Mate Rimac’s Bugatti Chiron was stolen from a company building in Croatia and later stopped by police in Austria after a cross-border chase that began with the car already moving away from the scene. Rimac said he got into a Porsche 911 and went after it himself, with the stolen supercar already having a one-hour head start.
The theft became a live pursuit almost immediately. An employee saw the Chiron speeding off, and people at Bugatti quickly used a group chat to work out that the man behind the wheel was not supposed to be there. Police were dispatched, while Rimac tracked the car through telemetry that showed its location, fuel level and speed. He said he could see it heading toward Slovenia and hoped it would be caught before it crossed into the next country.
What makes the episode unusual is not just the car itself, but the way it was built around data. Rimac has said he used to leave his cars parked with the keys in them, which appears to be how the thief got access to the seven-figure Chiron at all. That habit gave the thief an opening, but it also meant the car was never truly out of reach once it was taken. Rimac said the company would not keep its keys around the factory anymore.
By the time the chase was underway, the gap had already stretched across borders. Rimac said the thief reached Austria, kept going after running low on fuel and even filled up about half the tank before continuing. Austrian police eventually stopped the car, and Rimac said one of the officers was in the group chat and had updates on the location throughout the pursuit. He also posted security footage of the theft, turning the case into a public warning as much as a theft report.
Rimac then declined to press charges, even though the car had been stolen and the thief could still face trouble with the law. That leaves the most important unanswered point not the theft itself, but what consequences followed after Austrian police brought the chase to an end. Rimac’s own conclusion was blunt: the data was there, the car was tracked and the thief could not do anything with it for long.
