Czinger’s 21C hypercar lapped Laguna Seca two seconds quicker than a McLaren Senna

Last year we brought you news of California’s Koenigsegg rival: the Czinger (silent C, pronounce it like the Tower Burger and different to the Porsche reimaginers) 21C. It’s a mad thing, notably, because it’s largely 3D-printed, has an 11,000rpm V8, a 1+1 layout and costs $1.7m. With such a crazy recipe it was easy to write the thing off as another fanciful bit of vapourware. 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 100mph and 2,500kg at 200mph, apparently) and on Michelin Pilot Sport Cup2Rs (seemingly the road legal tyre choice for any lap record attempt nowadays) professional lapsmith Joel Miller lapped ‘that track with the corkscrew’ in a multi-GPS verified time of 1m 25:44s. 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 1m 27.62s. 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 getting wider (it's happened to the best of us in lockdown) 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 1,233bhp from a hybrid system consisting of a mid-mounted twin-turbo 2.9-litre 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 Czinger claims the 21C has a top speed of 281mph and does 0-62mph in 1.9 seconds, 0-186mph in 8.5 seconds and 0-248mph in 21.3 seconds. 0-248mph-0 is said to take 27.1 seconds – a Bugatti Chiron does it in 41.96 seconds, and a Koenigsegg Regera in 31.49 seconds. And it’s now proved 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. 80 are being built, so let’s see how many they sell.