Ever wanted to hit 250mph with your 3 best friends? Well Koenigsegg have just solved that.

When I was sat in maths at the age of nine, I would often think about how I would one day make the ultimate car. I would give it hell raising power, a 0-60 time quicker than almost anything that has gone before, a top speed of 250mph, an amazingly complicated engine and enough seats for all my friends to ride along with me. Well Koenigsegg have built that ultimate dream car. It is called the Gemera and it is probably the most exquisite piece of automotive engineering I have ever seen. 

Let’s not beat around the bush here. It has a 600hp three cylinder twin-turbo engine. An additional 3 electric motors. The result is 1,700hp and an Earth crushing 2580lb ft of torque. This helps propel the car from 0-60 in 1.9 seconds and on to a top speed of 250mph. Oh, it also has just one single gear. Nine year old James is now excited. 

I want to talk about this engine, because rather than take the easy route and go all electric like Rimac, Koenigsegg have come up with a hybrid option featuring a completely carbon neutral petrol engine. It is described as a ‘Freevalve’ engine which basically means the cams have been chucked to better control the valve timing, which increases efficiency but more importantly, power. It is also the main way 600hp is able to be developed from a 2.0-litre 3-cylinder engine, other than whopping great twin turbos. The way the carbon neutrality comes in is down to the fuel too. The Gemera can be fuelled with ethanol, CO2-neutral methanol or worst case scenario… petrol. To support the engine, the Gemera has been given 3 electric motors: 1 for each of the rear wheels and 1 for the camshaft. These produce 1,100hp, giving the Gemera that staggering 1,700hp figure. In electric mode alone it can hit 186mph.

Other than the engine, the other special aspect of the Gemera is four seats. Koenigsegg is calling the Gemera the first “Mega-GT” and there is no other way to describe it. 4 adults can fit comfortably, with the car being designed for “family trips, in comfort, style and safety.” It comes with eight – yes, eight – cupholders, four to heat and four to cool. There is onboard wifi, memory foam heated seats and it even has ISOFIX points! Something 9 year old me never thought of. To help with getting in and out of the car safely and in the utmost comfort, the doors are the usual “Koenigsegg Automated Twisted Synchrohelix Actuation Doors” that you get on other Koenigseggs. In other words they open forwards and up.

The Koenigsegg Gemera is a car that simply boggles the mind, possessing stats and features that a nine year old could only dream of. To think that someone has made that car very much a reality is impossible to get your head around. It is just nuts. From the complexity of the engine, to the 4 seats, this could well be the car of the decade.

Because the 720S was clearly not fast enough..

When McLaren brought out the standard 720S in 2017, everyone formed the same opinion, it was blisteringly fast. If anything a bit too fast. It was sub 3 seconds to 60mph from a standstill and would hit 120mph in less than 8. On the public roads this is just insanity. However, the other thing people felt about the 720S is that it was too usable as a daily, despite the Concorde levels of pace. McLaren have addressed this in the only way they know how… even more power, even more downforce and even less weight. Welcome to the 765LT.

The first thing I want to mention is the truly ludicrous rear end, predominantly the quad exit full titanium exhaust. The last time I had a reaction similar to my initial reaction to the rear end was the first time I was at home alone on the internet. This is a glorious piece of design by the boffins in Woking, but you know at the same time that this rear end was not sculpted just to look nice. There is 25% more downforce than the 720S, thanks to the new carbon fibre front splitter, bigger rear diffuser and 3 position active rear wing which also acts as an airbrake. In addition to the new bumpers, all the body panels are now made of carbon fibre, meaning this car is light, very light. McLaren have put the 765LT on a very strict weight loss diet, resulting in 80kg being shaved off compared to the 720S. This is 140kg lighter than the 765LT’s main rival, the Porsche 911 GT2 RS, which tips the scales at 1470kg. 

How do you go about making something with 710bhp even more powerful? Rather than just plug in a laptop and tweak the ECU, McLaren have swapped out a few parts of the 4.0 litre Twin-Turbo V8 from the 720S and replaced them with some from the Senna, the range topping psychopathic hypercar. The 765LT has new forged pistons and a ‘three layer’ head gasket, increasing the power to 755bhp, or 765PS as the name suggests. This leaves the 765LT doing 0-60 in 2.8 seconds and on to 124mph in a 7.2 – sixth tenths faster than the standard car, leaving your internal organs left where you started off from. This teamed with the 765LT’s ability to stop from 124mph-0 in 110m thanks to the same brake calipers and carbon ceramic discs from the Senna, will result in your eyeballs flying out their sockets. Top speed? Just the 205mph.

To sum up then, the McLaren 765LT is a complete work of art. The ability to shift your organs about in a way that can only be compared to a jet fighter, the ludicrous amounts of power and a better rear end than Kim Kardashian are testament to how much McLaren try to push the abilities of the supercar to the very edge. Let’s not forget that this car is in essence, the successor to the 675LT, so there are some big boots to fill. But to be honest, if the 765LT is as good as it is on paper, those boots would be well and truly filled.