Koenigsegg Agera Hit 284 MPH – World Record Attempt

There is a lot going on at the top end of the hypercar game, with teams like Bugatti and Hennessey vying for pole position. In terms of two-way land speed records, however, it appears that a new top dog has emerged. On a Nevada public roadway, Koenigsegg’s Agera RS has achieved an incredible average speed of 277 mph (447 km/h), setting a new standard for a production vehicle.

Koenigsegg overtook former record-holder Bugatti, which had taken the top spot in 2010 with a 268-mph (431-km/h) effort, by setting a new production car land speed record over the weekend. And that has happened more than once in the past month. With a 1,360-hp (1,014-kW) Agera RS headed to a customer in the US, Koenigsegg broke the world record for 0-400-0 km/h set by the Bugatti Chiron only weeks earlier in early October.

On Saturday, Niklas Lilja, a factory test driver, took this same car to its absolute limit on an 11-mile (17.7-kilometer) section of public roadway in Las Vegas that Nevada officials had closed for the attempt. In fact, despite a steep gradient and a strong headwind, Lilja recorded an outrageous 284.55 mph (458 km/h) in one way and 271.19 mph (436 km/h) on the return.

The 2010 run wasn’t the fastest a production car has ever gone, even if Bugatti had previously held the two-way speed record. Hennessey held that record in 2014 when he ran a Venom GT at a scorching 270.49 mph (435 km/h) one-way at the Kennedy Space Center.

For the time being, Koenigsegg has both of them covered, but last week at SEMA, Hennessey unveiled the 1,600-bhp Venom F5, the Venom GT’s replacement, and boldly stated that it expects its new weapon to surpass the 300-mph (482 km/h) barrier. Thus, it’s still a place worth seeing.