The Garage That Lego Built

An heir to the mega toy brand has elevated the concept of an auto park to an entire elaborate ecosystem. And he's not finished yet.

- Ben Oliver

Denmark is not the friendliest nation to the car enthusiast. The highway that leads you away from Billund Airport toward the small city of Vejle runs through vast fields of piercingly bright, sharp-yellow rapeseed flowers broken only by occasional wooden farm buildings painted in the distinctive, flat red so redolent of southern Scandinavia. The road is pan-flat, arrow-straight, perfectly surfaced and largely empty, but if you’re tempted to indulge in a harmless burst of acceleration, remember that Denmark’s relatively low speed limits are ruthlessly enforced. If you’re caught doing twice the maximum, or over 200km/h, or if your driving is considered reckless, your car can be confiscated and sold, the loss made all the more galling by the fact that, if you’re a Danish resident, you’ll already have paid the eyewatering 150 per cent luxury-vehicle-registration duty that turns even an entry-level Porsche 911 into a US$300,000 transaction. If the state auctions your car, you don’t even get a refund on that tax.

Flashy rides and other conspicuous displays of wealth are not a Scandinavian thing, Swedish hypercar-maker Koenigsegg being a rare outlier. The region’s auto industry, confined to Sweden, has long focused on quality and longevity rather than image, and Scandinavians were the among the earliest and most enthusiastic adopters of electric vehicles. So it’s odd to be travelling here to visit an enterprise that unites, under one expansive roof, businesses and workshops offering almost everything the high-end-car collector needs— sales, storage, maintenance, repairs and race-car preparation—along with the stuff they’re likely to want, including a realtor,a fine-wine merchant and diamond broker.