Last year, we brought you news of California’s Koenigsegg rival: the Czinger 21C. It’s a mad thing, notably, because it’s largely 3D-printed, has an 11,000rpm V8, a 1+1 layout, and costs $1.7 million (P86 million). With such a crazy recipe, it was easy to write the thing off as another fanciful bit of vaporware.
But now, the Californian car company has put its money where its mouth is and come out swinging—setting a new lap record at Laguna Seca and making a McLaren Senna look slow in the process.
Using the track-orientated version in a ‘High Downforce’ configuration (650kg of downforce at 160kph and 2,500kg at 320kph, apparently) and on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2R tires (seemingly the road-legal choice for any lap record attempt nowadays), professional lapsmith Joel Miller lapped ‘that track with the corkscrew’ in a multi-GPS verified time of 1min 25.44sec. Which is quick. Very quick.
It smashed the previous track record for a production car held by the McLaren Senna, with driver Randy Pobst behind the wheel. That duo managed a time of 1min 27.62sec. But we’ve seen and driven a McLaren Senna on a road. We’re yet to do the same in a Czinger. Yet. Watch this space.
If you’re new to the Czinger, here’s the skinny on this jetfighter-inspired record-setter. It’s the brainchild of Kevin Czinger, a man who wants to put the way cars are made and perform into a blender. You can read the full story on that here. Since we saw the first Czinger in LA, there have been “significant updates” over and above that original car.
Czinger doesn’t specify what said “updates” actually are, but does confirm the 21C has physically swelled to 2,050mm wide. Despite that, the novel tandem-style seating arrangement remains, instead of boring, normal side-by-side seats.
The company claims a dry weight of 1,240kg—which isn’t very much—and a combined 1,233hp from a hybrid system consisting of a mid-mounted 2.9-liter twin-turbo V8 and e-motors for each of the front wheels. The V8 revs to 11,000rpm and, we’re told, can run on a number of eco-fuels, “so [the 21C] can be run as a zero-emission vehicle.”
In ‘Low Drag’ configuration, the 21C can supposedly reach a top speed of 452kph and does 0-100kph in 1.9sec, 0-300kph in 8.5sec, and 0-400kph in 21.3sec. The 0-400kph-0 run is said to take 27.1sec. A Bugatti Chiron does it in 41.96sec, and a Koenigsegg Regera in 31.49sec. And it has now proven it’s got chops around a track.
Now we have to see if they actually work full time as a car you can buy and run. Eighty are being built, so let’s see how many they sell.
NOTE: This article first appeared on TopGear.com. Minor edits have been made.
