Czinger 21C VMax: The Future Built from Powder and Light
For years, the automotive world has been whispering about Czinger. A hypercar born not of traditional manufacturing but of artificial intelligence and giant 3D printers. For me, finally getting behind the yoke-style steering wheel of the 21C VMax was a pilgrimage—a journey into the heart of automotive evolution. After a three-day road rally through the legendary wine country of California, I emerged in a state of utter shock. We’ll cover the track performance soon, but the real story is: What is this alien, center-steer, tandem-seat marvel like on a real-world journey?
Beyond the Carbon Fiber: The Czinger Factory
Visiting the Czinger factory is an experience you can’t prepare for. I’ve never needed a U.S. passport to enter a car factory, but Divergent Technologies, the parent company behind the Czinger marque, is a different breed. They use iterative AI to design and produce incredibly light and strong mechanical components. The reason for the ID check? Divergent is a supplier to the U.S. Department of Defense, and while I didn’t see anything that resembled a rocket on the factory floor, the tour was something out of a science fiction novel.
Lukas Czinger, the young CEO of both companies, guided me through the facility. The centerpiece is one of the massive 3D printers. Watching more than a dozen lasers fuse powdered aluminum into automotive parts that resemble alien bone structures felt like a glimpse into the future.
Lukas explained their philosophy as “Pareto optimal”—the point where any gram added or removed becomes a negative. Take a rear suspension damper reservoir. The software iterates hundreds of thousands of designs until it finds the strongest, lightest shape that can withstand the required forces. It’s evolution on fast-forward. Beyond the DOD, nine automotive OEMs use Divergent’s additive manufacturing. Aston Martin (DBR22 Roadster), Bugatti (Tourbillon), and McLaren (W1) publicly admit it, though the Ferrari F80’s control arms look suspiciously suspect.
The Two Sides of the 21C
Czinger produces two distinct versions of the same fundamental vehicle. The high-downforce, track-focused 21C (named after the 21st century) and the wingless, long-tailed VMax. While technically named the 21C VMax, the “21C” branding doesn’t appear on the exterior of the VMax model. For the inaugural Velocity Tour—a 500-mile road rally through Central and Northern California’s wine country—I found myself behind the wheel of a silver VMax.
I use the word “piloting” intentionally because the cabin feels more like a jet fighter canopy than a typical car greenhouse. Czinger calls it a jet fighter experience, and having been in an Extra 330LT stunt plane, I can attest to the similarity. There is less than a foot of glass on either side of your head, and the visibility is unparalleled.
However, the process of getting in and out is, to put it mildly, ridiculous. You sit with your legs facing outward on the massive sill, pull your knees up, spin on your butt, and tuck your feet into the footwell, then slide your head under the roof. It’s a performance in itself.
One reason the sills are so large is the storage they provide for the battery packs. The 21C VMax is a hybrid hypercar, and each sill holds 2.2 kWh of power, totaling 4.4 kWh. It’s not a plug-in hybrid; the mid-mounted V-8 engine keeps the battery charged. These batteries can deliver 500 horsepower to the front wheels, which are driven by individual motors.
The heart of the machine is a Czinger-designed 2.9-liter twin-turbo V-8 that produces 750 hp on California’s 91-octane premium fuel. Upgrade to 100-octane race fuel, and the power jumps to 850 hp. The engine can also run on ethanol, promising even more power, though Czinger hasn’t released those figures.
The gasoline engine powers the rear wheels through an Xtrac single-clutch automated semi-sequential gearbox. Similar to the Xtrac seven-speed in the Pagani Utopia, Czinger takes it a step further. They not only 3D print the transmission case but also use small 48-volt electric motors to execute shifts at low speeds. This eliminates the characteristic drunken surge found in other automated single-clutch transmissions. The twin-barrel actuators worked flawlessly during low-speed maneuvers. Pulling into gas stations, restaurants, and hotel parking lots felt almost normal. Seriously, bravo.
Beyond the Limit: Track Performance
What never felt normal was the driver sitting behind me for the entire day. As is common with high-dollar hypercars (think Bugatti and Pagani), Czinger assigned a professional driver, Evan Jacobs, to ride along and ensure I didn’t drive their $2,500,000 car off a cliff. Later that night, Jacobs assured the Czinger team that I wasn’t a threat and would be allowed to drive solo for the remainder of the rally.
We visited Laguna Seca for some parade laps, but for some reason, non-Czinger employees aren’t allowed to drive the VMax on racetracks, even at the painfully slow pace required by the rally participants.
As I’ve learned the hard way, even if you can’t drive, always take the ride. I scrambled into the bizarre rear seat. The first thing to note: if you have large calves or feet, the rear seat experience is not comfortable. My XXL calves were wedged between the carbon fiber tub and the seat, and my feet didn’t fit well either. However, the visibility through the side glass is incredible. Again, it reminded me of a stunt plane and was a surprisingly novel way to experience a track—something I’ve done more than 1,000 times.
This was especially true when Jacobs and I convinced the Skip Barber Racing School staff (whose track day we crashed) to let him take the VMax for a couple of “6/10ths” hot laps. The most impressive hot lap I’ve ever experienced was riding shotgun in an Aston Martin Valkyrie LMH race car, where I could feel the blood pooling in my extremities under braking. The Czinger VMax is now second, and remember, Jacobs didn’t go full tilt.
Even at something less than the limit and without the big-downforce rear wing, it was easy to understand how a Czinger 21C achieved what the brand calls the California Gold Rush. That means it set five production car track records—at Thunder Hill, Sonoma Raceway, Laguna Seca, Willow Springs, and The Thermal Club—in five days, driving from each track to the next. Later, Czinger returned to Laguna Seca to not only beat its own record but to reclaim the throne from a track-special Koenigsegg Jesko Sadair’s Spear. That lap time, a ridiculous 1 minute, 22.30 seconds, is quicker than the fastest MotoAmerica Superbike lap ever recorded at Laguna, a 1:22.56.
Czinger claims a vehicle weight of approximately 3,600 pounds, which is incredibly light for a 1,250-hp hybrid vehicle. For context, the Ferrari SF90 Stradale Assetto Fiorano—the highest-performance version of a three-motor, twin-turbo V-8 PHEV that makes only 986 hp—weighs 3,839 pounds. The new Lamborghini Temerario is another three-motor, twin-turbo V-8 (making even less power, but for comparison’s sake) that pushes past the two-ton mark, coming in at 4,185 chunky pounds.
Now’s a good time to mention that the SF90 and Temerario are the two quickest-accelerating gasoline-powered cars MotorTrend has ever tested (the Ferrari for 0-60 mph and the Lambo for the quarter mile). If Czinger’s weight claim holds true, this unconventional Southern California startup has managed to beat two Italian legends with job one. That’s remarkable on its own but especially noteworthy considering that while Southern California is known for many things, it doesn’t have a large pool of supercar building expertise to draw from. In other words, L.A. isn’t exactly Modena.
The Road Less Traveled
The route for the rally consisted mostly of true back roads—tight, winding, lousy, weather-beaten pavement. Not exactly the type of asphalt hypercar dream trips are made of. Plus, there was a lot of following the pack, navigating to lunch and coffee stops, and hanging with the camera car. I was perhaps disappointed at the time, but in retrospect, what I gained from the experience is similar to what most owners will experience living with a Czinger.
To my surprise, the VMax was mostly like driving any other hyper-exotic. Take everything out of your pockets as the seats are tight, drink your water before you get in as there are no cupholders, and steel yourself for the fact that almost everyone else on the road, especially males between the ages of 16 and 24, will be looking at you, following you, waving, and revving at you, all while (probably) screaming friendly obsc
