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Czinger 21C VMax: Driving the Extreme Future on American Asphalt For years, the automotive world has buzzed about Czinger Vehicles. The promise was audacious: a seven-figure hypercar with futuristic, 3D-printed technology, unprecedented performance, and a radical design. Back in October 2022, we hosted the founders, Kevin and Lukas Czinger, on The InEVitable podcast, eager to understand the vision behind this Southern California powerhouse. Recently, I got the chance to step behind the yoke of a 21C VMax during a three-day road rally. While the track capabilities and the raw power of this 1,250-horsepower alien-tech marvel are certainly compelling—and yes, we will cover the track action—the real question was this: what is it like to drive a center-steer, tandem two-seater for 500 miles on American roads? The answer, as I discovered, is nothing short of surreal. Factory Fresh: A Glimpse into the Future My first encounter with Czinger wasn’t at a racetrack or a glamorous launch event. I had to show my U.S. passport just to enter the factory. This isn’t your typical automotive assembly line; Czinger is the consumer-facing automotive brand of Divergent Technologies, a company that leverages iterative AI and massive 3D printers to engineer hyper-light and ultra-strong mechanical components. Divergent supplies parts to the Department of Defense, and while the military hardware was off-limits during my tour, the peek inside one of their colossal 3D printers felt like stealing a glimpse into the future. Rows of lasers fused powdered aluminum into intricate shapes that looked less like car parts and more like the delicate bones of a bird. It’s a wild, visceral experience. Lukas Czinger explained that their technology targets the “Pareto optimal,” the point where any additional material, heavy or light, becomes a detriment. Take the design of a rear suspension damper reservoir, for example. Engineers define the available space and the forces the part must withstand. The software then iterates hundreds of thousands of potential designs, sifting through the data to find the most efficient, strongest, and lightest shape—evolution on fast-forward. Beyond their defense work, Divergent supplies 3D-printed components to nine automotive OEMs. Aston Martin (DBR22 Roadster), Bugatti (Tourbillon), and McLaren (W1) openly admit to using their services, though rumors persist that Ferrari’s F80 utilizes their advanced engineering. The common thread is a commitment to using lightweight, additive manufacturing to achieve performance levels previously deemed impossible. Under the Carbon Fiber: Engineering the Unthinkable Czinger builds two versions of the 21C platform. The 21C is the high-downforce track beast, named for the 21st century, while the VMax is the wingless, long-tailed road-biased variant. For the inaugural Velocity Tour, a 500-mile rally through California’s iconic wine country, I was tasked with driving a silver VMax. I use the term “piloting” deliberately. The cabin feels less like a cockpit and more like a fighter jet canopy. While I haven’t flown in a fighter jet, I have experienced an Extra 330LT stunt plane, and the similarity is striking. With glass positioned less than a foot from both sides of your head, the visibility is phenomenal. Yet, the process of entering and exiting the car is anything but conventional. To get in, you first position yourself with your legs extended out onto the massive side sill. Then, you pull your knees up toward your chest and perform a kind of contortionist maneuver, pivoting on your rear end as you tuck your feet into the narrow footwell, finally lowering your head under the roof. It’s an acrobatic ritual that reminds you this isn’t just a car—it’s an event. One reason those sills are so substantial is that they house the 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. This isn’t a plug-in hybrid; the mid-mounted V-8 engine keeps the battery topped off. The front axle features one motor per wheel, capable of delivering 500 horsepower. Powering the rear wheels is a Czinger-designed 2.9-liter twin-turbo V-8 producing 750 horsepower on California’s standard 91-octane premium fuel. When filled with 100-octane racing fuel, the horsepower jumps to 850. Czinger also plans to offer ethanol-compatible versions for even greater power output, though official figures are yet to be released; we predict a potential 10 percent increase. The gasoline engine transfers power to the rear wheels through an Xtrac single-clutch automated semi-sequential gearbox. It’s similar to the Xtrac seven-speed used in Pagani’s Utopia, but Czinger takes it further. Not only do they 3D-print the gearbox casing, but they also incorporate small 48-volt electric motors to execute shifts more rapidly at lower speeds. This innovative approach eliminates the traditional surging or “drunken” feeling that plagues other automated single-clutch transmissions at low RPMs. The twin-barrel actuators perform flawlessly in low-speed situations, as I was grateful to discover. Pulling into gas stations, restaurants, and hotel parking lots felt surprisingly composed. Track Time: The Edge of Control One aspect that never felt normal was the person sitting directly behind me for the entire first day. As is common with many high-end hypercars—Bugatti and Pagani, for example—Czinger includes a professional driver (Evan Jacobs) to ensure safety during the initial stages. Thankfully, later that night, Jacobs reassured the Czinger team that I posed no threat and granted me permission to drive solo for the remainder of the rally. We made a stop at Laguna Seca for some parade laps, but for reasons not entirely clear, non-Czinger employees are prohibited from driving the VMax on racetracks, even at the excruciatingly slow pace the rally participants were limited to. As I’ve learned the hard way, sometimes the best seat is the passenger seat. I scrambled into the bizarre rear position, which is positioned directly behind the driver in a jet-fighter-style tandem configuration. The first thing to note: if you have large calves or feet, the rear-seat experience is challenging. My XXL calves were wedged uncomfortably 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 offered a remarkably novel perspective for riding around a track—something I’ve done more than a thousand times. This perspective was particularly eye-opening when Jacobs 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 intense lap I’ve ever experienced was riding shotgun in an Aston Martin Valkyrie LMH race car, where the braking forces felt so extreme I could feel blood pooling in my extremities. The Czinger VMax now holds the second spot on that list, and remember, Jacobs wasn’t going full throttle. Even at less than the limit and without the aggressive rear wing, it was easy to grasp how the standard Czinger 21C achieved what the brand calls the California Gold Rush. This feat involved setting five production car track records in five days—at Thunder Hill, Sonoma Raceway, Laguna Seca, Willow Springs, and the Thermal Club—and 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 blistering 1 minute, 22.30 seconds, is quicker than the fastest MotoAmerica Superbike lap ever recorded at Laguna (1:22.56). Czinger claims a vehicle weight of approximately 3,600 pounds, which is remarkably light for a 1,250-horsepower hybrid vehicle. To provide context, the Ferrari SF90 Stradale Asseto Fiorano—the highest-performance version of a three-motor, twin-turbo V-8 plug-in hybrid producing 986 horsepower—weighs 3,839 pounds. The new Lamborghini Temerario, another three-motor, twin-turbo V-8 (making less power, but illustrating the comparison) pushes past the two-ton mark at 4,185 pounds. At this point, it’s worth mentioning that the SF90 and Temerario are the two fastest gasoline-powered cars MotorTrend has ever tested (the Ferrari for 0-60 mph and the Lambo for the quarter mile). If Czinger’s weight claims hold true, the unconventional Southern California startup has managed to outpace two Italian legends with its very first road-legal production car. That is remarkable on its own, but especially noteworthy considering that Los Angeles is renowned for many things, but traditional supercar engineering expertise isn’t one of them. In other words, L.A. is not exactly Modena. On the Road: The Normal vs. The Absurd The route chosen for the rally consisted mostly of true back roads. Tight, winding, and uneven asphalt—hardly the dream tarmac for a hypercar tour. Plus, there was a