Mate explains Rimac: Bugatti is a gem, Rimac is mad!

We met the Croatian creator of technical miracles. And they didn’t just talk about the future of supercars.

He was barely twenty when he founded Rimac Automobili. It was 2009. That was when Croatian Mate Rimac converted his BMW 3 to electric drive. He later developed his first custom car, the Rimac Concept One. Porsche and later Kia and Hyundai joined the customers and investors. This was followed by the electric hypercar Nevera, which set a world speed record (412 km / h) in the category of production cars. The thirty-four-year-old enthusiast was already the head of the Bugatti Rimac division. And in Kerestinci, near Zagreb, he started building a new headquarters for this company.

‘The Bugatti thing was crazy’ Little Rimac. The head of the Molsheim brand at that time, Stefan Winkelmann, often visited the Croats a lot and discussed the next generation of models together a lot. Matty was then working on a new driving platform. “And one day a VW boss appeared here. During a conversation about Bugatti, he suddenly asked me if I thought I could take charge of the brand. At that moment I thought I heard wrong. But then I realized it was a classic win-win situation. Volkswagen was at a dead end regarding Bugatti. In my opinion, he can either neglect and liquidate the brand, or try to monetize it. Everyone in the management concern is probably of the same opinion. That’s how it worked.”

Today, Mate Rimac has a completely accurate idea of ​​\u200b\u200bthe successor to the Chiron series. It’s supposed to be a hybrid sports car. And he started development from an incredible direction: his team is working on an internal combustion engine! The whole process started two years before Rimac took over the iconic brand. Today he’s just saying that what they want to build on bikes is absolutely insane. It would be something completely new, and the novelty would hold nothing of disbelief, but also none of anything that was there.

Rimac himself presents the project as follows: “Two completely different technologies are represented in the car, as well as two approaches.

Bugatti is a legend that has lived its life for over a hundred years. I would call it aristocratic perfectionism. This is why Bugatti will retain its internal combustion engines in the coming years. With such a car, you can go to the premiere at the opera, but the next day you can drive on the highway and accelerate to 400 km / h. That’s the nicest thing about it. It will have representative tools. Just an exclusive wristwatch with four wheels.”

According to the manufacturer’s belief, both brands display excellent works of art: on the one hand, artistic Bugatti, on the other hand, Rimac, moving at the limit of material possibilities. Thus, his cars will be fully electric, highly autonomous, and futuristically designed.

Is Rimac expected to build a four-seater or even a four-door model? Does not seem to. “The body would be very long, but shortening it would require a high roofline, but they have SUVs, for example, to maintain the right proportions. However, in this case, it takes the required low center of gravity. It’s not as simple as it might seem. That’s not to say the idea is completely taboo, but the current 10-year plan doesn’t count for anything like that. There is no mention of SUVs either. Rimac stresses that the Bugatti brand will continue to eschew long and bulky vehicles.

He says he can imagine smaller, more affordable cars. No supercars, like the Nevera coupe, of course, but the most common sports models. According to him, something similar was produced by Lucid or Tesla, who prepared the Plaid series, which we also write about in this issue. “But I have no idea what Lamborghini, McLaren or Aston Martin will do if they say goodbye to combustion engines. Do they want to stuff four electric motors and batteries with a capacity of 120 kWh into each car and impress them with five hundred horsepower? And they demand three or four hundred thousand euros for that? I don’t know myself, but I am convinced that we have to find our own way,” Mattei says, addressing the immediate future of manufacturers of exceptional cars.

But what path will the automotive world take in general? The innovative-minded Croatian has a surprising opinion: “I think people still want traditional analog concept cars with twelve-cylinder hydraulic power steering, without a large number of assistants, with manual transmissions, but with a carbon fiber body.” He’s thinking something along the lines of British design legend Gordon Murray’s T.50 supersport. “The technical data of this car is very similar to 1980s Super Sports standards.” And what does Rimac think about fuel cell electric cars? “I reject them. Because they are so inefficient, they might work in airplanes or heavy commercial vehicles, but they don’t mean passenger cars. And I don’t even believe in the great potential of classic batteries. At the same time, driving range is not such a big issue as they say. When it comes down to it, A trusty 120 kWh battery can travel 700 km instead of 490 km today.

author: Pavel Kobachik

source: Auto Bild