Driving the Czinger 21C VMax: Where Future Tech Meets Brutal Performance
For years, the automotive world has been buzzing about Czinger, the Southern California firm that’s essentially reimagining what a hypercar can be. So when the opportunity arose to spend three days on the Velocity Tour, a scenic drive through the wine regions of Central and Northern California, I jumped at the chance to get behind the wheel of the Czinger 21C VMax.
We’ll get to the track performance, the record-breaking lap times, and the sheer madness of pushing this machine to its limits. But first, I wanted to understand what it’s like to drive a car built with technology so advanced it’s usually reserved for the Department of Defense. And let me tell you, it is nothing like anything you’ve experienced before.
Stepping into the Future: A Tour of Divergent Technologies
Czinger isn’t just a car company; it’s the consumer-facing arm of Divergent Technologies. This is where the real magic happens. If you want to get inside, you need to present a U.S. passport. Divergent supplies high-tech, additive-manufactured parts to the DOD, so security is understandably tight. Although the military hardware was off-limits, my tour guide, the young CEO Lukas Czinger, granted me a sneak peek into one of the massive 3D printers.
It felt like stepping into the future. Watching lasers fuse powdered aluminum into automotive components that looked like intricate bird bones was surreal. Lukas explained that Divergent’s tech aims for “Pareto optimal,” a point where any addition or subtraction of mass becomes detrimental to performance.
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Driving the Czinger 21C VMax: Where Future Tech Meets Brutal Performance
For years, the automotive world has been buzzing about Czinger, the Southern California firm that’s essentially reimagining what a hypercar can be. So when the opportunity arose to spend three days on the Velocity Tour, a scenic drive through the wine regions of Central and Northern California, I jumped at the chance to get behind the wheel of the Czinger 21C VMax.
We’ll get to the track performance, the record-breaking lap times, and the sheer madness of pushing this machine to its limits. But first, I wanted to understand what it’s like to drive a car built with technology so advanced it’s usually reserved for the Department of Defense. And let me tell you, it is nothing like anything you’ve experienced before.
Stepping into the Future: A Tour of Divergent Technologies
Czinger isn’t just a car company; it’s the consumer-facing arm of Divergent Technologies. This is where the real magic happens. If you want to get inside, you need to present a U.S. passport. Divergent supplies high-tech, additive-manufactured parts to the DOD, so security is understandably tight. Although the military hardware was off-limits, my tour guide, the young CEO Lukas Czinger, granted me a sneak peek into one of the massive 3D printers.
It felt like stepping into the future. Watching lasers fuse powdered aluminum into automotive components that looked like intricate bird bones was surreal. Lukas explained that Divergent’s tech aims for “Pareto optimal,” a point where any addition or subtraction of mass becomes detrimental to performance.
Imagine an engineer designing a component, say, a rear suspension reservoir. They feed the system the target strength (Y) and the limited space (X). The software then iterates through hundreds of thousands of designs to find the strongest, lightest possible shape. It’s like biological evolution on fast-forward.
Beyond the DOD, Divergent supplies 3D-printed parts to nine automotive OEMs. While only Aston Martin, Bugatti, and McLaren publicly acknowledge the partnership, the Ferrari F80’s control arms look suspicious. Regardless of who uses the tech, it’s clear that Divergent is at the forefront of a manufacturing revolution.
Under the Carbon Fiber: The 21C VMax
Czinger builds two versions of the 21C (named for the 21st century). There’s the high-downforce, track-focused 21C and the VMax, which is essentially the same car but with a long tail and no rear wing. For the inaugural Velocity Tour, I had the chance to pilot a silver VMax.
The interior is best described as a canopy rather than a greenhouse. Czinger claims it feels like being in a jet fighter, and having been inside an Extra 330LT stunt plane, I can confirm the similarity. The visibility is incredible, with glass less than a foot away on either side of your head.
However, getting in and out is…ridiculous. You sit with your legs facing out on the massive sill, pull your knees up, spin on your butt, and tuck your feet into the footwell, all while sliding your head under the roof. It’s not graceful, but it is functional for a track-focused machine.
The Powertrain: High-Tech Hybrid Power
One reason the sills are so wide is that they house the battery packs. The 21C VMax is a hybrid hypercar, with each sill containing 2.2 kWh of battery power (4.4 kWh total). It’s not a plug-in hybrid, so a motor powered by the mid-mounted V8 keeps the pack charged.
Those batteries can send 500 horsepower to the front axle, which has one electric motor per wheel. The combustion engine is a Czinger-designed 2.9-liter twin-turbo V8, delivering 750 hp on California’s 91-octane premium unleaded. If you pour 100-octane race fuel into the tank, the horsepower jumps to 850. The engine can also run on ethanol for even more power, though those figures haven’t been released yet.
The gas engine sends power to the rear wheels through an Xtrac single-clutch automated semi-sequential transmission. It’s similar to the Xtrac seven-speed in the Pagani Utopia, but Czinger not only 3D prints the case but also uses small 48-volt electric motors to execute shifts at lower speeds. This eliminates the “drunken” surging found in other automated single-clutch gearboxes. Thankfully, the twin-barrel actuators work as advertised, making low-speed driving almost normal—a welcome relief when navigating gas stations and restaurant parking lots.
Track Time: Can You Keep Up?
As is common with big-money hypercars (think Bugatti and Pagani), Czinger stuck a pro driver, Evan Jacobs, in the car with me for the first day. He was there to make sure I didn’t drive the $2.5 million machine off a cliff. Thankfully, Jacobs eventually gave me the green light to drive solo for the rest of the rally.
We stopped by Laguna Seca for some parade laps, but for whatever reason, non-Czinger employees aren’t allowed to drive the VMax on tracks, even at the brutally slow pace the rally participants were restricted to.
Even though I couldn’t drive on the track, I rode shotgun, and it was an experience I won’t forget. The first thing to know: if you have big calves or feet, the back seat isn’t 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 notably novel way to experience riding around a track—something I’ve done more than 1,000 times.
Jacobs convinced the Skip Barber Racing School staff 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 on that list, and remember, Jacobs wasn’t even going full tilt.
Even at 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. They set five production car track records—at Thunder Hill, Sonoma Raceway, Laguna Seca, Willow Springs, and the Thermal Club—in five days and drove from each track to the next. Later, Czinger returned to Laguna Seca to reclaim the throne from a 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 around 3,600 pounds, which is impressive for a 1,250 hp hybrid. For comparison, the Ferrari SF90 Stradale Asseto Fiorano—the highest-performance version of a three-motor twin-turbo V8 PHEV making 986 hp—weighs 3,839 pounds. The new Lamborghini Temerario, another three-motor twin-turbo V8 making less power, weighs in at 4,185 chunky pounds.
Now’s a good time to mention the SF90 and Temerario are the two quickest-accelerating gasoline-powered cars MotorTrend has ever tested. If Czinger’s weight claim holds true, the unorthodox California startup has managed to beat two Italian legends right out of the gate. That’s remarkable on its own, especially considering Los Angeles isn’t exactly Modena.
On the Road: How Does It Handle Real Life?
The route chosen for the rally consisted mostly of true back roads. Tight, winding, lousy, weather-beaten pavement—not the kind 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.
At the time, I might have been a little disappointed, but in retrospect, what I experienced is similar to what most owners will experience while living with a Czinger.
To my surprise, the VMax handled the roads mostly like 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 numb yourself to the fact that almost everyone else on the road (especially males between 16 and 24) will be staring at you, following you, waving at you, and revving at you, all while (probably) screaming friendly obscenities.
Regardless, the Czinger rides much better than I expected. The team deserves applause for not making it overly stiff. Even the air conditioning works well. If I have any complaint about the “just driving around” aspect of the VMax, it’s how loud the cabin is. I’m not talking about the unique V8 sound; I’m talking about a complete lack of sound deadening. That’s fine for a track car like the other 21C, but it’s an annoying oversight on a road car like the