Yahoo Autos What It's Like to Bring the First Koenigsegg Agera RS to the U.S.
Back in August, we showed you photos of the car known as the Koenigsegg Agera XS. It was really an Agera RS with the engine from a One:1, a bright orange coat of paint, and a huge rear wing. But most importantly, Koenigsegg said it was headed to the States. The name had been changed at the request of the buyer, but for all intents and purposes, it would be the first Agera RS in the U.S.
Interested in finding out what it's like to bring a Koenigsegg to the States, I reached out to the buyer, Kris Singh (who you may know from Instagram), and he was happy to chat with us on what it takes to actually buy a Koenigsegg.
The biggest surprise is that, according to Singh, once you decide you're serious about purchasing a Koenigsegg, you don't have to buy sight unseen. It's more personal and requires a bit more travel than your typical car buying experience. Like, you don't drive down to the Koenigsegg dealer in town. You fly to Sweden.
"I went the the factory and test drove a few of their cars," said Singh. "Through my multiple visits to Sweden during the order and build process, I have gotten to know many of people who work at Koenigsegg, including Christian, Halldora and their lovely children."
When I bought my last car, I don't think I would have even known the seller's name if it weren't on the bill of sale.
When it came to homologating the car for the United States, though, it sounds like there wasn't much work to be done on the buyer's end. And according to Singh, they didn't run into any major snags with the government. "Everything has been smooth sailing," he said.
Asked about why he decided he needed an Agera RS in his collection alongside his Pagani Huayra, Lamborghini Veneno, and more, Singh said design and exclusivity were important, but a lot of his decision was because of Koenigsegg's innovation. The Swedish automaker builds cars the way it wants to build them, and it doesn't care how everybody else does things. But it was really the other owners that convinced him to buy one.
"It's almost like a secret society. They all own many other cool cars but their passion for Koenigsegg was different. They were all like 'just wait,' followed by a "hehehehe" under their breath. Now, I know what they were going on about," Singh told me.
As for the name change from RS to XS, Singh told me that "between the big wing, crazy color and other unique options/features, this car is way beyond excessive. That is the genesis of the Agera XS nomenclature."
Oh, and when he calls that orange a crazy color, he means it. In order to get the look he wanted, Koenigsegg added both diamonds and gold shavings to the paint, and the process "has more steps to it than the Eiffel Tower."
While that's clearly ridiculous, if I was spending what even Singh called "an insane amount of money" on a car that would be the only one of its kind in the entire country, I'd probably want diamonds in the paint, as well.
If you're concerned the only Agera RS in the country is headed to a collector's warehouse never to be seen again, don't worry. "I plan to use my Koenigsegg as often as I can and in as many situations as possible," Singh said. That includes track days and rallies, but it'll see daily use, as well.
And so far, he says, he's driven it "quite a bit" and that "the power is like no other car I have driven, but it doesn't snap or bite you."
Weirdly enough, the car he compared it to wasn't his Pagani or Lamborghinis, but his Mazda Miata. Seriously. On the one hand, both cars are well balanced, have short wheelbases, and are easy to drive. But on the other hand, one car is a multi-million-dollar hypercar with 1341 horsepower, and the other is, well, the Miata.
As big fans of the little Japanese roadster, we're not going to argue with him. Plus, it's nice to know that since I've driven a Miata, I've pretty much had the Koenigsegg experience already.
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