Koenigsegg Tells All 28 Jesko Owners to Stop Driving, Presumably Over Group Text

The hypercar maker issued the warning after one of its creations burst into flames on a hot day in Greece.
Koenigsegg Jesko on fire on highway
Proto Thema/YouTube screenshot

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A Koenigsegg Jesko Attack “Nür Edition”—a somehow even more extreme version of what was already one of the world’s wildest performance cars—cooked down to a heap of hot trash on the side of a Greek highway on Saturday. Nobody was reported injured, but a great piece of art and engineering has been lost. The cause of the fire is under investigation, and in the meantime, the Swedish supercar company recommends all Jesko owners stop driving the cars in the interim. Thankfully, since less than 30 have been shipped, it’s not a problem too many people will have. And something tells me most of them have alternative transportation options.

Most people will never see one of Koenigsegg’s monstrous performance cars in the wild, but here you can see one melting next to a mile marker:

Egg Registry, more or less the authority on all-things-K’segg online, reports that the company emailed owners to tell them it would research the incident and that it would share updates. “Out of an abundance of caution, we ask all Jesko owners and drivers to hold off on driving their cars until we have had a chance to understand the situation better,” relays the Registry. The site also reports that 28 Jeskos have been delivered so far.

Carscoops also did a post about the fire and reported that this particular Koenigsegg had an exposed carbon fiber option which, alone, cost $443,400. The Jesko starts at about $3,000,000, with only 125 slated to be built.

Peeking around social media revealed that the car was on some kind of rich-guy-rally with a bunch of other high-end cars organized by 6to6motor. The car club posted some of the last pics of the car in one piece just about a week ago.

I dropped a line to Koeingsegg to crosscheck the “do-not-drive” order and will hopefully get an update when a cause of the conflagration can be found. Meanwhile, I can tell you that ambient temps in Athens hit 96ºF last weekend. If the car was doing a lot of high-revving at low speed, which certainly could be going on at a supercar parade in city traffic, that’s definetly a recipe for thermal incidents, even in high-end hardware.

Orange Koenigsegg Jesko front three-quarter view.
Here’s a Jesko, albeit not the Jesko, in much better condition.

Koenigsegg

The Jesko runs a 5.0-liter twin-turbo V8 belching out 1,280 horsepower on pump gas and a comical 1,600 hp on E85. I mean, the thing hits over 24 psi of boost. Even with a super-robust cooling system, you’re asking a lot of an engine making that much power to burble under the summer sun.

Tough to feel pity for somebody with $4,000,000 to spend on a toy, but I do feel bad for whoever accidentally immolated this machine. My heart especially goes out to the craftspeople who built the thing. Imagine how hard it must have been to line up that much carbon weave in an aesthetically pleasing way.

Either way, pour a little motor oil out for the loss of this rolling masterpiece. Here are a few more angles of its unfortunate demise:

And one more:

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