Owning a Koenigsegg One:1 can be classified as the achievement of a lifetime. This guy, being a vice-president, managed to make it happen twice. But not because he wanted it this way. He bought one as new and then was forced to buy it back again. Police from seven countries, lawyers, and judges were involved. The story will surprise, anger, and disgust you. Read it all.
Carmakers have tried for years to come up with a solution for the dream automotive equation: achieving a 1:1 hp-to-kg ratio for a road-legal car. For a long time, it was thought to be impossible. However, Koenigsegg managed to make it happen and called it the “Megacar.” The automaker was able to freely do this because the new vehicle was the first to ever be homologated with one megawatt of power. That’s why it became known as the Koenigsegg One:1. Weirdly enough, only seven were ever built, with one being the prototype. What’s even more intriguing is not the price or the exclusivity but the fact that the hypercar can also run on E85 biofuel or normal gasoline. It was truly a production vehicle.
Originally priced at $2,850,000 and with a 5-liter V8 under the hood, you can imagine the right people started to gather interest. The cars were immediately sold, which raised their market price almost instantaneously.
One of the customers that got his hands on a Koenigsegg of this type was Teodoro Obiang Nguema. And that’s how the story starts.
The President’s son
Three years ago, we were telling you about a Bonhams auction with supercars and hyper cars. Those vehicles were originally belonging to a vice-president. You might not expect to hear this, but he wasn't elected nor appointed. This guy was the son of - you guessed it - the President. He was just announced as a public servant, and people had to accept it. The country in question is Equatorial Guinea, a place where politicians act like royalty.
Teodoro Obiang Mangue Nguema – nicknamed ‘Teodorin’ – was young and restless. He loved fast and exclusive cars while earning less than $100,000 a year. The One:1 wasn’t the only car he had in his fit for a king garage, as he also owned a Lamborghini Veneno Roadster, a Ferrari Enzo, a yellow Ferrari F50, a Pagani Huayra Roadster, a Bugatti Veyron and other Bentleys, McLarens, or Rolls-Royces. It’s hard to imagine he had time to drive all these exotic and luxurious vehicles, so people started identifying him as a collector.
Photo: Gumbal on YouTube
Unfortunately for him, in 2016, police from France and Switzerland seized most of his properties. The French also accused him of being corrupt, arrested him, and sent the man to trial, where he was found guilty under a law known as 'biens mal acquis.' This means a French court can establish litigation and other punishments if someone is a public servant that misused public funds. This remains applicable even if the suspect is from another country. We’ll resume the description of what the court’s findings were in the case at “misused” because details are difficult to confirm in 2022.
Nguema was sentenced to three years in prison and had to pay a $34,780,000 fine, both punishments ending up as suspended by the court. The judge said the African leader might’ve been inclined to think it’s ok to live a lavish lifestyle in another country because banks never warned him about any possible wrongdoings. The fact that he’s the leader of a poor nation that needs international support on a yearly basis even today was ignored. On the other hand, the prosecutor, Jean-Yves Lourgouilloux, said at the time that the vice-president’s dubious spending was amounting to over $166,000,000. In the end, there was a risk of nothing happening. It took 10 years to bring this man to justice, and he was almost left unscathed.
Fortunately, he had the courage to appeal the decision because he wanted to clear his name entirely, and the higher court decided he had to pay the fine without doing time. Moreover, the Swiss ordered him to pay up too for breaking fiscal laws, and that ended with his wine and car collection under a French-Swiss temporary lock-up that turned into a complete freeze. The idea was to return more money in Equatorial Guinea, so Bonhams was assigned to organize the auction mentioned above.
Koenigsegg One:1 "forced" buy-back program
Time passed, and two years later, in 2019, the bidding competition began. All 25 cars were sold. The auction house said then all buyers wanted to remain anonymous. The money was donated to a charity that does work in the African country.
Photo: Gumbal on YouTube
What Bonhams failed to do is to instruct those ‘clients’ to not pose with their newly acquired cars. A couple of months after the sale ended the vice-president was once again seen driving his Koenigsegg One:1 in a video on Instagram. Furthermore, almost all cars auctioned went back to his garage in Malabo, the capital of Equatorial Guinea. More recently, some of the cars were shipped to Dubai where they await his presence. The vehicles are just gathering dust now because the vice-president is busy taking important trips in international waters. Proof is this video, where you can see the parking lot.
The man ended up paying almost double for his One:1 alone. In the end, he got his favorite cars back. Recently, he even bought a new Ferrari Monza. Unfortunately, those photos and videos were made private or deleted.
It’s been eight months since the twice bought Koenigsegg One:1 was last used. But, at least, it's on display in Dubai.
Car shows on TV and his father's Fiat Tempra may have been Florin's early influences, but nowadays he favors different things, like the power of an F-150 Raptor. He'll never be able to ignore the shape of a Ferrari though, especially a yellow one. Full profile
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