Koenigsegg CC850: A Birthday Present with a Clutch Pedal
A twin-turbo V8, a clutch pedal, and a shape that looks back twenty years. When Koenigsegg set out to celebrate its own history, it didn't build a retro car. It built the CC850.
The CC850 was created to mark two milestones at once: twenty years since the first production Koenigsegg, the CC8S, and the fiftieth birthday of the company's founder, Christian von Koenigsegg. The result is a modern hypercar that borrows its silhouette from the past and its mechanical heart from the present.
The green Kinsmart 1:34 scale model pictured here captures that low, rounded shape in a size that fits in the palm of your hand.
Where Koenigsegg Began
Before the CC850 could look back, Koenigsegg needed something to look back on.
Christian von Koenigsegg founded his company in Sweden in 1994, at just 22 years old. There was no factory, no racing program and no larger car company behind him. There was only the goal of building a world-class sports car from scratch.
That goal became the CC8S, the first production Koenigsegg. It was low, compact and rounded, and it introduced the world to a small Swedish company that would go on to build some of the fastest cars ever made.
Twenty years after the first production CC8S, Koenigsegg was in a very different place.
The CC850 was its way of remembering how it got there.
Fifty Cars, Then Seventy
Koenigsegg unveiled the CC850 at Pebble Beach, California, on August 19, 2022.
The original plan was simple and personal. Christian von Koenigsegg was turning fifty, so the company would build fifty cars.
The plan didn't last a week.
Six days after the reveal, Koenigsegg announced twenty more, bringing the total to seventy.
For a company that once had to prove it could build a single car, it was a meaningful moment.
1,385 and 1,385
The CC850 is powered by a 5.0-liter twin-turbo V8 borrowed from the Koenigsegg Jesko. On regular fuel it produces 1,185 horsepower. On E85 ethanol, output rises to 1,385 horsepower.
That number appears more than once.
The car weighs 1,385 kilograms, and the engine produces 1,385 Nm of torque. On E85, that works out to one horsepower for every kilogram of weight.
Koenigsegg had reached that ratio before with the One:1 in 2014, a car named for exactly that idea. The CC850 brought it back in a car designed to recall the company's very first.
The numbers are impressive, but they aren't the most interesting thing about the car.
A Manual Gearbox, Reinvented
Most modern hypercars have moved away from manual transmissions. Paddle shifters are faster, and computers can change gears more precisely than any driver.
Koenigsegg found a different answer.
The CC850 uses what the company calls the Engage Shift System, described as the first of its kind. Underneath is a nine-speed multi-clutch transmission based on Koenigsegg's Light Speed Transmission technology.
In one mode, it behaves like a modern automatic, shifting quickly and smoothly on its own. In the other, the driver uses a real clutch pedal and selects from six of the nine gears, much like a traditional manual.
The result is a car that can be relaxed on the way to dinner and fully involving on the right road.
It's a technical solution to an emotional problem: how to keep the driver part of the experience in a car this fast.
That idea means something to me. My grandfather taught me to drive stick when I was sixteen, before I ever learned on an automatic. Seeing a car with more than a thousand horsepower still make room for a clutch pedal feels like a nod to everyone who learned that way.
A Shape That Looks Back
From the outside, the CC850 is clearly a tribute to the CC8S. The proportions are compact, the surfaces are smooth and rounded, and the overall look is softer than many of today's hypercars.
Underneath, however, the two cars share no components.
The CC850 uses the Jesko's multilink suspension, forged aluminum wheels measuring 20 inches at the front and 21 inches at the rear, and six-piston brakes up front. Its doors use Koenigsegg's Dihedral Synchro-Helix design, swinging outward and rotating upward as they open.
It looks like a car from twenty years ago. It performs like a car from today.
The CC850 in 1:34 Scale
At 1:34 scale, the CC850's rounded shape translates particularly well. It's a car defined by its proportions rather than by wings and vents, so even a compact model reads clearly.
Kinsmart's model is about five inches long, with a die-cast metal body, opening doors and free-rolling wheels. The smooth nose, low roofline and compact proportions are all easy to recognize.
Green has always been my favorite color, and the paint on this one is beautiful. It suits the car especially well, highlighting the curves that connect the CC850 to the original CC8S.
The model is also available in orange, red and blue.
It also makes a natural companion to the Koenigsegg Jesko Absolut. Both cars share the same V8, but they look at Koenigsegg from opposite directions: one toward the future, one toward the beginning.
Looking Back to Move Forward
The CC850 arrived at an interesting moment for Koenigsegg.
After two decades of chasing speed and pushing technology forward, the company paused to look back at where it started. Rather than recreate the CC8S, it built a new car that carried the same spirit with modern engineering underneath.
It also kept something many hypercars have lost: a clutch pedal, and a driver who is part of the process.
The CC850 didn't need to be the fastest Koenigsegg.
It simply needed to remember where Koenigsegg began.
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