Watch: hands-on with the Czinger 21C hypercar

Taking on the likes of Koenigsegg, Bugatti and Pagani is no mean feat. After all, there are only so many folk in this world that are willing to drop a few million smackers on a brand new car.

Despite the obvious challenges, Czinger Vehicles will unveil its all-new 21C hypercar at the Geneva Motor Show this year, vying for the attention of profligate, red trouser-wearing punters, but also hoping to ruffle a few feathers with its innovative production methods along the way.

See, the 1,250hp, 1,098kg, in-line seating machine - which is capable of smashing the 0-62mph sprint in 1.9 seconds and hitting almost 270mph in its road configuration - is just the beginning of the story, as founder Kevin Czinger embarked on this adventure to blow minds before his new car even turns a wheel in anger. Watch it in action below.

“The 21C is really the first instance of a complete vehicle that uses generative design. To create what we have here, we first had to think up and build a completely unique set of revolutionary tools that allowed us to take the ideas that are up in our heads and actually express those digitally,” he says as we take a tour of the new Czinger facility in Torrance, a small coastal town in the South Bay region of Los Angeles County .

Current vehicle mass production is very much entrenched in old techniques and technologies. With billions of dollars invested in traditional production lines, it is very difficult for the biggest names in the auto industry to suddenly invest in a new way of doing things.

Kevin Czinger is also founder of Divergent 3D, a company that specialises in advanced additive manufacturing and robotic vehicle assembly systems. He believes that the 21C will prove that it is possible to express huge amounts of creative freedom through this new technology, while decreasing the energy density required, reducing the finances required and lessening environmental impact on the planet.

E​ven the engine was developed in-house. And it's a feisty one. Image by: Flat-Out Creative

E​ven the engine was developed in-house. And it's a feisty one. Image by: Flat-Out Creative

“We hope to take the current car design process and flip it on its head,” Kevin says. “To me, operations like Giga factories, or other huge scale operations where that scale is fixed to one or a few designs, feels like a cookie cutter approach. It's not good economics and it's not good for the environment.

“I think that in order to properly express human creativity, you have to have a team of people that can interact and work together with a platform that allows that creativity to be expressed and iterated immediately. That's basically the antithesis of today's global automotive structure,” he adds.

A 21st century car

Everything you see on the Czinger 21C has been designed and built from the ground up. Probably by a computer and/or robot. Even in this day of manufacturer platform sharing and engine technology swapping, Czinger decided to create its very own powertrain from scratch. Although that is one of the few things that leans less heavily on additive manufacturing techniques.

J​et fighter seating for serious Top Gun style points. A 21st Century car

J​et fighter seating for serious Top Gun style points. A 21st Century car

Jon Gunnar, chief technical officer of vehicle technology at Czinger Vehicles, and a former aerospace engineer and Koenigsegg employee, helped mastermind the 2.88-litre V8 petrol unit, which is mated to two 220kW motors at each front wheel and a 2kW battery pack. It is light and efficient, while the lithium titanate battery is designed to charge and discharge much faster than current production EV tech in order to keep abreast of the teams performance demands.

Power is driven through a bespoke seven-speed sequential gearbox, while up to 790kg of downforce is available when the vehicle is specified in its most aggressive performance settings. Gunnar’s main objective isn’t to simply slap fellow hypercar makers in the face with performance figures but to prove it in the real world by beating the unofficial Laguna Seca track record for production cars by two seconds. To put that in perspective, the McLaren Senna currently sits at the top of this slightly questionable leaderboard with a claimed 1:27:62 lap.

All of this power sits behind the driver and passenger’s head, on a bespoke, 3D-printed platform that, unlike anyone else in the industry, can be altered and adapted on the fly.

“My previous positions at another hyper car manufacturer was really focused on making the most of carbon fibre technology, which was at the time, the most efficient way to develop a high performance structure,” explains Gunnar.

“What we're doing here is completely different. Even with the low volume composite tub designs that most of the competition are using, you're limited by fixed assets and challenges with the tooling. Once you've tooled up the tub, you're stuck with it. We don't have that constraint. We're able to develop, modify and improve the vehicle using our software, printing and robotic assembly technology,” he adds.

Of course, this kind of thing is massively expensive. Kevin Czinger claims over $150 million dollars has already been invested into advancing computer-driven optimisation and additive manufacturing methods, which is, in part, why each car will set you back a cool $1.7million.

T​he unique, shrink-wrapped design gives the 21C a menacing presence. Image by: Flat-Out Media

T​he unique, shrink-wrapped design gives the 21C a menacing presence. Image by: Flat-Out Media

Despite this heavy reliance on 3D printing and robotic assembly, each of the 80 limited number cars still involves some 3,000 man hours to complete. So at least the dosh is well spent.

But sure you can’t put a price on potentially changing the fundamental way cars are designed and produced in the future. “This is the first instance of really using a set of tools that are going to transform the planet. They're going to transform the planet in the sense that we are unleashing creativity,” says Czinger.