There’s something poetic about the practice and procedure of crash testing. Much like how Jeff Bezos and I will return to the very same dirt one day, impact certification comes for all road-going makes and models without discretion — from a Mitsubishi Mirage to a $2.4 million, 1,900-horsepower Croatian hypercar.
Just like us, cars may as well live before they die, right? So Rimac hatched a neat idea for one of its preproduction chassis before sacrificing its life for U.S. homologation. The company decided to take it for a spot of rallying, and recorded and posted its exploits to YouTube for all of us to see. From the video’s description:
This particular example of the Nevera was our first pre-series car, made in early 2021, and used for various track and road tests, but also for customer and media drives, exclusive worldwide events, and more. Unfortunately, it had an expiration date from the very beginning, and now it is time to say goodbye, as we wrap up the crash testing homologation program.
At the wheel is none other than Rimac Automobili — ahem, now Bugatti Rimac — CEO, Mate Rimac. Croatia is one of the world’s rallying havens, so it’s only appropriate that this Nevera went out in a blaze of organic detritus.
The muddy action begins at the 2 minute, 50 second mark. There are also quick cuts of Nevera prototypes being crash tested prior to that, if you’re into that sort of thing. I won’t kink shame.
What makes this so surreal is that you’re not likely to see anything like it again. The act of off-roading a Ferrari F50 LM in the fictional world of Forza Horizon 5 feels gravely wrong to me, so the idea of a vehicle like this being subjected to such ickyness in real life — even if it’s due to be obliterated anyway — is inconceivable. That’s not to say it isn’t fun and satisfying to watch all the same, of course.
Rest assured, Mate doesn’t torture the car as if it were Hayden Paddon’s EV of choice. He keeps to flat trails with moist, fine gravel, like the grounds of Rimac’s future headquarters, and never goes particularly fast. Still, there’s plenty of countersteer on display, and I imagine wrestling an almost 2,000-horsepower electric car in slippery conditions feels a bit more rapid and dramatic than it might look to you and I through a camera lens.