Inside the €50 Million Deal Behind America’s First Koenigsegg CC850
The unusual way one man secured one of the most coveted hypercars in the world
When Koenigsegg unveiled the CC850 in 2022, it was initially conceived for 50 units to be built in celebration of the 50th birthday of marque founder Christian von Koenigsegg. However, demand was much higher than anticipated for the car, which expertly fuses retro design language with a highly innovative manual-and-automatic transmission technology, that the company quickly added another 20 units to the production run. And they all sold out immediately.
It is normal for hypercar allocations to sell out relatively quickly, but the level of demand for the CC850 was unlike anything we have seen before. Collectors were fighting to get their hands on a build slot. Some offered to give up their Jesko allocations to switch to a CC850, while others were willing to pay premiums in the hundreds of thousands of dollars on the secondary market to purchase someone else’s allocation. Simply put: Koenigsegg had designed a gorgeous, retro-styled, manual hypercar and there were not enough to go around!
The first customer car was delivered in mid-2025, just shy of three years after the unveiling, to the Carage private collection in Switzerland, owned by a longtime investor in the manufacturer and home to eight other Koenigseggs. Delivery number two was also special because it would be the first CC850 delivered to the United States, which has become, by far, Koenigsegg’s largest market.
So, who would receive the coveted first American example of the CC850? Would it be a big-time Koenigsegg collector with multiple other models, or possibly a high-profile figure in the automotive world for positive publicity? Neither turned out to be the case. Instead, the first CC850 in the United States would go to a little-known businessman who had struck a massive deal with the company the year prior.
In September 2024, Koenigsegg Automotive announced that it had received a “€50 million [US$58.7 million] investment from Chieftain Capital Management to support the next chapter of growth for the company”. The funds would be used to scale production to deliver Jesko, CC850, and Gemera models as well as “building out a pipeline of incredible new vehicles.”
There is not much information about Chieftain Capital Management online, which is notable given this large investment in a high-profile car company. Public information on the firm is limited, and much of what is known comes from historical reporting and industry sources. An article from 2009 describes it as an investment firm with $3 billion in assets, but the firm’s managers, John Shapiro, Thomas Stern, and Glenn Greenberg, split up following personality conflicts.
Today, the firm’s website (chieftaincapital.com) is offline and their Manhattan office is marked “Permanently Closed” on Google. Egg Registry sources describe the present-day version of Chieftain as a family office for the Stern family and the company remains active, though quiet, in its investments, including the 2024 deal with Koenigsegg.
Thomas D. Stern, the current Co-CEO and Managing Director of Chieftain Capital commented on this deal after its announcement: “We are thrilled to partner with Christian and the team at Koenigsegg. We believe Koenigsegg is a truly remarkable company, with an excellent business model underpinned by its world-class brand, technical innovation, and incredible product pipeline. We are confident that by working together, we can help unlock Koenigsegg’s full potential and accelerate its growth on the global stage.”
Though we have no confirmation of a formal agreement that this €50 million strategic investment would earn Stern the first CC850 customer car in the US, it certainly can’t have hurt his standing at the marque. Koenigsegg continues to grow, with Jesko deliveries nearing completion and a sold-out order book years into the future.
This type of deal is truly win-win. For Koenigsegg’s part, the company gets a hefty injection of capital to fund their growth. At the same time, Stern, through Chieftain, gets a stake in one of the fastest-growing and most technologically-forward hypercar manufacturers and the nod for the first CC850 in the United States.
Stern’s CC850, which is chassis #7523, was delivered through Koenigsegg Florida in December 2025. It is painted in Moon Silver and has a gorgeous brown leather interior. Since delivery, the car has been spotted driving in Miami, being used as intended.
More CC850s are expected to arrive in the United States and around the world throughout 2026. For now, the first American example tells a story of an unconventional path to securing one of the rarest hypercar allocations in the world.
Photo credit to Koenigsegg Florida. Learn more about Koenigsegg’s deal with Chieftain here.
