With the world still reeling from the news of Prince’s sudden death on April 21, we’ve all been dealing with the loss in our own way. Some of us reflected on the time we snuck into the music legend’s house. Others took out a full-page ad in USA Today with a picture of a little red Corvette. But Swedish supercar builder Koenigsegg took things up a notch by rendering a Prince-inspired version of its Regera hybrid hypercar.
Note the word “rendering,” not “building.” The Regera in question is just a computer-generated image, ginned up by Koenigsegg for their Facebook page after some of their fans requested a more Prince-specific tribute than the purple CC they threw up in the immediate aftermath of the music legend’s passing. But while we never thought we’d be able to describe a purple, 1,500 horsepower supercar as “tasteful,” the violet-with-black-accents looks surprisingly classy on the 248 mph Swedish sports car. We’d be tempted to spec our own Koenigsegg Regera to match, were it not for the fact that we believe the color purple ought to be permanently retired in honor of Prince. (Also, we lack the necessary $2 million.)
And as it turns out, Koenigsegg’s new supercar is an ideal vehicle for a Prince tribute. “Regera,” it turns out, isn’t the cute little portmanteau of “recharge” and “Agera” we all thought it was when the car first appeared at the 2015 Geneva Motor Show. It’s actually the Swedish word for “reign.” So a purple Regera would be a….”purple reign.”
Hey, we’ve heard worse puns.