Update GH Tuesday, 5/19/2026 Episode (May 19, 2026) | General Hospital Spoilers

Czinger 21C VMax: The Hypercar That Rewrote the Rulebook It’s hard to describe the feeling of being behind the wheel of a car that is simultaneously the future and an unadulterated vision of automotive madness. For years, as an organization, MotorTrend has been trying to get behind the yoke-shaped steering wheel of a Czinger. We even had the company’s founders, Kevin and Lukas Czinger, on the InEVitable podcast back in October 2022, which is partly why I jumped at the chance to drive a Czinger 21C VMax on a three-day road rally. My goal was to do something different. Sure, there’s a track story (which we’ll get into), and everyone is eager to know what a $2.5 million, 1,250-horsepower, 3D-printed, alien-tech hypercar built in Southern California feels like when pushed to the absolute limit. But what does a center-steer, tandem two-seater feel like on a 500-mile journey? Factory Fresh I never thought I’d need a U.S. passport to enter a car factory, but as you’ll soon see, Czinger is fundamentally different. The parent company, Divergent Technologies, uses artificial intelligence and massive 3D printers to design and produce incredibly lightweight and strong mechanical components. My identification was required because Divergent supplies parts to the Department of Defense, or at least to its suppliers. I’ll just say that all the military hardware was covered during my visit; one piece looked vaguely like a rocket. I was given a tour by Lukas Czinger, the young CEO of both companies, and what I witnessed was deeply fascinating. Specifically, a glimpse inside one of the massive printers made me feel as though I had stepped into the future, with more than a dozen lasers fusing powdered aluminum into car parts that resembled bird bones. It’s truly an astonishing thing to see. Lukas explained that Divergent’s technology reaches the “Pareto optimum,” the point where adding or removing a single gram results in a negative outcome. For example, an engineer might request a part to hold the remote reservoir for the rear suspension damper. There’s a specific amount of space to fit it, and it must withstand forces of magnitude Y. Using these constraints, the software iterates through hundreds of thousands of designs to find the strongest, lightest shape. It’s like evolution on fast-forward. Besides the Department of Defense, nine automotive OEMs use Divergent as a supplier of 3D-printed parts. Aston Martin (DBR22 Roadster), Bugatti (Tourbillon), and McLaren (W1) are the only three who will publicly admit it, though the control arms on the Ferrari F80 certainly look suspect. Under the Carbon Fiber Czinger builds two versions of what is essentially the same car: the high-downforce, track-focused 21C (named after the 21st century) and the wingless, long-tailed VMax. Officially, the VMax is called the 21C VMax, but the “21C” designation doesn’t actually appear on the car. For the inaugural Velocity Tour, a 500-mile road rally through Northern and Central California wine country, I was behind the wheel of a silver VMax. I use the word “piloting” intentionally because the cabin feels much more like a jet fighter canopy than a typical car interior. In fact, Czinger describes the feeling as being inside a jet fighter. While I haven’t flown one, I have ridden shotgun in an Extra 330LT stunt plane, and the sensation is similar. Basically, there’s glass less than a foot away from your head on both sides. The visibility is exceptional, even though the process of getting in and out of the car is utterly ridiculous: Sit with your legs extended out onto the massive sill, pull your knees up and rotate your body as you tuck your feet into the footwell, then slide your head under the roof. One reason the sills are so wide is that they are crammed with batteries. The 21C VMax is a hybrid hypercar, and each sill houses 2.2 kWh of battery capacity (for a total of 4.4 kWh). The car is not a plug-in hybrid; a motor powered by the mid-mounted V-8 engine keeps the battery charged. These batteries can deliver 500 horsepower to the front axle, which has one motor per wheel. The internal combustion engine is a Czinger-designed 2.9-liter twin-turbo V-8 that produces 750 horsepower on California’s typically lower-grade 91-octane premium unleaded fuel. When filled with 100-octane race fuel, the horsepower increases to 850. The compact but mighty engine can also run on ethanol, which typically yields even more power, though Czinger has yet to release those figures; we anticipate a jump of around 10 percent. The gasoline engine powers the rear wheels through an Xtrac single-clutch automated semi-sequential gearbox. This is similar to the Xtrac seven-speed unit that Pagani uses in the Utopia, but Czinger not only 3D-prints the transmission case but also uses small 48-volt electric motors to execute faster shifts at lower speeds. This completely eliminates the jerky, surges that plague all other automated single-clutch gearboxes at low speeds. The twin-barrel actuators perform exactly as advertised in low-speed scenarios, a fact I was extremely grateful to discover. Pulling into gas stations, restaurants, and hotel parking lots felt almost normal. Seriously, bravo to Czinger for this innovation. Track Time What never felt normal was the person sitting behind me for an entire day. As is standard practice with some high-dollar hypercars (Bugatti and Pagani), Czinger assigned 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 that I posed no threat to the car and could drive solo for the rest of the rally. We stopped by Laguna Seca for a few parade laps, but for reasons unknown, non-Czinger employees are not permitted to drive the VMax on racetracks, even at the very slow pace the rally participants were restricted to. As I have learned the hard way, even if you can’t drive, you should at least experience the ride. I squeezed into the peculiar rear seat. The first thing to note is that if you have large calves or feet, the experience in the back seat isn’t pleasant. 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 windows is incredible. Once again, it reminded me of a stunt plane and was a uniquely novel way to experience riding around a track—something I have 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 essentially crashed) to let him take the VMax for a couple of “6/10ths” hot laps. The most impressive hot lap I have 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 hard braking. The Czinger VMax now sits in second place, and remember, Jacobs was nowhere near his full potential. Even at less than the limit and without the massive rear wing for downforce, it was easy to understand how a Czinger 21C achieved 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 just five days, driving between each track. Later, Czinger returned to Laguna Seca to not only break its own record but to reclaim the throne from the track-special Koenigsegg Jesko Sadair’s Spear. That lap time, a ludicrous 1 minute, 22.30 seconds, is faster than the fastest MotoAmerica Superbike lap ever recorded at Laguna, which stands at 1:22.56. Czinger claims a vehicle weight of approximately 3,600 pounds, which is quite light for a 1,250-horsepower hybrid. 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, another three-motor, twin-turbo V-8 (also making less power, but the comparison holds) that surpasses the two-ton mark, comes in at a rather chunky 4,185 pounds. Now is a good time to mention that the SF90 and the Temerario are the two quickest-accelerating gasoline-powered cars MotorTrend has ever tested (the Ferrari for 0–60 mph and the Lamborghini for the quarter mile). If Czinger’s weight claim holds true, the unconventional Southern California startup has managed to beat two Italian legends at its first attempt. That’s remarkable in itself, but especially noteworthy considering that while Los Angeles is known for many things, there isn’t a vast reservoir of supercar-building expertise to draw from. In other words, L.A. isn’t exactly Modena. On the Road The route chosen for the rally consisted primarily of