Get ready for the 4-door Koenigsegg

Fancy the idea of a four-door, hyper Koenigsegg? You might be in luck. Company boss Christian von Koenigsegg has told TopGear.com that such a car could appear in the near future.

Speaking at the Geneva Motor Show - and the launch of the lightly bonkers 1800bhp Regera petrol-electric monster - Koenigsegg confirmed that a four-door hypercar is under consideration.

"Yes, I can imagine a car like that," he told us. "Maybe within the next five years, possibly earlier than that."

Christian wouldn't reveal any more than that - perhaps understable, considering he's about to embark on a two-model production run for the first time in his company's short life, and is expecting a production jump from around 11 cars a year to 22 cars next year. But, there is scope for future Koenigseggs to feature more doors, and potentially more thunder.

What we won't see however, is a smaller, 911-sized Koenigsegg offering. When pressed on whether he'd ever make a Ferrari 458, Porsche or McLaren 650S rival, Christian said that was a game he planned to steer clear of.

"To me, in the last few years, that sector - the 911, the McLaren, the Ferrari 458 etc - is a hornet's nest which I want to stay well away from," he said.

"Everyone is trying to kill each other. I'm happy way out here, away from that in my little blue ocean. I'm not interested in getting into that fight." Couldn't, TG asked, Koenigsegg hold its own in such a fight? "Yes, we could, but I'm not interested."

No, what he's interested in is the luxury Regera hypercar, and a future with a cam-less engine. That's right, an engine with no camshafts. "The way I see it, if you view the engine as a piano, and the valves as keys, with a camshaft, you're playing the piano with a broomstick."

How on earth would a camless engine work, then? "The reason you have a four-valve cylinder head instead of a two-valve is so it can breathe freely on high rpm for more power, but that's counteracting your efforts at low rpm, because you get less speed through bigger ports and less turbulence and poorer distribution.

"The first thing is to shut off two valves. Then if you get rid of the throttle body - because you can throttle with the valves - you can open them a little or a lot, you get better response than butterflies on an intake tract, because you're in the combustion engine.

"Thirdly you can shut off cylinders completely like Audi is doing, but you don't have to choose just two to do it. And fourth, you can have any valve timing you want - a diesel-like character, or an F1-type character because you have no restriction whatsoever in cam profile," he said. So that's all clear, then.

Christian told TG he's been developing the tech for almost 14 years now, and has a team of eight people who've been working on it full time for the last few years. "It's getting ready for fruition, but not only in Koenigsegg. We're working with a couple of large OEMs and looking to implement it.

"Definitely within the next couple of years, you'll see it," he added. He does this all because, he tells TG, he's ‘an engine guy'; "I love developing this stuff."

He's an engine guy, but also one who enjoys creating monsters. That super-exclusive One:1 - the 1340bhp hypercar - is preparing for a run at the Nürburgring's ultimate lap record later this summer, once the weather's cleared up. "We are ready to go," Christian said, "and as soon as the weather permits we'll be at the ‘Ring regularly."

Racing, however, isn't his overall goal, despite the clear LMP1 references in the One:1. "We actually built a car called the CCGT about five or six years ago which was a GT1 car, and we had that as a weekend project for about three years. But just when the car was finished they changed the regulations - we needed 350 cars a year in order to participate in the GT1 class, and then they scrapped it altogether," he said.

"Now you have the ‘balance of performance' regs, which means we won't be any faster than a Porsche GT3, for example. It costs three times as much as the Porsche with more expensive parts, so it doesn't make a lot of sense for us, unless they create a category for something like this.

"But ultimately, we would love to race."

Now, hands up who'd want to see that Koenigsegg?