In a remote Nevada desert road in November 2017, a team from Koenigsegg and technical partners set out to test man and machine.
This Agera RS posted the highest speed ever recorded in a production car — 277.9 miles per hour, that’s roughly the distance of a football field every seven-tenths of a second — breaking the previous record set in 2010. The Agera RS set four other world records that day, including the highest recorded speed on a public road at 284 miles per hour, breaking a record that was untouched since 1938.
The Koenigsegg team achieved this with one set of tires on the car — Michelin’s Pilot Sport Cup 2 — tires that were not specially tuned, not modified in any way, but exactly the same tires that you could buy off-the-rack from your local dealer for your performance car.
The Koenigsegg team achieved this with one set of tires on the car — Michelin’s Pilot Sport Cup 2 — tires that were not specially tuned, not modified in any way, but exactly the same tires that you could buy off-the-rack from your local dealer for your performance car.
Even under extreme conditions, the Pilot Sport Cup 2 tires delivered the same reliable performance on the first top-speed run as the sixth run — internal temperature changes were barely a blip by most racing standards.
That very same vehicle was on the Michelin display at NAIAS as a feature vehicle demonstrating the Michelin performance advantage.
Records set that day in November include:
- The highest top speed achieved by a production vehicle (two-way average) 277.87 mph
- 0-400 km/h – 33.29 seconds
- Flying kilometer on a public road (two-way average) – 444.76 km/h
- Flying mile on a public road (two-way average) – 276.36 mph
- Highest speed achieved on a public road (single direction) – 457.94 km/h (284.55 mph)