Bugatti is nowadays’ undoubted grail for a large proportion of sports car amateurs with its W16 8.0 liter quadri-turbo 1500 horsepower vehicle. Upon facing it, it is hard to find any competition, at least in the thermal engine world. When sifting through the electric realm, a few interesting competitors come to light; some more farfetched than interesting, but then there is the Rimac Nevera, a 150 model made 1914 horsepower supercar.
It’s the work of a young croatian manufacturer created by Mate Rimac which has garnered a lot of attention recently as, four months ago, it announced the beginnning of a new partnership with Bugatti under Porsche’s supervision. Today, the wedding between both brands has finally been made official. On a shareholder perspective, Rimac owns 55% of Bugatti, the rest being owned by Porsche.
There are a few directional changes worth mentioning, especially when it comes to who is running the operation, since Mate Rimac, founder and CEO of Rimac Automobili, has been placed at the helm of the alliance along with Oliver Blume and Lutz Meschke, respective presidents of Porsche AG, as mebmers of the supervision board. As of the 31st of October 2021, Stephan Winkelmann, president at Bugatti since January 2018, will concentrate exclusivel on his duties as president of Lamborghini. He has been presiding both brands since December 2020.
Christophe Piochon, former general manager of production and logistics at Bugatti, will become the brand’s new president. He will be joining Mate Rimac in Bugatti Rimac’s managerial team as director of operations. Hendrik Malinowski, former sales director and operations manager at Bugatti, has been assigned to the board of directors as general manager in charge of sales and marketing.
What is this going to change in the immediate future? Not much; Bugatti will continue manufacturing in Molsheim, whereas the Rimac will still be manufactured in Croatia. Both Bugatti and Rimac will continue their life cycle as two independent brands, with their own distinct catalogues, but one cannot keep from speculating Bugatti’s future, and the heir to the Chiron which should benefit from Rimac technology for its next supercar’s development, which will obviously sacrifice the W16 for its electric counterpart.
Still, Bugatti should keep its exclusive character and will probably look to beat several records, especially that of top speed for a series vehicle, which it still holds thanks to the Bugatti Chiron Super Sport 300+ which reached the insane speed of 490.484 km/h in 2019.
Leave a Reply