As Novac/Ilija Matanovic writes on the 24th of November, 2019, lately it has become somewhat difficult for a week to pass without a story popping up somewhere about the truly amazing Mate Rimac and his company: the latest, published in the British automotive magazine Autocar, says that Mate Rimac is set to open an R&D (research and development) centre in the UK.
This information was confirmed today by Rimac Automobili for Jutarnji list, with emphasis being place on the fact that the whole story is still in its very early planning stages, which means that no specific details are yet known, including the size of the office itself or the number of employees. According to the author of the text at Autocar, Mate Rimac told him that he “loves working with the British” and that he considers the “United Kingdom home to the best and most pragmatic European engineers”.
”We’re looking for engineers for positions that are very difficult to fill, and the United Kingdom is a country with such staff,” read a statement from Mate Rimac’s company.
Autocar spoke with Rimac about the deal between Rimac Automobili and the London-based HR Owen, a group that represents some of the world’s most luxury car brands in the UK and is the world’s largest dealer of Rolls-Royce, Bentley, Lamborghini and Bugatti.
After Rimac unveils a production version of its C_Two model at the Geneva Motor Show in March, it looks like HR Owen will be the place to sell the car and provide after-sales support to customers when production begins at the end of 2020. It will become available to British customers in 2021 for around £2m, orders are being received now and deliveries will be dealt with exclusively by the HR Owen Experience Center in Hatfield, England.
Mate Rimac told Autocar that the production model would not be called C_Two, but would be given a new name.
”I can’t reveal it to you yet. We haven’t decided yet,” Rimac told the English car magazine. He added that between 40 and 50 copies of that hypercar will be produced, plus an equal number of Pininfarina Battista, a car that uses Rimac’s carbon chassis and mechanics. Mate Rimac explained that he would carefully limit the production of his cars because “if we stay below 100 copies a year, the big players won’t care about that.”
In addition, at the recently-opened Los Angeles auto show, Hyundai sports chief N Albert Biermann confirmed that they were already far behind in the development and testing of high-performance electric prototypes, in collaboration with Rimac (it’s worth recalling that Hyundai has entered into the ownership structure of the Croatian company with an investment of 80 million euros). Biermann said Hyundai’s plan is to come out with as many as 44 eco-friendly vehicles by 2025.
In addition, it should not be forgotten that through the Porsche investment in Rimac’s company, the entire Volkswagen Group is in some way affiliated with this utterly remarkable Croatian company.
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