An E30 BMW resto powered by a V10? That's Bugatti boss Rimac's 'dream' project

Top Gear

2 days ago

Mate Rimac is a man on a mission. He talks V10 Bimmers and Bugatti's next steps
It's a cold day at Paul Ricard. Wrapped in a bomber jacket Mate Rimac is standing on the pitwall, pointing his phone at the Bolide as it comes ripping past at full noise. He grins and looks over, 'pretty cool, huh?'
Rimac could have pulled the plug on the Bolide project when he took control of Bugatti three and a half years ago. But he was never going to, was he? He's a car guy. He's on the pitwall with his phone, filming for posterity because his wife is out there in the passenger seat.
Rimac, by the way, has yet to drive a Bolide. Given his reputation, his love of driving and drifting, the fact that his dream one day is to do 'a proper, proper E30 restomod, with a V10. Not just the technical stuff, but also design. I don't know when I will get round to that – it might be my retirement project', why hasn't he got into the Bolide yet?
Photography: Mark Riccioni
'I'm always super detailed about testing and driving cars, about every detail, and when I drive our cars I come back with a long list of things I want improved or changed. But with this car it's just so far outside my level of competence. It's a racecar, a track car and I'm a road car user. I can't come anywhere near what this car can do.'
That's fair enough, it's not like he's short of work elsewhere. He now has three projects, of which Bugatti is only half of one strand – that's the Bugatti-Rimac car division. Then there's Rimac Technology providing solutions to other car companies, and last year he launched Verne, a robotaxi company. 'We showed it in June last year, a few months before Tesla showed theirs – and just three weeks after we introduced the Tourbillon.
'Last June,' he admits, 'almost killed me.' Two weeks ago he was at Nardò driving the Chiron-replacing Tourbillon. He pulls out his phone and shows me a video clip, 'Look how fast it revs, that noise. I was blown away by how good the car is. I'm so, so proud of it. You are in this car, you have this steering wheel with a fixed hub, you have analogue instruments, you have the performance of 800 electric horsepower with 1,000 combustion horsepower. There is nothing like it.
'And you don't need the engine to accelerate fast. That's the advantage. In the Tourbillon if you're lazy and don't want to shift down, or just wanna go ahead, there's so much electric power that you don't have to. Like why else carry around all that weight and complexity?'
He has a small dig at other hybrid supercars. 'I have driven them all and I don't get it really. Why would you have a hybrid powertrain with a turbo engine? Like, a turbo engine is a compromise on its own, right? By going from turbo to naturally aspirated we lost 600bhp. I knew we could more than make up for it with the electric powertrain. So the electric powertrain enabled the cool combustion engine. In the Tourbillon, you have 70km of all electric range while others in electric mode are super limited.'
Development is progressing well. In total Bugatti is building 35 prototypes before the first customer cars. 'We are basically done with the development and now we do the homologation and testing. The goal is to be lighter than Chiron. It'll be the first hybrid that's lighter than its combustion only variant. We have a big battery – 25kWh – we have three electric motors and we are lighter. Just one example, the suspension is 45 per cent lighter compared with the Chiron because of 3D printing.' There is, by the way, some carry over from Chiron to Tourbillon. 'We have decided to take over one part, which is the switch for the interior lights.'
First Tourbillon deliveries are scheduled for 2026, built at Molsheim in a new building alongside the existing factory, known as the Atelier. Hard though it is to believe, Molsheim will have its busiest year ever in 2025, building the remaining Bolides (14 have been delivered so far), plus the 99 Mistrals. Then 250 Tourbillon coupes will be next, and after that a roadster? 'You can assume,' Mate comments with a smile, 'but also there are many things you can do with this hybrid powertrain. You can make a version without hybrid, or with it minimised, or without the [driven] front axle, whatever.'
Would he do a non-hybrid Tourbillon? 'Uh, well, it's pretty difficult because the starter is the hybrid motor. So you don't have belt drive. You don't have an alternator, you don't have an air conditioning compressor, but you could do a very reduced system.' Beyond that Rimac won't be drawn on future product. But it's widely rumoured he wants Bugatti to have a second model line. That's nothing new. When we interviewed previous boss Stephan Winkelmann back in 2019, he said the same.
But with Rimac at the helm, how about a four door with the V16 in the front? Something that could recreate the appeal of the iconic Royale from 1927, which celebrates its centenary two years from now. And was powered by a straight eight... which is basically half a V16. As yet, no comment.
It's noisy in the pit garages, with the Bolide thundering in and out and the rattle of wheel guns, so we walk over to the foyer where Bugatti has positioned a Type 35. Does it give him a sense of legacy when he sees cars like this? 'It's really important. It makes me think about some of the small things, like what Ettore said, 'if it's comparable it's no longer a Bugatti', or when Piëch described the Veyron by saying 'it's a car to do over 400kph and the same day go with your wife to the opera'.
It's a little bit of craziness that I have, when you look at where I came from to where I am now
"It's just a few words, but there's so much depth and meaning [to those phrases]. We repeat that often to the engineers, telling them this car will still be driving around in a hundred years. How do you make sure this seal will last 50–60 years, how do we make sure these electronics can be serviced in 50, 60 years?
'I won't say much because we haven't decided yet, but I think warranties for these kind of cars need to be very different. I'll give an example. So Chiron is now four years carefree warranty with service included and that's pretty good. Why are people not using the Veyron so much? They would use it more if the tyres and wheels weren't so expensive, so we are trying to make a new set of wheels and tyres.
"Look at the LaFerrari and P1 and 918, people get a bad battery and it costs hundreds of thousands to replace. We want to make sure this is never the case with Tourbillon. A Bugatti has to be super reliable and worry free, because that also ensures resale value.'
I ask Rimac about future developments – where does he reckon we are with solid state batteries for instance? 'I feel like a fossil in this industry although I'm just 37. But I've been making batteries for 16 years and I've been reading about solid state and breakthroughs in the fundamental technology for 16 years, and it always seems like it's just there, but it's not. What has happened is the price [of conventional batteries] has come down 90 per cent – it used to be €1,500 per kWh, now it's like €100 per kWh.'
Elon Musk then. Hero or villain? 'So for me, before this whole thing with the elections and all that stuff, he was the most exciting person in the world. I mean, sending reusable rockets into space, preparing to launch rockets to Mars, send people to Mars. I know how the [auto] industry works and how much Tesla has driven the change in all of these car companies. And I know that the only difference between Tesla and all of the other car companies is just Elon, nothing else. He has really changed the world, really had a huge impact.'
And is China a threat or an opportunity? 'Europeans have been shipping cars there and producing cars there for decades and shipping, like, containers of money out, so it seems a bit hypocritical now the Chinese want to do the same here. If they can offer a better product at a more competitive price, why wouldn't they? They seem to have good products and the growth trajectory is crazy. Look where they've come in 10, 15 years.'