"I'll do a proper, proper E30 restomod, with a V10.Not just the technical stuff, but also design.I don't know when I will get round to that - it might be my retirement project

Mate Rimac is a man on a mission. What next for Bugatti?

- WORDS OLLIE MARRIAGE

It's a cold day at Paul Ricard. Wrapped in a bomber jacket Mate Rimac is standing on the pitwall, pointing his phone at the Bolide as it comes ripping past at full noise. He grins and looks over, "Pretty cool, huh?"

Rimac could have pulled the plug on the Bolide project when he took control of Bugatti three and a half years ago. But he was never going to, was he? He's a car guy. He's on the pitwall with his phone, filming for posterity because his wife is out there in the passenger seat.

Rimac, by the way, has yet to drive a Bolide. Given his reputation, his love of driving and drifting, the fact that his dream one day is to do “a proper, proper E30 restomod, with a V10. Not just the technical stuff, but also design. I don’t know when I will get round to that - it might be my retirement project”, why hasn’t he got into the Bolide yet?

“I’m always super detailed about testing and driving cars, about every detail, and when I drive our cars I come back with a long list of things I want improved or changed. But with this car it’s just so far outside my level of competence. It’s a racecar, a track car and I’m a road car user. I can’t come anywhere near what this car can do.”

That's fair enough, it’s not like he’s short of work elsewhere. He now has three projects, of which Bugatti is only half of one strand - that’s the Bugatti-Rimac car division. Then there’s Rimac Technology providing solutions to other car companies, and last year he launched Verne, a robotaxi company.

“We showed it in June last year, a few months before Tesla showed theirs - and just three weeks after we introduced the Tourbillon.