‘Elon Musk of the Balkans’ comes with an interesting hypercar

18 jan 2021 om 21:35Update: 2 jaar geleden

The impressive Rimac C_Two from Rimac Automobili is an electric supercar that has what it takes to break all records. 32-year-old founder Mate Rimac is known as the “Elon Musk of the Balkans.”

Perhaps the most surprising car to hit the market this year is in the starting blocks. In the small Croatian village of Veliko Trgovisce, 10 km north of Zagreb, the first (pre-production) examples of the Rimac C_Two are being built: a hyper electric sports car with an incredible engine power of 1.4 megawatts. He should raise the bar in the high sports car class.

Founder Rimac and his team have been working on C_Two for about three years now. It was intended to be delivered to customers in an edition of 150 copies as early as 2020, but the corona crisis caused a lot of work. Production has now begun.

Although, production? Instead it is a matter of traditional craftsmanship, where workers assemble the expensive sports car (1.7 million euros, without tax) in five work stations. Two technicians work at each station. It takes five weeks to assemble the prototype of the original series. The production version differs only in details from these models of the previous series.

It’s like throwing a few million at the wall

Mate Rimac, founder of Rimac Automobili

The company then needs about three weeks to manufacture the part, because Rimac manufactures as many parts as possible in-house. Gradually, the team gets to grips with the production process.

Twelve test cars have already been built. Rigorous tests were carried out with this in various places, from the circuit to the crash hall.

Mate Rimac (links) bij een van de werkstations in zijn autofabriek.

Foto: Autoweek

The Formula 1 world champion has already tested it

Former Formula 1 world champion Nico Rosberg has also tested the son of ‘Elon Musk of the Balkans’ in Croatia. After the so-called monsoon test, where the car was exposed to large amounts of water, the brakes, the 120kWh battery developed by Rimac itself and the power train were tested on the dynamometer. After all, this car should be able to sprint to 100 km/h in less than two seconds in all conditions and to 300 km/h in just 11.8 seconds.

“It’s like throwing a few million at the wall,” Mate Rimac says of crash tests. Four C_Twos have already completed crash tests. Since January 2019, many collisions have been simulated on computers, such as a frontal collision at 65 km/h, but only practical tests provide the results needed for comparison.

So far, the batteries of the crashed cars have not yet been activated, but so are the seven C_Twos that will undergo crash tests in the near future. Video of the 40 mph crash released by Rimac shows that the passenger compartment was completely abandoned. However, the top speed of the Croatian hypercar is 412 kilometers per hour and that is a different story.

Het interieur doet in veel opzichten denken aan dat van een raceauto.

Foto: Autoweek

Pictures of the burning First Concept went around the world

Rimac wants to prevent things from going wrong again at all costs, like in 2017, when pictures of a completely destroyed and burning Concept One went viral around the world. Famous motoring journalist Richard Hammond (BBC Top Gear, The Grand Tour) broke his leg when he crashed. The manufacturer can no longer afford such things, because the company now has prominent shareholders such as Porsche and Hyundai/Kia.

A small Croatian company is working on secret projects with both producers. Last autumn, rumors emerged that Volkswagen would like to sell Bugatti to Rimac in order to acquire a stake in the company. The story was not denied by either side. So it is not excluded that the most amazing car of 2024 will be Bugatti, it uses Rimac.