Without exception, every Koenigsegg ever produced seems to have been the insane creation of mad scientists who have never heard the phrase “That’s good enough.” The brand’s latest vehicle, the Jesko, is claimed to be the fastest revving production vehicle on earth.
That means, as the Koenigsegg team proves with a rev test, that from idle, its 5.0-liter V8 can accelerate to 7,800 rpm (the car’s limit at neutral; on the move it rises to 8,500 rpm) in just 213 milliseconds (0.213s), or at a rate of 31,700 RPM per second. The engineer speaking to Christian von Koenigsegg says that they’ve measured peaks of more than 46,000 RPM per second when revving from a higher starting point.
Having an engine that builds revs quickly is important for more than just bragging rights, though. According to von Koenigsegg, the faster an engine gains revs, the better it is for driving.
See Also: Christian Von Koenigsegg Takes Us On A Detailed Walkthrough Of The Jesko
“The better number you can get there, the more control you can have over the car, the more directly it reacts to your inputs,” says von Koenigsegg. “And also it means you can shift faster. Because even if you have a super-fast shifting gearbox, if you have a lot of inertia and slow response in your engine, it won’t react so quickly between the gear changes and will slow that process down.”
Indeed, the transmission in the Jesko is called the Light Speed Transmission and Koenigsegg claims it is the fastest one in the world. Designed specifically for the car, it has no clutch between the engine and the transmission, instead using smaller clutches with less mass inside the gearbox to allow for insanely fast changes.
The Jesko’s twin-turbo 5.0-liter V8 engine, meanwhile, is capable of producing 1,578 hp (1,177 kW / 1,600 PS) and 1,106 lb-ft (1,500 Nm) of torque when running on E85 fuel and 1,262 hp (941 kW / 1,280 PS) on regular gas.