I’m still not quite over the shock. It’s been around 30 years since I was among a group of American automotive journalists invited to visit Germany to see some of the newest technological innovations developed by Mercedes-Benz and its engineering team.
At one point during our visit, we were led onto a balcony in a large, warehouse-style building, where all of a sudden, lights were flashing and a brand-new and not-yet-on-sale 500 SL was zooming along a track and violently smashed into a concrete barrier.
The horrific sound of the crash reverberated through the building and while parts of the car were scattered about, the dummies riding along where people would otherwise be sitting would have survived with little if any injury.
It was a haunting experience to see a spanking-new, $80,000-plus sports car destroyed in the blink of an eye.
As horrific as it was to see such a car demolished, the same thing takes place for all vehicles offered for public sale, even million-dollar supercars, such as the Rimac C Two electric-powered hypercar, as you can see for yourself:
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Rimac Automobili plans to start production of the C_Two in 2021, and it is crash-testing early versions to verify that they meet global safety standards.
The company employs 800 people in Sveta Nedelja, Croatia, and since its launch has been doing electric engineering consulting with a variety of the world’s automakers in addition to preparing to launch the C_Two.
Part of that process involves instrumented crash tests, and the video shows off-set tests at speeds of 40 km/h (nearly 25 mph) and then at 56 (nearly 35 mph).
“There was no damage to the monocoque, meaning there was next-to-no deforming of the cabin, intrusion of the pedals or excessive forces exerted onto the driver and passenger,” Rimac said.
And these are just the latest cars to be destroyed. Such testing began in 2019.
“This latest full-vehicle physical testing – necessary to finalize the behavior of the carbon composite during an impact – is a confirmation of the virtual modeling,” the company said, adding that 13 prototypes and 5 production cars will be involved in such testing to complete global homologation of the electric-powered sports car.
For more information about the C_Two, visit the Rimac website.
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