Bugatti CEO Mate Rimac has seen the lighter side of having his multi-million dollar Chiron stolen from the Rimac hypercar factory in Croatia after he left his keys inside. Incredibly, he gave chase in his Porsche 911 and ended up getting the car back in Austria.

Rimac detailed the stunning episode in a social media video (pictured below) in which he also revealed he was prepared to give the offender a lift back to his family and didn’t want to press charges, but the matter was taken out of his hands due to the extreme cost of the Chiron.

2

“There is this crazy story about my Chiron being stolen … and believe it or not, yes, the car was stolen yesterday. Obviously, I got it back,” Rimac said in the clip, which was filmed outside the factory near Zagreb. 

“So we are in Croatia, which is super, super safe … I am so proud of Croatia being so safe that I am very relaxed, meaning also I leave my keys inside my cars, including the Chiron and [Rimac] Nevera and many other cars. I did it for years and nothing ever happened,” he continued.

Rimac – who also posted a clip from a security camera showing the moment the Chiron was stolen – explained that he left the keys inside because staff at the factory often needed to move the car or test something. 

“There is no fence [at the factory]. So the car is outside and the guy walked in and took the car. The craziest thing is we wouldn’t have even noticed because a lot of my friends and colleagues from the company use the car, I don’t even know where it is most of the time,” he said.

After a witness informed him and other Rimac staff that the Chiron had been nicked, he immediately called the police and used telemetry data to see that the car was headed to Slovenia. 

4

“I was right next to my 911, which was full of fuel, so [I’m] full-throttle chasing after him because he had a one-hour head start,” Rimac said.

The thief made it all the way to Austria, where police did a “fantastic job” and caught him. Rimac thought he’d go and get the car and drive the crook “back home to his family”. However, the extreme price of the Chiron – which can sell for as much as $4 million – meant there were “10 police cars” with officers loading the Bugatti onto a truck, and he had to prove that he was the owner.

When Rimac met the thief at the police station “he said he came to the company to ask for a job, ‘but I saw the car and it had a key inside’, like it was my fault”. The CEO didn’t want to press charges but police in both countries will be prosecuting the man.

The Chiron extracts 1103kW and 1600Nm from its quad-turbo, eight-litre W16 engine, which is enough mumbo to propel it from 0-100km/h in just 2.4 seconds. The speedo goes up to 500km/h, although the top speed is 420km/h, and when WhichCar by Wheels reviewed it in 2017 we said, “Excess is only the starting point.”