When you’re the CEO of Rimac and Bugatti, companies that make the world’s fastest EVs and luxurious hypercars like the Chiron and Tourbillon, you’d expect the bar to be set really high when it comes to their choice of cars. However, Mate Rimac isn’t a regular CEO of a hypercar company, which just so happens to be owned jointly with Porsche under the VW Group. Mate, instead, is known for driving his near-25-year-old BMW E39 M5 to work pretty much daily.
In fact, the CEO’s favourite car of all time, his ‘one true love’ as stated, is another BMW: the E30 M3 Sport Evolution. The ultimate form of the E30, the BMW M Division even devoted a post on social media to Mate Rimac and his love for his M3.
Interestingly, Mate Rimac’s first ever EV conversion was made on a BMW E30, resulting in an E30 e-M3 of sorts. Since then, Rimac’s love for the M division and its driver-centric cars has only grown. His E30 M3 Evo III, as it’s also known, is 1 of 600 units produced, and can cost around $200,000 on average if you have the itch to own one instead of a modern supercar.
It’s the most focused version of the E30 M3 and the S14 inline four-cylinder, 2.5-liter engine may not sound very exotic, with its 238 horsepower, but the results speak for themselves. Scores of people who love the E30 M3 for its purity of the driving experience, including Mate Rimac, can’t be wrong.
Considering the standard E30 M3 packed 2.3-liters of displacement and just under 200 horsepower, Rimac’s car is quite special. Especially when it was launched in 1989, since the world hadn’t seen anything quite that power dense out of a four-cylinder.
It’s fitting then that Rimac’s dedication to his E30 M3 is recognised by a company that still makes some of the best driver’s cars out there.
