Huge congratulations to AutomobilRimac founder and CEO MateRimac - this year's winner of the Autocar Issigonis Trophy. Read more about Mate and his achievements here
drew much attention – derision at first, then protests when it started winning. In 2010, the success brought contact out of the blue from a Middle Eastern royal family, who wanted Rimac to build them a car. At first, he reckoned this might be his lucky day. He produced sketches and a business plan for a 1000bhp car capable of a 0-100kph time of 2.8sec, including details of the BMW as proof of his engineering capability.
Continuing with the car seemed the only way forward, so he borrowed money, worked day and night, slept on the garage floor and somehow pulled it off. “Out of sheer necessity, we started doing projects for clients,” recalls Rimac, “and our experience with the BMW meant we were better advanced with electrification than most OEMs.
Rimac now sees the failure of the Middle Eastern deal as a blessing: “We would have spent the money building a show car, which would have taken us in the wrong direction. Not having the funds made us very resourceful and very frugal.”
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