Rimac Concept One: Making the Supercar of the 21st Century
Rimac is an electric car company that stands out among the crowd. Their first vehicle the Rimac Concept One is beautiful, and more importantly, it showcases engineering that is enviable. In the words of founder and CEO of Rimac Automobili, Mate Rimac: “My goal was not to create an electric version of existing supercars. I wanted to create technology to make the supercar considerably better in every regard…I wanted to make the supercar of the 21st century.”
Most automobile makers start with a sketch of what they’d like their latest car to look like or acheive. At Rimac the focus has always been on the technology. “The Concept_One has gone through four iterations from a concept to the production car. In every iteration, we have redesigned almost all systems from scratch in order to achieve the level of performance and quality that we have set for ourselves in the beginning.”, said Rimac.
What Sets Rimac Apart
The Concept One is hand crafted, in house. Rimac takes this so seriously that even the tools, jigs and moulds are designed and produced by Rimac Automobili. All parts are crafted from carbon, aluminum or Alcantara.
The Concept One is loaded with new, fast, efficient technology. It produces a top speed of 220mph and 1180 lbs of torque, doing 0-60 in 2.6 seconds. What is most impressive though, is its unmatched handling. In order to fully control the vehicle Rimac uses four motors, one attached to each wheel. This enables each motor to control traction for each wheel, making the Concept One unmatched in handling.
Mate Rimac continues “The goal was to achieve a true connection between the driver and the machine – and that is only possible with passion, attention to details and craftsmanship.”
Planning the Future and Reminiscing the Past
Mate Rimac says “we wanted to create that solid feeling of classic super cars”. In some ways, the philosophies behind the Rimac Concept One Supercar may remind us of the innovative leader of the 1960’s, the Shelby Daytona Coupe. Both vehicles aimed at bringing new technologies to the world that were far ahead of their time. Like the Shelby Daytona Coupes, the new Rimac Concept Ones will be limited in number. Rimac plans to produce only eight.
If Rimac is only producing eight of these, how do they expect to finance their mission? The goal from the beginning has been to create technology that can be pieced off and sold to existing car companies.
This brings us to two conclusions; one, it would seem that no car in the future could compare to the Rimac Concept One which holds all of these technologies in one place and secondly, like the Shelbys of old these cars are well worth collecting!