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The Czinger 21C VMax: A Brutalist Masterpiece That’s Both Future and Fury For years, the automotive world has whispered about Czinger Vehicles. For years, the industry insiders at MotorTrend have dreamed of getting behind the controls of one of their machines. October of 2022 finally brought us face-to-face with the genius behind the company, Kevin Czinger, and his son, CEO Lukas Czinger, on our podcast, The InEVitable. That conversation lit a fire in our team. Fast forward to today, and I found myself with the keys to a Czinger 21C VMax for a grueling three-day road rally—an odyssey that spanned over 500 miles of Central and Northern California’s most celebrated wine country. We all knew there would be a track story waiting to be written. A track day, anyone? Sure, absolutely. The performance benchmarks set by the 21C and the VMax are simply astronomical—a 3D-printed, alien-tech, multi-million dollar, 1,250-horsepower hypercar built right in Southern California. But the question burning in my mind was this: What is a center-steer, tandem two-seater actually like when you’re out in the real world, pounding it to 11/10ths on the very edge of performance? Factory Fresh: Entering the Future of Manufacturing To say the Czinger factory is just “different” is an understatement. In fact, I’ve never needed to show my U.S. passport just to enter a car factory before. But Czinger is no ordinary car company. Their parent organization, Divergent Technologies, has pioneered the application of artificial intelligence and enormous 3D printers to design and produce exceptionally light yet robust mechanical components. This isn’t just about making lighter parts; it’s about fundamentally reshaping how we build vehicles. The fact that I needed a passport? Divergent Technologies serves as a key supplier to the Department of Defense—supplying parts (some of which were military hardware, with one resembling a rocket, though heavily shrouded) to defense contractors. I had the distinct honor of a tour with the young CEO himself, Lukas Czinger. What I witnessed inside those walls was nothing short of spectacular. Peeking into one of the massive 3D printers felt like stealing a glance into the future. Lasers the size of a car’s roof were meticulously zapping powdered aluminum into automotive components that looked less like machinery and more like the bones of something extraterrestrial. It was an awe-inspiring sight. Lukas explained that Divergent’s technology has reached what he calls the “Pareto optimal”—the point where removing or adding even a single gram would actually be detrimental to the overall design. Imagine an engineer tasked with creating a mount for the rear suspension damper’s remote reservoir. There’s a precise physical space to fit it, and it must withstand forces far exceeding what you’d ever encounter in a street car. Using these strict parameters, the software iterates through hundreds of thousands of potential designs, searching for the optimal balance of strength, weight, and functionality. It’s an accelerated, high-stakes version of natural selection applied to engineering. Beyond the military sector, nine automotive OEMs already rely on Divergent’s additive manufacturing capabilities. While Aston Martin (DBR22 Roadster), Bugatti (Tourbillon), and McLaren (W1) are the only ones willing to admit it publicly, looking at the control arms on the Ferrari F80, I’d bet money they’re in on the secret, too. Under the Carbon Fiber: A Hybridized Beast Czinger produces two distinct versions of what is essentially the same core platform. There is the high-downforce 21C, designed as a track weapon (the number “21” is in honor of the 21st century), and then there is the wingless, long-tailed VMax variant. Officially, the car is named the 21C VMax, but you won’t find “21C” anywhere on its skin. For the inaugural Velocity Tour, a grueling 500-mile road rally staged across the picturesque Central and Northern California wine country, I was assigned a striking silver VMax. I intentionally used the word “piloting” because the cockpit feels less like a car and more like the canopy of a jet fighter. Czinger claims it’s like flying, and honestly, I can see why. While I haven’t had the privilege of being in a fighter jet, I have experienced the cockpit of an Extra 330LT stunt plane. The sensation is eerily similar. There are literally inches of glass separating your head from the outside world on both sides. The outward visibility is nothing short of spectacular. Getting into—and more importantly, out of—this car, however, is nothing short of a ridiculous spectacle. You must first sit with your legs resting on the massive sill, pull your knees up to your chest, and essentially pivot on your backside as you tuck your feet into the footwell. Once your legs are safely inside, you then need to slide your head under the roof’s trailing edge. It’s not the most dignified entry, but the payoff is immense. One of the primary reasons those sills are so enormous? They’re packed with batteries. The 21C VMax is a hybrid hypercar, and each side sill houses a 2.2-kWh battery module, totaling 4.4 kWh for the car. This is not a plug-in hybrid; instead, the mid-mounted V-8 engine powers the pack to keep it topped up. Those batteries are capable of driving the front axle, which utilizes two individual electric motors—one for each wheel—producing a combined 500 horsepower. The heart of the beast is a Czinger-designed 2.9-liter twin-turbo V-8, delivering a staggering 750 horsepower on California’s standard 91-octane premium fuel. However, pour in 100-octane race fuel, and the output spikes to 850 horsepower. The small but incredibly potent V-8 can also run on ethanol, which Czinger hints will yield even higher output, though they haven’t released official figures—we’re predicting a solid 10% increase when that happens. The gasoline engine sends its power to the rear wheels through an Xtrac single-clutch automated semi-sequential transmission. This is similar to the Xtrac seven-speed setup Pagani uses in the Utopia, but Czinger took it a step further. Not only does Czinger 3D-print the transmission casing, but they also integrate small 48-volt electric motors to execute shifts more rapidly, especially at lower speeds. This clever engineering completely eliminates the drunken, surging feeling that plagues other automated single-clutch gearboxes during slow-speed maneuvers. The twin-barrel actuators worked flawlessly during my drive, which I was thankful to discover when navigating crowded gas stations, busy restaurants, and packed hotel parking lots. Honestly, it felt almost normal. Bravo, Czinger. Track Time: Pushing the Envelope What never felt normal was the co-driver sitting directly behind me for the entire day. As is standard practice with many high-dollar hypercars (think Bugatti and Pagani), Czinger insisted on placing a professional driver—in this case, the immensely talented Evan Jacobs—in the car to ensure I didn’t accidentally drive the $2.5 million machine off a cliff. Thankfully, later that evening, Jacobs assured the Czinger team that I was no threat to the car and I was cleared to drive solo for the remainder of the rally. We stopped at Laguna Seca for a few parade laps, but for whatever reason, non-Czinger employees are strictly forbidden from driving the VMax on a racetrack, even at the brutally slow speeds required by the rally participants. As I have unfortunately learned many times before, even if you can’t drive, you should at least go for the ride. I scrambled into the bizarre rear seat, and the first thing you need to know here is that if you have big calves or feet, the back-seat experience is a nightmare. My XXL calves were literally wedged between the hard carbon-fiber tub and the carbon-fiber seat, and my feet didn’t fit comfortably at all. However, the visibility through the side glass is nothing short of incredible. Again, it reminded me of flying in a stunt plane, and it was a remarkably novel way to experience riding around a track—something I’ve done more than 1,000 times in my career. This was especially true when Jacobs and I managed to convince the staff at the Skip Barber Racing School (whose track day we had essentially crashed) to let him take the VMax out for a couple of “6/10ths” hot laps. The most impressive hot lap I have ever witnessed was riding shotgun in an Aston Martin Valkyrie LMH race car, where the G-forces were so intense I could feel the blood pooling in my extremities under the heavy braking. The Czinger VMax is now a very close second. And remember, Jacobs wasn’t even pushing the car to its absolute limit. Even at something less than the redline, and without the huge downforce-generating rear wing, it was easy to understand how the Czinger 21C achieved what the brand calls the California Gold Rush. This means it set five production car track records in five days—at Thunder Hill, Sonoma Raceway, Laguna Seca, Willow Springs, and The Thermal Club—and physically drove between each track. Later, Czinger returned to Laguna Seca to not