Rimac Nevera R Founder’s Edition Marks a Rare Legacy
The Rimac Nevera R Founder’s Edition is limited to just ten cars. Rimac announced it at a private gathering during Monterey Car Week in 2025. To understand what these ten cars represent, you need to go back to the start: a broken BMW, a garage, and a group of people in their twenties who had never built a car before.
In a new film from Rimac Automobili, founder and president Mate Rimac speaks openly about the Nevera and the price of bringing it to life. He says, “This car for me is a mountain, Mount Everest of blood, sweat and tears of all the people who have been involved to make it happen.” The Nevera became the world’s first true road-going electric hypercar with 2,000 horsepower. A young, inexperienced team developed it in a country with no automotive industry and almost no money. Mate says, “Basically, it shouldn’t have happened.” He adds, “It’s a glitch in the matrix that this exists.”
That journey took Rimac from Concept_One to Nevera, and from Nevera to Nevera R. Along the way, Rimac grew into a company of more than 2,000 people. Its Zagreb campus now brings together hand-stitched bespoke interiors and fully robotised, high-volume battery production. The Nevera did more than become the world’s first all-electric hypercar. It also broke more than 50 world records and set new performance benchmarks that pushed the wider automotive industry forward. Then the Nevera R raised the bar again. Mate argues that without the Nevera, the Bugatti Tourbillon would not exist, Croatia would not have an automotive industry, and the Rimac Group would not exist in its current form. Rimac created the Founder’s Edition to honour that journey and the people behind it.
Mate explains the thinking behind it in simple terms. He says, “We decided to do the Founder’s Edition for two reasons. One was to celebrate the Nevera because this crazy journey deserves a big ending. But the second one — and maybe more importantly — is that we have an incredibly loyal and strong community around us, customers who are truly part of the Rimac family. For them, we wanted to create these ten special cars.”
Each of the ten Rimac Nevera R Founder’s Edition cars starts with a deeply personal configuration session at the Rimac Campus in Zagreb. Customers work directly with Mate, Design Director Frank Heyl, and the design team. They use V-RED visualisation software to create a fully bespoke specification. Every car carries the personal touch of its owner. One includes full purple leather across the cabin. Another matches a specific shade of indigo blue from elsewhere in its owner’s collection. A striking two-tone base design features an ultra-thin central roof stripe that narrows to just 2 millimetres at its narrowest point. The design also brings together Rimac’s signature cravat motif and subtle circuit board graphics. Inside, bespoke embroidery marks three key dates in the company’s history.
The Rimac Nevera R Founder’s Edition offers more than a rare hypercar. It also opens the door to an ongoing relationship with Rimac. The ten Founder’s Club members receive priority invitations to product previews. They also receive a company card that provides direct access to Bugatti Rimac HQ. Rimac invites them to performance showcases and record-breaking runs. The mate and his leadership team include them in strategy discussions. Rimac also gives them input into the research and development that will shape future cars.
Rimac’s professional testing team will provide specialist driver training. These are the same people who have covered tens of thousands of miles while developing the Nevera and Nevera R. Mate will personally deliver each of the ten cars. He handed over the first car to its owner at The I.C.E. St. Moritz in January 2026. Rimac displayed it against the frozen backdrop of the lake alongside Mate’s own 40,000-kilometre personal Nevera.
The Nevera R itself represents the definitive evolution of the platform. It produces 2,107 hp through four individual motors that Rimac’s next-generation All-Wheel Torque Vectoring system controls. It reaches 0 to 60 mph in a record 1.66 seconds and has a top speed of 431.45 km/h (268.2 mph). Enhanced aerodynamics deliver 15% more downforce than the standard Nevera. New Michelin Cup 2 tyres cut understeer by 10% and increase lateral grip by 5%. In 2025 alone, the car set 24 verified performance world records. The Founder’s Edition stands at the very top of the 40-unit Nevera R production run.
For Mate Rimac, the Founder’s Edition comes down to legacy and the people who shared the journey. He says, “These ten cars will always be special, with the ten customers behind them who are really part of the Rimac family, and the journey of it — the customers who love the product, the records broken, the races won — it’s incredible that all of this happened in the space of the last ten years.”