In 1997, Gran Turismo changed my life. Ever heard of it? This game introduced me into the world of cars I couldn’t imagine as a teenager. Tuning my car in order to go faster and faster around different tracks taught me what car engineering is all about. As the franchise progressed, it introduced me to a plethora of car manufacturers. I will always be grateful to Gran Turismo for the endless hours I spent racing and obtaining the various licenses, buying performance upgrades, and fine tuning my car to beat all the records in the virtual land. However, I now have a new favorite car manufacturer that made my wildest gaming fantasy come true, in real life.
The Koenigsegg (pronounced co-nig-seg) Jesko will be the world’s first (and possibly only) car manufacturer to build a 300-mph production car. What does that even mean? That means, once I find my imaginary stash of $3 million dollars in my piggy bank, I will able to drive off the car lot, onto the straightest road in the world, and hit the big 3-0-0 on the dashboard. I wouldn’t have to go back to Gran Turismo and see what parts to upgrade in order to achieve this miracle of engineering in real life, Koenigsegg did all the work for me. Unfortunately for us, Koenigsegg will only produce 125 cars to the owner’s specifications and they’re sold out.
The Jesko has not been released as of yet. It is expected to reach its customers in the final quarter of 2020 at an interval of one car per week. The Jesko will be released in 2 variants, the track version (whose top speed has yet to be released or announced) and the top-speed (the record breaking 3-0-0 version.) Even though the company is based in Sweden, the car will be shipped worldwide to whomever bought a slot for the Jesko. Koenigsegg may seem familiar to Gran Turismo fans if you remember the Agera R, CCR, Regera, CCX, and One:1. What you probably don’t know, is the Koenigsegg Jesko was named after and tributed to the company’s founder, Jesko von Koenigsegg.
If you want to build your own 300mph car, you’ll have to start with a 5.0-liter, twin turbocharged V8 engine that can produce 1600 hp on E85 biofuel. Simple, right? Next, attach a 20-liter air tank, charged to 20 bar (290 psi) to the turbos in order to reduce turbo lag in low RPM situations. Your engine will also need a lightweight crankshaft, affixed in a 180-degree flat plane, so that you save weight and increase your redline RPM’s. Got it? Well there’s more because you’ll have to develop a custom 9-speed, multi-clutch transmission with 21 possible gear combinations in order to jump to and from any given gear to avoid disrupting the ratio. Make sure your car is as light as possible yet rigid by building a lightweight monocoque (meaning building the shell of the car in one, single piece.) Throw on some super light, carbon fiber wheels (20 inches in the front and 21 inches in the rear.) Add some Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2’s tires to those wheels and you’re pretty much done.
I know what you’re thinking; why do you need to own a 300mph hyper-car in real life? One could argue that you wouldn’t enjoy the full potential of the vehicle on either a public road or a racetrack. Another would say that owning a machine that is more than capable of the average car’s performance is enough as well. I mean, why do people climb Mt Everest, right? But the real question is, how does it feel to go that fast in a car? Gran Turismo and other racing simulations try to answer this question visually, yet nothing beats real life. The sound of the engine as it revs to blistering speeds, feeling your body sink into the seat as the car accelerates past normal limits, or the view of the world whisking past you as you’re strapped in a vehicle defying physics.
The only way an average person like you or I can hope to own or experience this technological achievement is to win the lottery and buy it from someone who’ll sell their car in the near future. Realistically, we’ll probably just have to wait until the next installment of Gran Turismo.
Photo credit: https://www.koenigsegg.com/car/jesko-absolut/#equipment