As far as performance rivalry goes, this is the very top of the food chain, and what makes it even more remarkable is that the loser in this instance is the world’s quintessential hypercar, the Bugatti Chiron.
Just for some context, last month the Bugatti Chiron performed the fastest ever zero to 400km/h to zero acceleration and braking run for a production car.
But now the Bugatti has allegedly been toppled, with Koenigsegg claiming that its Agera RS got from standstill to 400km/h and back to a halt again in just 36.44 seconds at the Vandel Airfield in Denmark, with works driver Niklas Lilja at the wheel.
Technically the Agera took 37.28 seconds to complete the 2.44km run, because the car actually hit 403km/h, but once the sums had been done the actual 0-400-0 component amounted to 36.44s.
For the record, the acceleration run to 400 took 26.88 seconds over a distance of 1958 metres, while the braking took 9.56s over 483 metres. In fact, the hypercar covered 72.8 metres per second!
It wasn’t all smooth sailing, however, with Niklas having to keep a firm hand on the steering wheel due to all the bumps and small potholes on the deteriorating runway’s surface.
The Agera RS is powered by a 5-litre twin-turbo V8 for which Koenigsegg claims outputs of 1014kW and 1371Nm. The vehicle is built around a carbon fiber and aluminum honeycomb monocoque structure.
On the 0-400-0 run, the hypercar brand’s founder and CEO Christian von Koenigsegg said:
“It makes me so proud, so happy and excited to see what we have achieved as a team with the Agera RS. A result like this does not just happen. It may have only taken a few hours of driving to complete this run, but we cannot overlook all of the work that went into creating the car in the first place. Building these cars takes everything we have. We give it our all, every day of every week. Without this commitment to excellence, we would not be worthy of either the result or the reward.”