8:14 am, September 7, 2026
When Tommy Wareham-Dart and Paul Burrows decided to leave the security of an established dealership during the recession and set up on their own, taking Koenigsegg with them wasn’t originally part of the plan.
The pair had already spent years selling cars at the very top end of the market through Broughtons, where their relationship with the then little-known Swedish hypercar manufacturer had begun.
But when they decided it was time to strike out independently, Christian von Koenigsegg made a decision which would shape the business they were about to build.
‘We left in the recession and decided to set up, Paul and I, on our own,’ Wareham-Dart told Car Dealer as the company showed off the latest model at Salon Prive last week.
‘We didn’t intend to take Koenigsegg. We just left to go and have our own shop really, because the motor trade was falling to pieces.
‘Christian came and said, “We’d like to come with you.”
‘We were like, “You’re mad. You don’t want to do that. We have no money, no idea what we’re doing.”
‘And he said, “It’s the people that make it, not the building, not the business.” And that was it.’
Some 16 years later, it seems Koenigsegg placed his faith in the right pair.
SuperVettura is now Koenigsegg’s longest-standing dealer and, according to Wareham-Dart, sells more of its cars than any other dealer in the world.
It is a remarkable transformation for both businesses. When Wareham-Dart first started working with Koenigsegg, he recalls there being fewer than 20 people at the manufacturer and taking its cars to events where many potential customers had no idea what they were looking at.
Today, buyers can wait around five years to take delivery – and SuperVettura has around 50 to 60 cars on order.
Selling cars five years into the future
Selling cars produced in such small numbers makes SuperVettura very different to even most supercar dealerships.
Wareham-Dart said Koenigsegg currently builds around 30 to 40 cars a year, while some customers placing orders today will not see their finished car for several years.
Speaking to Car Dealer as the dealership prepared to deliver its first UK customer example of the CC850, which had originally been ordered around five years earlier.
Just under 15 examples are due to come to the UK, with Wareham-Dart expecting deliveries to take place over the next two to three years and, at the same time, the dealership is preparing to deliver its final Jesko as that particular run of cars comes to an end.
It means much of SuperVettura’s business is effectively conducted years into the future, but Wareham-Dart says the length of the relationship with customers has also changed what the dealership actually provides.
‘Buying a Koenigsegg isn’t just about buying the car,’ he said.
‘You’re getting into a club, you’re getting into this family. Koenigsegg owners all hang out with each other.
‘We do lots of driving. It’s like a real proper social circle.’
‘The car is almost secondary’
Wareham-Dart believes that community has become particularly important to the type of customers buying cars at this level.
Many, he says, have spent a large part of their lives building businesses and accumulating their wealth, only to reach a point where finding people in similar circumstances to enjoy it with is not necessarily straightforward.
‘They’re all very wealthy people and they’ve done well,’ he said.
‘They struggle sometimes to find friends because when their friends that they grew up with were out partying, they were at work building their businesses.
‘Now they’ve done well for themselves and they want to go and socialise.
‘If you’re out with a load of Koenigsegg owners, everyone’s quite equal and it’s not really about money. It’s just about having a great time and having fun.
‘So it’s become a real social service. It’s really fun. It’s like a nice family.’
Wareham-Dart says that is one of the biggest changes he has seen during his two decades with the manufacturer.
In the early years, SuperVettura had to explain what Koenigsegg was and convince potential customers of the credibility of an unfamiliar Swedish hypercar company.
Now, he says, the strength of the brand means the cars largely sell themselves.
‘You really had to sell them and build the brand,’ he said.
‘We’ve been doing the same over the last 20 years to the point where it’s become very aspirational.
‘Now it’s just about the family – I’ve got one, I’ve got one coming – and then going out and doing some things together.
‘The car’s almost secondary. They become part of a much bigger thing.’
Owners keep coming back
That relationship also means selling a customer one Koenigsegg is unlikely to be the end of the story.
Wareham-Dart says many buyers become so attached to the brand that their collections gradually become dominated by its cars.
‘Most people, once you’ve bought one, you’ll end up selling everything else in your garage,’ he said.
‘Apart from maybe your Range Rover and a Rolls-Royce.
‘All the other cars become not much point. The Ferrari is great, but it’s not as quick. You don’t really get the same feel.
‘So most people will end up with a garage full of Koenigseggs.’
The extraordinarily small number of cars in existence also creates an active used business for SuperVettura.
Wareham-Dart estimated there are only a little over 350 Koenigsegg cars worldwide and considerably fewer individual owners, with collectors often owning several.
As a result, the same cars can return to SuperVettura repeatedly as owners buy, sell and change their collections.
‘We sell a lot of cars through the year because this car, I think we’ve sold now three or four times,’ he said, pointing to one example on display.
Values have also changed dramatically as Koenigsegg has gone from an unknown manufacturer to one of the most sought-after names in the collector car market.
Wareham-Dart pointed to the car on the stand which was bought for around £270,000 some 13 years ago and the owner recently turned down an offer of £2.75m and he believes it could now be worth more than £3m.
‘It’s just a testament to the brand value and the collectability of these cars,’ he said.
New brands join the business
While Koenigsegg remains at the heart of SuperVettura, the dealer is now expanding the collection of manufacturers it represents.
It has recently taken on Brabus, while Italian restomod specialist Kimera Automobili has also joined the business.
The latter has an unusually close link to Koenigsegg, with the two manufacturers working together on the powertrain for Kimera’s latest K39 project.
Wareham-Dart said the relationship came about after Kimera founder Luca Betti was introduced to Christian von Koenigsegg while searching for an engine for the car.
For SuperVettura, adding businesses with similarly unusual and limited-production cars makes a natural extension to the dealership it has built around Koenigsegg.
It also continues to trade other pre-owned supercars and hypercars, giving the business considerably more activity than Koenigsegg’s tiny annual production numbers might suggest.
£6.5m showroom marks next chapter
Perhaps the clearest indication of how far SuperVettura has come, however, can be found at its Sunningdale home.
The dealer opened its new showroom in February (pictured top) following a major redevelopment of the site it has occupied for around 14 years.
The previous building was around a century old and, according to Wareham-Dart, had reached the point where buckets were needed on the floor when it rained.
SuperVettura eventually decided to demolish it and start again, spending around two-and-a-half years creating a new home for the business.
The resulting £6.5m showroom is now Koenigsegg’s largest dealership globally.
‘It was a labour of love,’ Wareham-Dart said. ‘It was a big bill – bigger than we thought it was going to be but we just decided we’re doing it once and that’s it, so let’s do it properly.
‘That was a real testament to how far we’d come as a company and how far Koenigsegg had come as a company.’
What stands on the site today is a considerable distance from the business Wareham-Dart and Burrows took a chance on during the recession.
And while Wareham-Dart explains that the pair had ‘about £10 between us’ when they decided to go it alone, the figure at the other end of the story is rather more concrete with the new £6.5m showroom was paid for in cash.
‘That was very, very cool,’ he said.