Audacious Automotive IV revives the Audi Quattro with a 10,000rpm V8 and a £350,000 price

Weight targets and Quattro shells

Audacious is targeting 1400-1450kg for cars built from Quattro shells and 1200kg for carbonfibre cars. The bodywork draws on the Group B rally version of the Quattro, with some details reminiscent of the IMSA GTO racing version of its replacement, the 90. The car wears Audacious's own badges rather than Audi ones.

Zaglewski has said pristine donor vehicles are avoided, with the intention being to give tired cars a new lease on life. Buyers who prefer not to sacrifice a shell can take the carbonfibre route instead.

Price, build time and what is not included

The £350,000 starting price excludes VAT, the cost of donor vehicles, transport, registration and specification. Audacious says the whole process, from commissioning a car to it being on the road, takes around three years.

That long lead time and the exclusions mean the headline figure understates what a buyer will actually pay, particularly for a car built on a donor shell. The upside is that the specification is effectively bespoke, with suspension and mechanical changes tailored to intended use.

Mate Rimac, the CEO of Bugatti and founder of Rimac, has confirmed that his own Bugatti Chiron Sport was stolen from the Rimac campus near Zagreb, Croatia, and driven across Europe before being pursued by its owner. The car is estimated to be worth about €3 million, or roughly A$4.75 million.

How the theft unfolded

Rimac said a man who had come to the campus looking for work simply walked in and took the car, and that the site has no fences, though a pass is needed to reach certain areas. He admitted the theft could easily have gone unnoticed because friends and colleagues from the company regularly use his cars, so he often does not know where they are.

The alarm was raised only when someone spotted an unfamiliar driver behind the wheel, prompting colleagues to check the car's whereabouts in a group chat and call the police. Rimac said the company then pulled telemetry data covering speed, fuel level and location, which showed the thief heading for Slovenia.

With the thief holding roughly a one-hour head start, Rimac set off in his Porsche 911, which had a full tank of fuel, and chased the Chiron through Slovenia and into Austria. He had hoped the car would be caught before crossing a border so the crossing could be closed, but the thief reached Austria first. A fuel stop appeared to give Rimac a chance to close the gap.

A Chiron Sport like the one stolen, shown in full, Image: CarExpert

Why the keys were in it

Rimac said he has long left his keys inside his cars, including the Chiron and the Rimac Nevera, out of confidence in how safe Croatia is, and that nothing had ever gone wrong until now. The Chiron Sport is among the fastest production cars in the world, with an 8.0-litre quad-turbocharged W16 making 1103kW and 1600Nm, a 0-100km/h time of 2.4 seconds and a top speed electronically limited to 420km/h.

That matters because the thief was not piloting a slow car across borders. A machine capable of 420km/h can put a lot of distance between itself and a pursuer, even one in a 911, which explains why the head start proved so hard to claw back.

Mate Rimac explains the theft in his own words, Image: CarExpert

What is still unknown

Rimac confirmed the theft in a social media clip shared on YouTube by Car Chronicles, and the pursuit was still being played out as he spoke. Whether the Chiron was ultimately recovered has not been announced in the source material.