I think you might have described as your greatest ever drift shot.
- I've not seen anything like it on film.
- Chris, so the Rimac
Nevera. What did you know about the company and the man – Mate Rimac – behind this car?
Or should I say "Rimats"?
Are you pronouncing it properly? - No, no, we're saying Rimac. We have to emphasise everything.
I knew all about the man; I knew about what he'd been doing.
And I knew that Porsche had bought a chunk of his company.
That's the ultimate accolade.
Porsche is the cleverest, most discerning car company on the planet.
So when Porsche buys a part of you, you're good.
And I knew that the guy,
you know, had
watched films that I'd done over the years and had, you know, by proxy
been in contact about this car,
and said he wasn't gonna let me drive it until it was done.
So I'm so thrilled that we got it in this run.
So, yes, it didn't just arrive like a bolt out of the blue.
I knew exactly what it was about.
But you can know all about something that on paper has got 1900 horsepower.
But when it lands, it's still a shock.
And the first few miles, let me just tell you,
the first few miles is on a Yorkshire moorland road,
where I had 70% performance.
It was damp, and I thought to myself: Where's this all going?
I've been over that road in all of the supercars
and hypercars that I've already been in, and this felt so much faster with 70%.
So you were in a sort of sport rather than track mode?
I was in jelly baby mode.
And it still... when I put my foot down for the first time, I couldn't really talk.
Yeah, so we've already, we've already overstepped the mark here
with what you can use on the road. And the track,
I'd imagine. We'll probably get on to that in a minute,
because I've had a go at an airfield as well.
What were your thoughts on electric hypercars going into the test?
Because as a thing, they're quite heavy...
My thought was they're a nil-sum game.
I came out thinking they're a nil-sum game,
but this is...this is really great.
The existential threat that electric supercars,
hypercars, pose to their predecessors, and how we feel about them remains.
Because the world still wants to judge cars by how fast they are.
- Yeah. Those headline figures will always be the thing that get you and I juicy.
- Mm-hmm. You know, you can't resist but going: "Oh, it does 0-60mph in that..."
And we all know it's meaningless, but we're still seduced
by the numbers. And these cars will continue to seduce.
They're so fast, you can't get over the numbers.
But it to have some substance underneath. - It does. You do 0-60,
I'm sure you did a full bore launch.
- Oh, we did it. - And did it make you feel sick? - Yeah, it's outrageous.
I suppose that I've always allowed myself to be lazy enough to say that... a bit
like a jet ski –
you drive it once, you do what it does once, and it's kind of over. The third
or fourth time you do it: well, I've done it now.
This thing has revealed its personality to me,
and there's nothing else left.
But what I will say about the Nevera is that it's so fast
that the tenth time you do a full bore start,
your body still goes: What's going on here?
Why would that happen?
- Yeah. So there's a ...there's a level of performance I think you reach
where the party trick doesn't get tiresome.
But maybe it's at 1900 horsepower and two million quid.
So that's a salutary lesson to all of these carmakers.
Does it have a personality?
Not really.
Do you miss the noise? I think you do.
But when I was filming it on the day, I was thinking this is utterly outrageous.
I've never experienced anything like it.
And there's one particular shot you'll see at the end of the film that exposed me
and four tyres to a degree of violence
that I've not experienced before.
Before this, I think you might have described it as your greatest ever drift shot.
- I've not seen anything like it on film. - Yeah.
- You know, even in the Ken Block era of totally altering that genre.
- So is it easy to slide because of all that power, or...?
No, there was loads of different modes.
In the drift mode,
it slides like a conventional car,
in that the back axle's doing most things, the front axle's is doing a bit.
But really, when the slide comes, you countersteer, you put the lock in
and then you wind the lock off.
And obviously, as ever, the severity of your crash
is determined by how you get the lock off,
not how you put the lock on... - I've been discovering this, yes.
Right, the super-duper drift mode is, is effectively spool diff.
So it sends... it locks all four wheels and equal torque goes to all four wheels.
And you're left to sort it out.
So, it wants to drift with the steering wheel straight, and if you try
and put any lock on that... then it doesn't like that.
But it does mean you have the opportunity to wreck four tyres with equal torque,
which doesn't normally happen because most cars are going
to juggle things around a bit.
So the resulting image is interesting.
- Yeah. - But it's not...
And also it's happening so fast.
It looks like you're doing 80, you're pulling 120mph, with all four tyres
over-rotating to the point where they're dying very quickly.
Lots of smoke? - Loads smoke.
But no noise. - It's gonna look good on camera.
It's one of those films where,
you know, our brilliant team of editors are having to work hard.
All we can hear is stones going up in the wheel arches and tyres
being eviscerated.
What do we do?
Well, that then means that the music portfolio becomes very important.
- Yeah. - So you're then, well, what do we do? Throw in a bit of Queens of the Stone Age?
In the same shot,
one... one as it came out the camera, and another one with the V8 soundtrack
dubbed over the top.
Well, I don't think we're far off a manufacturer
just piping some music into the car, or doing something, because you do miss it.
Oh, because you know, Porsche and Ferrari are both working on...
they're going to be working on pure electric.
Porsche obviously already has the Taycan, but I'm talking about hypercars,
supercars, kind of thing.
And they'll be scratching their heads going, you know, the Nevera's amazing,
but how do we bring a little bit more emotion?
So the person that buys a £2 million car – a supercar, hypercar –
the majority, and we know, they do want to drive the car
now again fast, but they also want to drive down the King's Road slowly
and make some noise.
And the problem is, if you want to be a peacock in a Nevera,
the only thing you've got at your disposal is speed.
And if you try and demonstrate that in a built-up area,
you're just going to end up in a shopfront.
- Yeah. And so this is going to be interesting.
How are people going to show off at low speed in these cars?
The peacockery of the low-speed hypercar move...
- Yeah. .. is going to need to be sorted out by someone. Because that's what they need, these people.
The Aventador revving. - Yeah.
The idea of the flames and the cooking, the chicken and all that sort of stuff.
I'm not that interested in it. - First world problems.
It is. The way that the Top Gear is... a series is built is that,
you know, to get billing in the first show is quite a big thing.
- Yeah. I don't think the Nevera was necessarily considered
to go in the first episode. But the fact that it's made it in there
shows you how much it opened our eyes and what a great film it made.
You did talk about a certain drag race that occurred,
which I think kind of sums up the stupid performance.
I'm not going to give it away, but these cars need context.
No point in
just someone saying it's as fast as a really fast thing – that's meaningless.
You've got to... you have to demonstrate what that means.
So take something very, very, very fast, like a 700-and-something
horsepower Lamborghini and then let physics demonstrate what's going on.
What it does to conventional hypercars is humbling.