Koenigsegg set to launch Down Under
BY TUNG NGUYEN | 21st May 2018
SWEDISH supercar marque Koenigsegg is preparing to launch Down Under, confirming last week that Australia and New Zealand have been allocated five units of the yet-to-be-revealed Agera successor – due to break cover at next year’s Geneva motor show – which will be sold at its first Australasian dealership, in Melbourne, from 2020.
Lorbek Luxury Cars, based in Port Melbourne, is described as “a natural choice” for Koenigsegg’s Australian and New Zealand market debut due to its “world-class facilities, a fantastic central location in what is soon to be Australia’s largest city, and decades of experience with exotic sportscars”.
Prodigy Automotive, the Swedish hypercar-maker’s official distributor for the region, will handle compliance and homologation of the ultra-exclusive vehicles.
In an interview with GoAuto, Prodigy Automotive director Nicholas Batzialas confirmed that Australasian allocation of the Agera replacement will be limited to a handful out of a global production run of just 125 units.
“We’ve been allocated five of the new Agera replacement models, which I can’t reveal the name as yet, but it will be extreme as Koenigsegg is a hypercar brand and I think the world will embrace the car as they have in the past,” he said.
“They’re producing 125 of these new Agera replacement cars, and while we were in Geneva … 80 were sold to previous owners and dealers via a virtual reality machine.”
While Lorbek Luxury Cars is currently the sole outlet for the Swedish brand in Australia and New Zealand, Mr Batzialas did not rule out the possibility of expanding to other sites in line with Koenigsegg’s plans to increase production over the next five years.
“The cars are rare, as you understand, the factory builds up to 30 cars a year for global production, and that 30 is sort of split up amongst the worldwide dealer network,” he said.
“With such low production, to open up another dealership in say Sydney … that’s not off the cards, but Koenigsegg’s plan in the next five years to move to 100 cars per year, so as the factory increases its volume, then we can look at expanding into other areas around Australia.
“We’re basically going to grow with the brand.”
Official details of the new Koenigsegg model have yet to surface, but Lorbek director of marketing Harry Hamann confirmed to GoAuto that one well-heeled buyer had already committed to the forthcoming hypercar.
“We don’t even know what the name of it is … the Agera RS is already the world’s fastest car, so this will no doubt eclipse it,” he said.
“At the moment, we’ve got a deposit on one, we’re working on another one at the moment. So we’ve got a good prospect of having two (sales) before the launch (event next month).
“If we do get that second car (sold), the factory will be far more amenable to giving us a bigger allocation, which I think they will.”
Although still too far from launch to confirm pricing, Mr Hamann said the new Swedish hypercar is currently wearing an indicative driveaway pricetag of about $5 million.
“On the road, we estimate it’s going to be somewhere between $4-5 million,” he said. “That largely depends on a number of factors: one, where the dollar is at the time when it gets released; and two, where we stand with luxury car tax and stamp duty.
“That’s why we’re keeping a fairly broad range on it, but it will fall between that bracket as a driveaway price, registered and able to drive along any road in the country.”
Koenigsegg’s current model line-up consists of the Agera – which in RS guise is officially recognised as the world’s fastest production car with a verified top speed of 447km/h – and the Regera plug-in hybrid.
Both hand-built models are powered by a twin-turbocharged 5.0-litre V8 engine that develops up to 1000kW/1370Nm in the Agera, but when paired with the electric motors the Regera produces an astonishing total system output of 1119kW/2000Nm.
Both powerplants are rear-mid-mounted, with power sent to the rear wheels for a 0-100km/h sprint time of 2.8 seconds.
While the Agera sends power to the road via a specially developed seven-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission, company founder Christian von Koenigsegg invented the Direct Drive system for the Regera that eliminates the need for a transmission.
The new Koenigsegg model is expected to carry the performance torch from its forebears and employ the same level of cutting-edge technology and engineering as before. However, the yet-to-be-seen hypercar will likely blend the hardcore sporting characteristics of the Agera with the more luxury-focused Regera.
Australia likely will miss out on Koenigsegg’s previous models as both are winding down production, but Mr Hamann said there could still be a chance to spot the Agera or Regera on local roads.
“We could possibly see one, but you can’t order one because they don’t make them anymore,” he said. “We’d be getting stock from out of the UK because there are cars in the UK which we could comply and bring here.
“I think there is a car in Singapore which we could potentially have, but you couldn’t order one to your specifications in either of those models.”
Lorbek will also handle the aftersales and servicing program of Koenigsegg vehicles off-site.
Although competition in the rarefied super-exclusive hypercar segment is scarce, Koenigsegg will have to share the local market with Pagani and its $5.5 million (luxury car tax inclusive, but excluding on-road costs) Huayra Roadster that was launched in March.
However, Mr Hamann said Koenigsegg stands head and shoulders above other marques due to its engineering prowess.
“Koenigsegg is a very different brand to Pagani,” he said. “Pagani is very Italian, I guess, and the difference between Koenigsegg – which is very important to stress – is that it’s very much a brand focused on engineering quality.
“It’s the only hypercar brand that manufactures every single part themselves, so where Pagani have a Mercedes-Benz engine and a gearbox from someone else and all that sort of stuff, Koenigsegg build every single component of their cars … the only thing they don’t produce are the tyres, everything else is engineered in Sweden.
“The build quality and the resultant reliability is far superior to anything that anyone else offers, including companies like Ferrari.”
It remains unclear whether Lorbek will be able source any Koenigsegg models for its planned brand launch next month, which Mr Hamann said is a work in progress.
“At this stage, it’s going to be a soft launch, we’re trying to get some cars, but we’re running on the expectation that we won’t have one available,” he said.
“We’re working on something out of South-East Asia or Dubai or something like that, but we don’t see that happening, so it’s going to be a launch for a select number of customers and people in the media just to basically introduce ourselves as the main dealer and explain what we are going to do and what the marketing strategy is going to be and what we can offer.
“We are working on trying to get a car, but because it’s happening all very quickly, we really haven’t had the time or the effort to be able to get one locked in for that date.”
Although this will be the first time that Koenigseggs are officially available in Australia, there are two known examples already here.
An orange CCX (the Agera’s predecessor) can be seen in former Auburn deputy mayor Salim Mehajer’s infamous pre-wedding video from 2015, while a similar car was also posted online for sale wearing a $1.2 million pricetag.
