Rimac Beats the Guinness World Record for Driving Backwards

You know, there are some stories that just make you bow your head as you gently shake it from side to side and mutter, ‘Why?! What were they thinking?’ Rimac, a small-capacity supercar manufacturer from Croatia, has just set a new speed record for going backwards. It is the sort of daft thing you do when you have rental cars and too much time on your hands, and not with a car that is already the fastest production car in the world.

So, the boys took a Rimac Nevera over to the Test Facility at Papenburg in Germany, where the test driver, Goran Drndak, managed to drive the car to an astounding 275.75 kph in reverse. Goran described the drive as unnerving and unnatural and took a lot of getting used to. Goran was quoted as saying, ‘You’re facing straight backwards watching the scenery flash away from you faster and faster, feeling your neck pulled forwards in almost the same sensation you would under normal breaking.”

A happy bunch.

The manufacturer claims that this ridiculous feat was achieved because the Electric-Powered Nevera’s drive-train does not have a normal transmission. Instead, it has four individual motors that propel the car forward, or in this case backwards, with no inherent limitations based on which way they are spinning up. So, that means that the same motors that powered the Nevera to a world-record 400kph earlier in the year can, at least in theory, push the car to the same speed but in reverse. The only limit is the stability, due to the lack of a proper aerodynamics package when it goes rearward.

Apparently, the whole idea of setting a world-reversing record came up as a joke after they had set the fastest time going the right way.
Rimac was put onto the map some six years ago, and not for the right reason. This was the car that Richard Hammond famously crashed whilst filming for the Grand Tour TV show as he fell down the Alps during a hill-climbing event. The car that boasts 1,888bhp (no, that is not a typo) was a write-off and so too nearly was Richard Hammond.

That was six years ago and just this week, Richard Hammond has been reunited with the car that almost killed him. In all fairness to the car and Mr. Hammond, he always took the blame for the accident, openly admitting that it doesn’t matter how futuristic and impressive a car is, it can always be driven incorrectly. According to Richard Hammond, the car was so addictively fast and driveable that he forgot to brake after he crossed the finish line and of course, no amount of electronic wizardry can defy physics.

How he parked it last time.

For me, who likes fast cars, I think that 1,888bhp in just about any car is totally bonkers and unnecessary. You can watch the full link of the Hammond’s Rimac crash at the following link: