The $3.4-Million Koenigsegg Jesko Rakes In The 2022 Hypercar Award From The Motorheads At ‘Top Gear’

The Koenigsegg Jesko has been raking in the plaudits and creating its own fanbase since its introduction at 2019’s Geneva Auto Show, but the new $3.4 million Jesko Absolut has just done its predecessor proud in winning the annual 2022 hypercar of the year award from Top Gear. It’s not as if the car actually needed the plaudit to prove anything, but it is an awfully nice public certification of its intense popularity among the global hypercar-owner set, and it’s made Christian von Koenigsegg, the founder of the hardy company in Angersholm, Sweden, and his 500 colleagues who make the thing in some very imaginatively converted former hangers at a demobbed Swedish military airbase very, very happy.

So, it’s a good occasion to revisit the story of the car, which is inextricably bound with the cliff-hanging story of the company.

Twenty-five years ago, as Christian von Koenigsegg was scrambling around for backers for his then-nascent car company — that he from the outset imagined as exclusively designing and building supercars, which von Koenigsegg had the even bolder notion to manufacture in Sweden, at an abandoned military airbase in the small southern town of Ängelholm — car maker approached his father Jesko, who threw him the lifeline in the form of his life savings. That level of trust was repaid as the little company took off, instantly attaining cult status and a fanbase of many thousands around the world. Suffice it to say that as the reputation of the company solidified and grew over the years, the subsequent models, through the Agera and Regera, sold out.

When in 2019 it came time for a new model, the carmaker decided to name it for his father, and to keep that a secret until the car itself was first unveiled at that year’s Geneva show. Von Koenigsegg, and the entire design and manufacturing team at the plant, were able to keep the name of the car secret from Jesko von Koenigsegg throughout the design and build process. Which is to say, the Koenigsegg interior mechanics didn’t fix the nameplate to the car’s dash until the after announcement was made at the show. The surprise held.

Specifically, the Top Gear 2022 hypercar of the year award is dedicated to the highly tweaked Jesko Absolut, with its eye-watering price tag of approximately $3.4 million, but the father-son DNA is very much in this construct, and is justly celebrated for its blistering speeds, its handling, and its robust power train.