December 25, 2023 Issue

Pick of the Issue this week is Ed Caesar’s “Speed,” an exploration of the fascinating world of hypercars – limited-edition vehicles that go or even exceed 300 m.p.h. and cost millions of dollars. Caesar attends a hypercar jamboree at a resort near Málaga, in southern Spain. He rides in a purple Koenigsegg Regera (“The car’s five-litre engine, along with three electric motors, resulted in instant, unyielding torque—the rotational force that translates into acceleration. When the car sped up, I felt as if I’d been suctioned to the seat by a giant vacuum cleaner”). He visits the Koenigsegg factory in Ängelholm, Sweden (“One car on display is a Gemera, the world’s first four-seater hypercar. The Gemera, a phev—plug-in-hybrid electric vehicle—with a maximum twenty-three hundred horsepower, can accelerate from zero to sixty in less than two seconds”). He visits the headquarters of another hypercar manufacturer, Hennessey, in Texas, where he rides in a deep-blue Venom F5 Coupe:

We did a warmup lap in Sports Mode—or Baby Mode, as Roys called it—hitting 155 m.p.h. Then he switched to something called F5 Mode. Before the final, short straightaway, he asked me if I was ready. When he hit the accelerator, it was like being strapped to a surface-to-air missile. Each gear change provoked the car to ever more noise and aggression. We hit 170 m.p.h., then braked to make the final turn. I stifled the urge to scream, but not to curse.

Caesar talks with hypercar test-pilot Andy Wallace. Wallace tells him about driving Bugatti’s Chiron Super Sport 304.8 m.p.h. on a test track in Germany (“ ‘It seemed a shame to lift off the accelerator, but then you see the wall coming,’ Wallace said”). Caesar, accompanied by former Le Mans winner Pierre-Henri Raphanel, takes a Bugatti Chiron Super Sport for a spin. He writes,

Raphanel reminded me to trust him. The next time, when he said, “Full power”—adding, “Full, full, full!”—I did as told. Other cars flew past the passenger window like blown leaves. My focus narrowed on the lane before me. The speedometer showed an alarmingly high number before Raphanel told me to brake. Evidently, I didn’t brake hard enough: he physically depressed my leg. As we decelerated, the car never veered from a straight line. 

The piece ends vividly. Caesar visits the Rimac Group headquarters outside Zagreb, Croatia. Rimac makes electric hypercars, e.g., the Nevera. Rimac’s chief test-driver, Miro Zrnčević, shows him some of the Nevera’s qualities. Caesar writes,

It accelerates faster than any road car ever made: zero to 60 m.p.h. in 1.74 seconds, and zero to a hundred in 3.21 seconds. By now, I was used to the power of hypercars, but it was my first time experiencing such power so noiselessly. When Zrnčević accelerated from a standing start, my brain struggled to align the speed we accumulated with the near-silence around us. I nearly threw up.

“Speed” is a wonderful tour of an incredibly exotic corner of the car world. I enjoyed it immensely.