Meet Koenigsegg CC Designer David Crafoord:
Koenigsegg Pictures
At the ripe old age of 22, Christian Von Koenigsegg wanted to build his dream car. A friend of his happened to be a colleague of David Crafoord, a designer with Ergonomidesign in Sweden. "I tried to convince him making a car was really complex," said Crafoord in an interview. But the young Von Koenigsegg was determined. The original price point was around $100k, but the design team flew past that. "As the car became more extreme, it had to be fastest, most beautiful, coolest car ever," said Crafoord. Price was no longer a limit -- only their imaginations were.
Crafoord's Design and the Test of Time:
When Crafoord came on board in the late 90s, he knew it would be a while before the car saw production. And he knew his design would be easy to update and add features to for years after its debut. "I was raised on Group C Le Mans cars," he said. "My favorite was the Ford GT40, with its muscular tension. It was the mother of all the muscular, beautiful cars." Koenigsegg wanted to balance Swedish safety with Italian sex to create something unique. Crafoord turned to the sea for shapes "that were produced by evolution and informed by the media in which they lived." Like, for instance, the sleek shape of dolphins.
Design Challenges:
There were of course challenges with the Koenigsegg CC. Where to stow the hard top, for instance, was tricky. "We were able to get it in the front boot finally," Crafoord said. "It looks impossible, but it works really good." Handling and control were fantastic even in early versions of the car, but it was things like the shape of the headlamps that gave Crafoord fits. "We had to find one that didn't have another brand's identity." They settled on a three-light round configuration for the prototype. "I wasn't happy with that. I wanted a more cat's eye shape," Crafoord said. "A couple years later, I got cat's eyes."
Debut of the Koenigsegg CC Series:
The Koenigsegg CC debuted at the Paris auto show in 2001, almost exactly as it had been first designed. The production car was known as the CC8S, and it was available in Europe in 2002. It was built of carbon fiber and had a 655-hp engine that could propel the car to 240 mph. Only six CC8S models were built before the CCR replaced it and beat the McLaren F1 speed record, with a top speed of 241 mph. A whole 14 CCR models were built between 2004 and 2006. A CCGT model was built for GT2 racing, but the homologation requirements were far beyond Koenigsegg's manufacturing capacity, and the car was never able to race.
Koenigsegg CCX and CCXR:
The Koenigsegg CCX followed the CCR, and of course, it was even faster. Crafoord's sleek, dolphin-esque design remains, but true to its purpose, it has allowed the CC series to evolve and go ever faster. The CCX carries an 806-hp engine, which gives it a top speed of more than 245 mph and a 0-62 time of 3.2 seconds. The CCXR is the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of the liineup. When running on high-octane gasoline, the 4.7-liter engine has 806 hp. When E85 ethanol are in the tank, the output rises to 1018 hp; top speed is over 250 mph. A special edition CCXR (of two cars) added F1 paddle shifters, a double wing, and more.
