time. Christian also believes that in the coming years, they would ramp up productions and have many marketing strategies in place. For the Indian market, he says that even if they are able to sell only one car, it’s a big achievement. Many of Koenigsegg’s overseas clients are Indians and hence the thought of officially setting foot here came into his mind. The other mean machines from the Koenigsegg stable are the Koenigsegg CC85 and the Koenigsegg CCR.
The Koenigsegg Agera price in India starts from Rs 12.2 crores.
Content idea courtesy : TopGear India
