Czinger 21C review: flat out in America's £1.6m, 3D-printed hypercar Reviews 2025
A closed loop, AI-driven approach that eliminates expensive tooling costs, allows rapid iteration and creates perfectly optimised, lightweight components through 3D printing. Over the past five years I've visited several times and watched this bold project turn from sci-fi into reality.
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In 2024, sister company Divergent's facility was simultaneously producing parts for Bugatti, Aston Martin, McLaren, SpaceX and the military. Next door at Czinger the 21C was entering the final phase of development, too. Divergent has invested around $1 billion in its visionary Divergent Adaptive Production System and the Czinger 21C is intended as a lap record destroyer to showcase the full extent of its powers. Today, it's time to drive. Does it look as exotic in the metal as in pictures?
On a cool, hazy morning at Sonoma Raceway, the 21C looks almost as alien as the sprawling weblike structures beneath its carbon fibre bodywork. It's wide and incredibly low but with an SR-71 Blackbird inspired '1+1' seating arrangement, the passenger cell is slim and has an organic, teardrop shape. Of course, aside from Top Gun vibes and the perfection of a central driving position, the configuration is also fantastic for aero optimisation. Is it a downforce monster?
Czinger claims 1,200kg of downforce at 100mph and 2,552kg at 200mph. Open up the rear deck lid with the gorgeous and vast swan neck rear wing (which balances out the massive front splitter and dive planes), and beyond the distractingly beautiful suspension rockers and subframe you'll find the engine. How complicated is the powertrain?
At its heart lies a 2.9-litre twin-turbocharged V8 producing 750bhp and 397lb ft. It revs to 11,000rpm and drives through a seven-speed single clutch, but twin-barrel gearbox. The internals are by XTrac and the casing is 3D printed in house. The engine is supplemented by an 800V electric drive system consisting of a crank-driven MGU that can deliver up to 200bhp into the battery and two further electric motors for the front axle, powered by a small but power dense 4kWh battery split and located in each sill.
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Total output is 1,250bhp and 692lb ft. Czinger claims 0–60mph in 1.9 seconds and 0–124mph in 4.8 seconds. About a second quicker than the Ferrari F80. What's it like to sit inside?
Press a little rubber button located at the very rear of the double length door in the gaping side intake and the journey into a whole new world begins. The billionaire door rises up and the driver's seat feels a very long way away. Czinger's support team suggest sitting on the wide carbon fibre sill, then swinging legs across and down into the footwell.
It's not the most elegant process but access is considerably easier than the Aston Martin Valkyrie, for example. And the view is worth the effort. You sit so far forward that the wheelarches don't frame the view ahead. Instead they're just in your peripheral vision.
So, it's just the small lozenge shaped wheel, the simple, clear screen beyond it mounted on a 3D printed structure and the road ahead. Fittingly, you feel right at the front of a very fast projectile. The jet concept seems like something a seven year old might come up with, but aren't supercars and hypercars meant to bring out the kid in all of us? Job done.
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