6 Automotive Revolutionaries Of The Modern Era

When he was a child, Christian von Koenigsegg saw a Norwegian movie about a bicycle builder who eventually built a car himself, and it stuck with him. He “built with his friends on a mountaintop this incredible racing machine and competed against the established brands and won,” von Koenigsegg told the BBC in an interview when discussing the film. “I remember walking out of the cinema and saying, ‘That’s what I want to do when I grow up.'”

That was the start of Koenigsegg’s journey towards founding a cutting-edge hypercar company at 22, funded by previous business ventures and a diet of “bread and water.” When the Koenigsegg company sold its first car in 2002, the CC8S, it entered the record books as one of the world’s fastest cars and for having the most powerful production engine. It helped define the idea of a hypercar.

Early on, Koenigsegg embraced 3D printing technology and laser scanners and is a leader in aerodynamics and engine technology. The Gemera uses a cam-less piston engine, but the company has also followed through on a “green technology” development program that saw flex-fuel powering the CCXR and the Jesko, which is at its most powerful on E85 biofuel.

In high school, 19-year-old Croatian Mate Rimac turned a 1984 BMW 3 Series into an electric car in his garage and promptly broke records with it. At school, he was bullied for having a Bosnian accent and didn’t shine there. It was in his parent’s garage that he started inventing, then winning international awards for electronics and innovation before he was even 18. When he took his electric BMW to the track in 2006, he was mocked for bringing a “washing machine.”

In 2009, he created Rimac Automobili and started working on a concept electric supercar with Adriano Mudri, who was a designer at General Motors. Rimac struggled financially and with suppliers to build the Concept_One, and lost investors by refusing to relocate to the Middle East.

When the Concept_One arrived, it was the world’s fastest production electric vehicle. Now, Rimac produces battery packs, drivetrain systems, and vehicles for other automakers and has built a successor for the insane Concept_One, the Rimac Nevera. The Nevera isn’t just insanely fast but also features technology that’s the hallmark of Mate Rimac, like its facial recognition system.

He’s not done there, though. In 2021, Mate Rimac was announced as the new CEO of part of Bugatti Rimac, a joint venture between Rimac Group and Porsche AG.

Gordon Murray is an example of where the old and new schools interconnect. His career as a designer kicked off with Brabham as its Chief Designer in 1969. He forged his reputation for innovation by building Formula 1 cars, including world championship winners and the Brabham fan car. He moved to McLaren from 1987-1991 before heading up the McLaren Cars division and created the legendary McLaren F1 road car. In 2007, he founded Gordon Murray Design, where he designed a small city car that also netted him Autocar’s Idea of the Year Award for its manufacturing process. He also developed the Ox truck for the British charity, Global Vehicle Trust. The Ox truck is a small, inexpensive flat-pack truck designed for last-mile delivery services in developing countries.

He hasn’t forgotten about performance vehicles, with his latest project being the Gordon Murray Automotive T.33. It’s a Cosworth V12-powered two-seater supercar that comes standard with a six-speed manual transmission.

In 1981, the McLaren MP4/1 Formula One race car debuted with the first application of carbon fiber to a race car. Until its first race, it was derided by the rest of the industry as a “plastic car.” However, it quickly started dominating Formula 1, and a massive high-speed crash demonstrated its strength and value to safety. Every team moved to a carbon fiber chassis, but it was Horacio Pagani that wanted to put it in road cars. At the time, he worked for Lamborghini and wanted an autoclave – a machine that uses heat and pressure to cure carbon fiber. He met resistance from Lamborghini, though, which had the attitude that if Ferrari didn’t have one, Lamborghini didn’t need one. So, Pagani borrowed the money for the machinery in 1987 and left Lamborghini in 1991 to form a consulting company, Modena Design.

Modena Design still makes carbon fiber parts for race teams and automakers, including Ferrari, but he then founded Pagani Automobili S.p.A.. Pagani’s car company built the legendary carbon-fiber-based Zonda, then revealed the Pagani Huayra hypercar in 2011, which is still in limited production today.