Christian Von Koenigsegg has been on a quest for half of his life to be a leader in the hypercar industry. Having built a car like the Koenigsegg One:1, we would venture to say that his brand is amongst the leading automakers in the segment.

The Koenigsegg One:1 uses titanium and carbon fiber components wherever needed to shave weight, and improve the car’s overall low center of gravity. The car’s wheels, however, are engineering marvels and can withstand speeds up to 280 mph even though the car’s top speed settles down at 273 mph. The wheels are crafted by hand using billet tooling pieces (molds), a razor knife to cut excess material, and an autoclave. The pre-preg carbon fiber is layered into the tooling pieces until the desired thickness is met.

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Left: a worker layering the pre-preg carbon fiber into the one of the billet tooling pieces. Right: a worker layering the carbon fiber around a billet tooling piece to form the barrel.

The barrel of the wheel is constructed in the same fashion with a billet tooling piece. After both tooling pieces are sandwiched together, they are wrapped in a vacuum bag, then placed in the autoclave to be baked under pressure for a predetermined amount of hours.

Christian Von Koenigsegg shows the camera a cutaway of one of the carbon fiber wheels and the whole design becomes visible. The spokes of the wheel are hollow, and so is the center of the wheel that sits on the hub. The way they layer the carbon fiber allows the spokes of the wheel to be thin, yet stronger than aluminum. The whole process of making these wheels is definitely an interesting one. Although Ford equipped the new Shelby GT350R with carbon fiber wheels, Koenigsegg was one of, if not the first to experiment with them, and they’ve yielded some incredible results. We don’t want to ruin the rest of the video for you, so check it out and learn more about these awesome wheels.