There are a couple of different tactics a car company will use to advertise their new concept models when they're about to be released. Many use television commercials, billboards, and other things of that nature. Rimac Automobili of Croatia had a slightly different approach for their all-electric supercar of the future.
Anyone familiar with Top Gear or The Grand Tour knows giving the keys of any fast car to Richard Hammond creates a small but still ever-present possibility of him crashing it. This gamble looks to have paid off for Rimac and their Concept One, because when Hammond did of course crash it, it made Rimac a petrolhead household name.
There's so much more to the story of the Rimac Concept One than being driven off a cliff by a five-foot-seven middle-aged Englishman with a penchant for getting into hideous accidents, there was more than a fair amount of clever tech that went into it as well.
Mate Rimac: Croatia's Own Ellon Musk
It takes a person with supreme intelligence, charisma, and where-with-all to attempt to start a company even half as innovative as Rimac. But the brand's eponymous founder Mate Rimac fits that description in more ways than one.
The genesis of his company started with his genuine love of automobiles, engineering, and home tinkering. A lifelong petrolhead with drifting and circuit racing under his belt, his first foray into the EV business was converting his own E30 BMW 3-Series to an all-electric powertrain when the car's petrol engine blew up in the middle of a race way back in 2007.
The engine swap was successful, but Rimac desired even more power, eventually dialing it in to make almost 600 horsepower and 660 foot-pounds of torque. This EV swapped E30 dubbed "The Green Monster" could run a high 11 second quarter mile and sprint to 60 miles per hour in less than 3.5 seconds. Beating out gas-powered sports cars 30 years newer. it was the perfect foundation for the company to build off, and two years later, Rimac Automobili was founded and based in Sveta Nedelja in northern Croatia.
Rimac Concept One: An All-Electric Croatian Hero
If Rimac's E30 was his only contribution to EV technology, it'd still be an amazing achievement. But of course, there's was still much more to come. At the time of the 2011 Frankfurt Motor Show, the idea of an all-electric future still hadn't endeared itself to the general public, so critics presented the first iteration of Concept One with scrutiny and cautious optimism.
On paper, the specifications were otherworldly. Up to 1500 horsepower, zero to sixty in two and a half seconds, all powered by top-of-the-line liquid-cooled electric motors sitting behind each wheel. With critics still unconvinced, the Rimac team packed their car in a shipping container and sent it all the way to America for the 2015 running of the Pikes Peak Hill Climb.
The electric Rimac placed second in a field entirely made up of internal combustion-powered vehicles, and driven by multiple-time Pikes Peak winner Nobuhiro Tajima. In 2017, the Concept One set the EV record for a timed run of the Goodwood Festival Of Speed Hill Climb event. After this, there was no doubt in anyone's mind, not only was the Concept One a legitimate contender for the fastest car in the world, and Mate Rimac was now a certified force in the performance EV business. All that was left to obtain was a stamp of approval from the world's most beloved auto journalists, the Top Gear/Grand Tour three.
Richard Hammond Makes It Famous, By Crashing It
After this considerable success, there was no doubt in anyone's mind, not only was the Concept One a legitimate contender for the fastest car in the world, but Mate Rimac was now a certified force in the performance EV business. All that was left to obtain was a stamp of approval from the world's most beloved auto journalists, the Top Gear/Grand Tour three.
For the first episode of the Grand Tour's second season, the team traveled to Switzerland to see which form of propulsion is best for a modern supercar. Jeremy drove a Lamborghini Aventador D, James drove a new Honda NSX, and Richard Hammond drove the Rimac.
The final event of the episode saw the trio compete in a hill-climb event in the town of Hemberg to see which among the three was the fastest. All seemed to be going well until the production team requested that Hammond go out for one more run.
Predictably, knowing Hammonds's history, this final run was the one where he lost control of the car, skidded off the track, and rolled end over end over a dozen times. Miraculously, he survived after being airlifted to the nearest hospital. After Hammond recovered, he commented that he'd loved the Rimac, and words like Brilliant and "Faster than the Aventador" were used by Clarkson and May. In the end, the footage of Hammonds's crash now has millions of views on YouTube, and probably gave the Rimac far more publicity than it ever would have without a crash-happy irritating little midget getting behind the wheel and absolutely binning it.
Sources: Amazon, Rimac Automobili