Agera RS

Make
Koenigsegg
Segment
Coupe

The design and build process behind the interior of a Rolls Royce Phantom seem like an excessive pursuit. This is because months of time devoted to ensuring that special leather, book matched wood, and sumptuous details look good enough to justify the $417,000 price. But how does this translate to a car that costs three times this much? Of course, this territory is inhabited not by the super luxurious but by the super rare beasts and fastest top chain predators of the automotive world like the Koenigsegg Agera.

Unlike the Rolls Royce Phantom, Koenigsegg does not have the freedom of adding luxury amenities without a care in the world about weight. To help keep the interior light, a Kevlar-reinforced carbon fiber monocoque is used. At 154 pounds, this shell is lighter than the average adult male. These bones are where the leather, stitching, and aluminum go in order to create a space that will raise heart rates when stepping inside and reduce them when things get hairy. As a general rule, the $1 million dollar plus price bracket should be devoid of plastics, and the Koenigsegg Agera manages this well. To create an expensive feeling interior, Koenigsegg replaced the plastics usually used for the buttons with aluminum.

The polished and anodized aluminum looks pretty by itself, but Christian Von Koenigsegg thought that it would become embellished by adding pictograms or by cutting out holes in pictogram patterns for light to shine through. He wanted each button to look like an untouched piece of aluminum when the car was off, so Koenigsegg developed an entirely new way to make a button just to create his dream car. To do this, a laser cuts micro holes into the aluminum in the shape of the desired pictogram. The result is Koenigsegg's own "Ghost Lighting System," made up of pixel-like pictograms that look like crisp buttons when the car is in use and disappear when the car is shut off.

A light monitoring system is conscious of when intense sunlight comes into the cabin, when day turns into night, and when the car drives into a tunnel, adjusting this Ghost Lighting System accordingly. In fact, visibility is a huge priority for Koenigsegg. The reason why the signature speedboat style windows have their A-pillars so far back is because Koenigsegg wanted drivers to be able to see corners well without a pillar in the way. This is a good thing when you're in control of 1140 horsepower. Helping the driver keep this power in check is a steering wheel with some major design time behind it. Not only does the leather on the wheel take 24 hours to apply to the carbon fiber shell, but the wheel's ergonomics were carefully thought out.

The top of the wheel is thinner than the bottom to enable a better view of the gauges. Like the buttons, the paddle shifters behind the wheel feature springs tuned to produce a trigger-like click when pulled, ensuring that there is no way to accidentally change a gear. Overall, the attention to detail and Swedish design all come together to make the Koenigsegg Agera a nice place to inhabit. Meanwhile, a triad of light materials are used to make something attractive out of minimum leeway for weight, which proves that performance and luxury can coexist. The Agera's styling is controversial and some people love it or hate it. But those willing to spend $1 million on a car have already shown which side of the "love it" or "hate it" pond they stand.