Never before has a vehicle like the V8-powered Koenigsegg Gemera been conceived, let alone produced and sold to customers, but in July, the small Swedish brand unveiled this wild creation for the first time. Shortly after its premiere, it took the car to Monterey Car Week and YouTuber Mr JWW had the opportunity to check it out alongside Christian von Koenigsegg himself.
The original Gemera was conceived to be offered exclusively with a 2.0-liter three-cylinder twin-turbocharged engine paired with three electric motors making for a combined 1,700 hp. However, roughly twelve months ago, a Koenigsegg engineer toyed with the idea of replacing this compact three-cylinder with the twin-turbocharged 5.0-liter V8 of the Jesko hypercar.
Watch: How The Koenigsegg Gemera Will Power All Four Wheels With Either Its Electric Motor Or Its Engine
Once Christian realized that there was a way to make this engine fit by altering it into a hot-vee configuration, the engineers started to make it work. But, it wasn’t simply a case of squeezing the V8 in. Koenigsegg also had to thoroughly overhaul its nine-speed Light Speed Transmission so it now wraps around the engine itself and is dubbed the Light Speed Tourbillon Transmission. The car manufacturer didn’t stop there and has also created the world’s first six-phase electric motor for automotive use. It is known as the Dark Matter and delivers an extraordinary 800 hp and 921 lb-ft (1,250 Nm) of torque despite weighing just 38 kg.
All up, the new V8-powered version of the Koenigsegg Gemera delivers 2,300 hp and 2,028 lb-ft (2,750 Nm), making it the world’s most powerful production car.
Making the Gemera all the more impressive is the fact that it is not a two-seater hypercar that can only be driven on a track. Instead, it is a four-seater and remarkably, the second-row is very spacious. What’s more, the Gemera has a trunk large enough to store four carry-on-sized suitcases.
