GoAuto Oddspot: Hypercar hyperbole

On paper and short of a rocket car, Croatian car-maker Rimac’s new Nevera hypercar looks to have the potential to be one of the fastest things on four wheels for civilian, on-road consumption.

 

It’s right up there with a rash of so-called hypercars all with sub 2.5 second 0-100km/h sprint times, which shows how far road-car technology has come in the past decade or so…

 

At GoAuto, we’d love to get behind the wheel of one, who wouldn’t. It makes ICE cars like the Nissan R35 GT-R seem slow.

 

At around 1350kg and with 1430kW/2300Nm on tap, the sleeky-deeky two-seater is surely going to rock your world when you plant the right foot.

 

And undoubtedly it will. Tests have already shown the Nevera to be capable of putting down a 0-100km/h sprint in around 1.85 seconds en-route to a top whack in excess of 415km/h.

 

Not that you need to go that fast but, hey, it makes for good “bench racing” down the pub. Not many road-registered cars we know of here at GoAuto can crest the big “quaddie.”

 

At around $A2.5-3.0 million, Nevera would want to be good and apparently is.

 

Orders for the 150 per year production run are all but stitched up by the likes Russian oligarchs trying to flee the country, musos, celebs and cyber geeks with excessively large wallets. It wouldn’t be surprising to find geek #1, Elon Musk, has his name on one.

 

Nevera was a long time in the making consuming some five years of development time, smashing 45 test mules and consuming 1.6 million person hours on the run up to the first production car that emerged from Rimac’s facility only a couple of weeks ago.

 

It is stunningly good looking with a LeMans race car look to its flanks no doubt dictated by aerodynamics needed to keep it on the road at 415km/h.

 

Four electric motors drive the Nevera, linked electronically and torque vectored to optimise drive and grip.

 

A “gearbox” of sorts disengages the front motors at high speed to reduce drive train drag and facilitate Nevera’s insane top speed.

 

This is all very good but it’s reality check time and by that we mean a comparison between Nevera and something seriously quick… like a Top Fuel dragster, aka a rail.

 

Would you need a G suit in a Nevera?

 

Short answer “no” but the opposite could apply in a 2022 Top Fuel rail.

 

Undoubtedly more practical on a public road, the Nevera isn’t within a bull’s roar of a Top Fueler in terms of acceleration and is nowhere near as fast top whack.

 

Here are the stats:

• The quickest Top Fuel (1000ft, 304.8m) pass on record is 3.623 seconds.

• The fastest Top Fuel speed recorded is 338.17mph (544.22km/h).

• The launch force on the driver of a Top Fuel drag car is around 5G.

• The 0-60mph (100km/h) time of a Top Fuel drag car is around 0.4 seconds.

• A Top Fuel drag car reaches 100km/h in just 300 inches (7.6m).

• The fastest 0-400m time recorded by a road-registered car was set by Jeff Lutz in a Chevrolet Camaro called ‘Mad Max’ in 2016 at 5.87 seconds at 251.34mph (404.49km/h).

 

Interesting stuff and worthwhile remembering when talk turns to the rash of “hypercars” coming out with similar performance to the Nevera like the the US-built Czinger 21C hybrid and plenty of others.

 

Quick and fast road cars all.

 

Hypercars? Well, that all depends on your perspective…