Yahoo Autos Rimac Is Developing a New Combustion Engine for the Bugatti Chiron Replacement
In case you missed it, Rimac bought Bugatti from Volkswagen Group back in July 2021. The deal, which involved Porsche taking a 45-percent stake in the new Bugatti-Rimac brand, means that Mate Rimac is now in charge of the development of the Chiron hypercar's successor. In an interview with Auto Express, Rimac reveals the car will be a hybrid built totally from scratch, without any carryover parts. That includes a new combustion engine—a first from the Rimac brand.
“It wasn't an easy time, but I knew exactly what I wanted the [Chiron successor] to be and we started developing a combustion engine on our own—it's totally bonkers what you will see next year," Rimac told Auto Express. "I think everybody will be blown away when they see what we did. We started developing a new combustion engine two years before we took over the company, which is something I guess nobody expected.”
More interesting, though, is where Rimac intends to take the brand going forward compared to his own hypercar company.
“It'll be different technology, but also in the approach," Rimac tells Auto Express. "Bugatti is all about heritage and craftsmanship and 100 years of history. It's a little bit aristocratic perfectionism. On the technical side we will have combustion engines for the foreseeable future—and it's more luxury. It has to be a bit serious, too. The Bugatti thing is more turn up to the opera and then drive 400 km/h on the autobahn. It will be more beautiful, analogue instruments, kind of watch making stuff."
The Rimac brand, on the other hand, will look more towards technologically advanced tire melting, says Rimac.
“With Rimac we want it to be absolutely insane, bonkers, full-electric—drifting at 60 km/h with a gigantic cloud of smoke behind you, autonomous drift modes, futuristic stuff," Rimac tells Auto Express. "I feel like we have the perfect two canvases for totally different forms of hypercar. Bugatti will be going more in the direction of beautiful art—of course, performance will still be top—but it'll be this artistic approach. Rimac will be about bending physics.”
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