Y&R 3-19-2026 || The Young And The Restless Full Episode THURSDAY, March 19.2026

The Czinger 21C VMax: Where Automotive Futurism Meets Hypercar Frenzy For years, the automotive world has buzzed about the radical concept emerging from Southern California: the Czinger. Known for its father-son founders, Kevin and Lukas Czinger, this company is pushing the boundaries of what a road-legal machine can be. When the opportunity arose to spend three days with theCzinger 21C VMax on a grueling 500-mile road rally, I jumped at the chance. While stories of its track dominance are certainly compelling, the real question on everyone’s mind is: what is it like to drive this center-steered, tandem two-seater on a real-world adventure? The answer, I soon discovered, is a blend of dizzying speed and jaw-dropping innovation that feels light years ahead of anything else on the road. Beyond the Carbon Fiber: A Glimpse into the Future I’ve never had to show my U.S. passport to enter a car factory before, but as you’re about to see, Czinger is just… different. The parent company, Divergent Technologies, utilizes iterative artificial intelligence and advanced 3D printing to design and manufacture components that are both incredibly light and astoundingly strong. My required identification stemmed from Divergent’s role as a supplier to the Department of Defense, or rather, to the DOD’s contractors. While all military-related hardware was kept under wraps during my visit, one structure bore a striking resemblance to a rocket. I was given a tour by Lukas Czinger, the young CEO of both organizations, and what I saw was nothing short of visionary. Peeking inside one of the colossal printers made me feel as though I had been given a glimpse into the future, with more than a dozen lasers vaporizing aluminum powder into intricate automotive components that resembled avian bones. It’s a sight that defies conventional engineering logic. Lukas explained that Divergent’s technology reaches the “Pareto optimal”—a point where adding or subtracting even a single gram results in a performance degradation. Consider an engineer tasked with designing a remote reservoir bracket for a car’s rear suspension system. The bracket must fit within a limited spatial envelope while withstanding forces up to a specified magnitude. The software then iterates through hundreds of thousands of designs until it arrives at the most structurally robust and weight-efficient form. It’s essentially evolution accelerated to warp speed. Beyond their military applications, nine automotive OEMs rely on Divergent for 3D-printed parts. Aston Martin (DBR22 Roadster), Bugatti (Tourbillon), and McLaren (W1) are the only ones that publicly admit to using their services, though the control arms of the Ferrari F80 look like suspicious candidates for an additive manufacturing makeover. Decoding the 21C: Track Demon vs. Grand Tourer Czinger produces two versions of what is fundamentally the same vehicle. The high-downforce, track-focused 21C (named to reflect the 21st century) and the sleek, wingless VMax. Officially, it’s the 21C VMax, but the “21C” designation doesn’t appear on the car itself. For the inaugural Velocity Tour, a 500-mile road rally navigating the winding roads of California’s wine country, I found myself in the pilot’s seat of a silver VMax. I use the term “piloting” intentionally, as the cabin feels more akin to a fighter jet’s cockpit than a standard automotive greenhouse. Indeed, Czinger compares the experience to being in a jet fighter. While I’ve never had the fortune to fly one, I did have the chance to ride shotgun in an Extra 330LT aerobatic plane, and the similarities are striking. Essentially, the glass is located less than a foot from both sides of your head. The visibility is unparalleled, yet the process of ingress and egress from the car is downright ridiculous: you sit with your legs extended out onto the massive sill, pull your knees up and pivot on your posterior as you tuck your feet into the footwell, then slide your head beneath the roof. One reason for the generously sized sills is the battery pack they contain. The 21C VMax is a hybrid hypercar, with each sill housing 2.2 kWh of battery power, for a total of 4.4 kWh. The car is not a plug-in hybrid; rather, a motor powered by the mid-mounted V-8 engine keeps the pack charged. Those batteries can feed 500 horsepower to the front axle, which features a dedicated motor for each wheel. The internal combustion engine is a Czinger-designed 2.9-liter twin-turbo V-8 producing 750 horsepower on California’s standard 91-octane premium fuel. Pouring 100-octane racing fuel into the tank boosts the horsepower to 850. The small but mighty engine can also run on ethanol, delivering even greater power, although Czinger has yet to release those figures; we estimate a 10% increase. The gasoline engine propels the rear wheels via an Xtrac single-clutch automated sequential gearbox. This is similar to the Xtrac seven-speed transmission Pagani uses on the Utopia, but Czinger not only 3D-prints the transmission casing but also employs small 48-volt electric motors to execute shifts at lower speeds more smoothly. This eliminates the jarring, surging sensation characteristic of all other automated single-clutch transmissions at low speeds. The dual-barrel actuators function precisely as advertised in low-speed scenarios, a fact I was thankful to discover. Maneuvering into gas stations, restaurants, and hotel parking lots felt almost normal. Seriously, kudos to the team for this feat. When Speed Becomes the Enemy What never felt normal was the presence of the professional driver sitting behind me for the entire day. Following the practice of certain high-end hypercar manufacturers (Bugatti and Pagani), Czinger assigned a professional driver (Evan Jacobs) to the car to ensure I didn’t inadvertently 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 vehicle and was cleared to drive solo for the remainder of the rally. We stopped by Laguna Seca for a few parade laps, but for reasons unknown, non-Czinger employees are restricted from driving the VMax on racetracks, even during the painfully slow pace set for rally participants. As I have learned the hard way, even if you can’t drive, it’s worth enjoying the ride. I squeezed into the unusual rear seat. The first thing to note is that if you have large calves or wide feet, the experience in the back is far from comfortable. My XXL calves were practically squeezed between the carbon-fiber tub and the carbon-fiber seat, and my feet struggled to find a proper position. However, the visibility through the side windows is breathtaking. Once again, it brought to mind a stunt plane, offering a refreshingly novel perspective on track driving—an activity I have participated in over 1,000 times. This was particularly evident when Jacobs and I managed to persuade the Skip Barber Racing School staff (whose track day we were crashing) to allow him to take the VMax for a couple of “6/10ths” hot laps. The most exhilarating hot lap of my career was riding shotgun in an Aston Martin Valkyrie LMH race car, where I felt blood pooling in my extremities under braking. The Czinger VMax now holds the second spot on that list, and remember, Jacobs wasn’t even pushing the car to its limit. Even at less than full capacity and without the benefit of the massive downforce-generating rear wing, it was easy to grasp how a Czinger 21C achieved what the company calls the California Gold Rush. This feat involved setting five production car track records—at Thunder Hill, Sonoma Raceway, Laguna Seca, Willow Springs, and the Thermal Club—in the span of five days, driving from each track to the next. Later, Czinger returned to Laguna Seca not only to break its own record but to reclaim the top spot from a track-special Koenigsegg Jesko Sadair’s Spear. That lap time, a mind-boggling 1 minute, 22.30 seconds, is faster 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 remarkably light for a 1,250-hp hybrid. To put this into perspective, the Ferrari SF90 Stradale Assetto Fiorano—the highest-performance variant of a three-motor, twin-turbo V-8 PHEV that only produces 986 hp—weighs 3,839 pounds. The new Lamborghini Temerario is another three-motor, twin-turbo V-8 (also producing less power, but used for comparison purposes) that exceeds the two-ton mark, tipping the scales at a hefty 4,185 pounds. It’s worth mentioning that the SF90 and the Temerario are the two quickest-accelerating gasoline-powered cars MotorTrend has ever tested (the Ferrari holds the 0–60 mph record, and the Lambo holds the quarter-mile record). If Czinger’s weight claims prove accurate, this unconventional California startup has managed to outperform two Italian icons right out of the gate. This achievement is remarkable in itself, particularly considering that while Southern California is celebrated for many things, there is not a vast reservoir of supercar engineering expertise to draw