Czinger 21C VMax: The Apex Predator of Public Roads
For years, the automotive world has whispered about Czinger, the Southern California startup promising a revolution. But talking about it isn’t the same as experiencing it. That’s why I jumped at the chance to drive the 21C VMax on a three-day road rally. We all know about the track prowess of the 21C—the alien-tech, 3D-printed hypercar that shattered five production-car records in five days. But what’s a center-steer, tandem-seat hypercar like when pushed to its limits on winding California highways? What happens when cutting-edge technology meets raw, unadulterated speed on public roads?
The answers, I discovered, are as breathtaking as they are unnerving. This isn’t just another hypercar; it’s a technological manifesto that pushes the boundaries of what we thought was possible.
Factory Fresh: A Glimpse into the Future
To even see a Czinger, you need to enter the fortress of its parent company, Divergent Technologies. This is no ordinary car manufacturer. Divergent employs iterative artificial intelligence and 3D printing to create impossibly light yet incredibly strong mechanical components. It’s a realm where engineering meets the cutting edge of 21st-century technology.
I’ll admit, I’ve never had to show my U.S. passport to enter a car factory before. But Divergent doesn’t just build cars; they supply parts to the Department of Defense. Walking through the facility, I saw massive 3D printers zapping powdered aluminum into components that resembled bird bones—an eerie, beautiful dance of light and metal. Lukas Czinger, the young CEO of both companies, gave me a tour that felt like a journey into the future.
Lukas explained that Divergent’s technology reaches “Pareto optimal,” a point where adding or subtracting even a single gram is a net negative. Take the rear suspension damper reservoir, for instance. There’s a specific space it needs to fit, and it must withstand immense forces. The software iterates hundreds of thousands of designs, essentially playing evolutionary evolution at warp speed, to find the absolute strongest and lightest shape.
Beyond the military applications, nine automotive OEMs use Divergent as a supplier of 3D-printed parts. While Aston Martin, Bugatti, and McLaren publicly acknowledge their partnership, the Ferrari F80’s control arms look suspiciously like candidates. This technology isn’t just a novelty; it’s the future of automotive manufacturing.
Under the Carbon Fiber Canopy
Czinger builds two versions of what is essentially the same car. The high-downforce, track monster is the 21C (named after the 21st century), and the wingless, long-tailed version is the VMax. Technically, it’s the 21C VMax, but the “21C” badge appears nowhere on the car.
For the inaugural Velocity Tour, a 500-mile road rally through California’s wine country, I was fortunate enough to pilot a silver VMax. I say “piloting” purposely because the cabin feels less like a cockpit and more like a jet fighter’s canopy. Czinger claims the experience is like being in an Extra 330LT stunt plane, and I can attest to the similarity. Glass is less than a foot from either side of your head, offering incredible visibility. However, the process of getting in and out is, frankly, ridiculous. You sit with your legs facing outward on the massive sill, pull your knees up, tuck your feet into the footwell, and then slide your head under the roof. It’s a ballet of contortion that makes getting into a Lamborghini feel like opening a door.
One reason the sills are so massive is because they house batteries. The 21C VMax is a hybrid hypercar, and each sill contains 2.2 kWh of battery power for a total of 4.4 kWh. The car isn’t a plug-in hybrid; a motor powered by the mid-mounted V-8 keeps the pack charged. Those batteries can deliver 500 horsepower to the front axle, which features one motor per wheel. The combustion engine is a Czinger-designed 2.9-liter twin-turbo V-8 that produces 750 hp on California’s subpar 91-octane premium unleaded. But dump 100-octane race fuel into the tank, and the power increases to a staggering 850 hp. The small but mighty engine can also run on ethanol and produce even more power, though Czinger hasn’t released those specific figures yet. (I predict a 10 percent jump.)
The gas engine powers the rear wheels via an Xtrac single-clutch automated semi-sequential gearbox. This is similar to the seven-speed gearbox Pagani uses in the Utopia, but Czinger doesn’t just 3D print the transmission case—it uses small 48-volt electric motors to smooth out shifts at low speeds. This eliminates the drunken, surging feeling inherent to all other automated single-clutch gearboxes. In low-speed situations, the twin-barrel actuators work as advertised, which I was thankful to discover. Pulling into gas stations, restaurants, and hotel parking lots felt almost normal. Seriously, bravo.
Track Time: The California Gold Rush
What never felt normal was the dude sitting behind me for the entire day. As is typical with certain big-dollar hypercars (think Bugatti and Pagani), Czinger installed a professional driver, Evan Jacobs, to ensure I didn’t drive the $2.5 million machine off a cliff. Thankfully, later that night, Jacobs assured the Czinger team I was no threat to the car, and I was allowed to drive solo for the rest of the rally.
We stopped by Laguna Seca for some parade laps, but non-Czinger employees aren’t allowed to drive the VMax on racetracks, even at the brutally slow pace the rally participants were restricted to. As I’ve learned the hard way, even if you can’t drive, you can ride along. I scrambled into the bizarre rear seat. The first thing to know is that if you have big calves or feet, the back-seat experience is far from comfortable. My XXL calves were literally wedged between the carbon-fiber tub and the carbon-fiber 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 notably novel way to experience riding around 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, during which I could feel the blood pooling in my extremities under braking. The Czinger VMax is now second, and remember, Jacobs didn’t go full throttle. Even at something less than the limit and without the big-downforce rear wing, it was easy to understand how a Czinger 21C pulled off what the brand calls the California Gold Rush.
This 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 the track-special Koenigsegg Jesko Sadair’s Spear. That lap time, a ridiculous 1:22.30, 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 astonishingly light for a 1,250-hp hybrid vehicle. To put that in perspective, the Ferrari SF90 Stradale Asseto Fiorano—the highest-performance version of a three-motor, twin-turbo V-8 PHEV that only makes 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) that pushes past the two-ton mark 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 unorthodox California startup has managed to beat two Italian legends at their own game. That’s remarkable on its own but particularly noteworthy considering that while Southern California is known for many things, there isn’t a huge pool of supercar building expertise to draw from. In other words, L.A. isn’t exactly Modena.
On the Road: A Rollercoaster of Emotions
The route chosen for the rally consisted mostly of true back roads. Tight, winding, and lousy, weather-beaten pavement—not the kind of asphalt that 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. At the time, I was perhaps a bit disappointed, but in retrospect, what I experienced is akin
