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History
The following section is an excerpt from Wikipedia's Koenigsegg page on 25 June 2018, text available via the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
The company was founded in 1994 in Sweden by Christian von Koenigsegg, with the intention of producing a "world-class" supercar. Many years of development and testing led to the company's first street-legal production car, the CC8S' delivery in 2002.
In 2006 Koenigsegg began production of the CCX, which uses an engine created in-house especially for that vehicle. The CCX is street-legal in most countries, including the United States.
In March 2009 the Koenigsegg CCXR was listed by Forbes as one of "the world's most beautiful cars".
In December 2010 the Koenigsegg Agera won the BBC Top Gear Hypercar of the Year Award.
Apart from developing, manufacturing and selling the Koenigsegg line of supercars, Koenigsegg is also involved in "green technology" development programmes beginning with the CCXR ("Flower Power") flex-fuel supercar and continuing through the present with the Agera R. Koenigsegg is also active in development programs of plug-in electric cars' systems and next-generation reciprocating engine technologies. Koenigsegg also is working on a camless piston engine for the Regera.
Koenigsegg develops and produces most of the main systems, subsystems and components needed for their cars in-house instead of relying on subcontractors. At the end of 2015 Koenigsegg had 97 employees, with an engineering department of 25 engineers, led by the founder.
Christian von Koenigsegg got the idea to build his own car after watching the Norwegian stop-motion animated movie Pinchcliffe Grand Prix in his youth. He took his first steps in the world of business in his early 20s running a trading company called Alpraaz in Stockholm, Sweden. Alpraaz exported food from Europe to the developing world. The success of this venture gave von Koenigsegg the necessary financial standing to launch his chosen career as a car manufacturer.
Initially, Koenigsegg Automotive was based in Olofström. In 1997 the company needed larger facilities and moved to a farm, just outside Ängelholm. On 22 February 2003, one of the production facilities caught fire and was badly damaged. Koenigsegg then acquired an abandoned air field to use as his new factory building and in late 2003, one of the two large fighter-jet hangars and an office building were converted into a car factory. Since then, the company is located near the still-active Ängelholm airport, clients can arrive by private jet nearby. Koenigsegg controls and uses the former military runway for shakedown runs of production cars and high-speed testing.
The Koenigsegg badge was designed in 1994 by Jacob Låftman, based on the heraldic coat of arms of the Koenigsegg family. The shield has been the family's coat of arms since the 12th century when a family member was knighted by the Germany-based Holy Roman Empire.
Date | Article | Author/Source |
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12 June 2009 | Prodaja najmanjeg evropskog proizvođača automobila | Викивести |
11 April 2011 | Koenigsegg Automotive AB; Morgan Motor Company Limited; Receipt of Applications for Renewals of Temporary Exemptions From the Advanced Air Bag Requirements of FMVSS No. 208 | Joseph S. Carra |