OF HYBRIDS & HYPERCARS

The Czinger 21C is the world’s first 3D-printed, 1,350-horsepower hybrid rocket ship

-  NICOLAS STECHER

There are hypercars, and then there are hypercars. While most are designed from the whiteboard to stir the imagina-tion, not to mention the loins, witnessing the Czinger 21C roll towards us stimulates something completely different. Not two minutes from exiting the helicopter that flew us to the hot pavement of the Thermal Club, the 21C makes its eyebrow-raising debut: maybe it’s the way the silver skin gleams under the torrid Palm Springs sun—its voluptuous wheel arches, vast wing and aero bits catching the light and bending it to form.

Or perhaps more likely it’s the 21C’s unique seating layout: central, its greenhouse glass splitting the hypercar in half. Inside, twin seats bolt one behind the other, like a fighter jet. Suddenly you’re reminded of how this spaceship was built. Didn’t you hear it was 3D printed?!

When the huge scissor doors open up like a hangar, you’re beckoned to climb inside for hot laps. The heat is dizzying this spring afternoon on Thermal’s private racetrack. You’re unsure if it’s coming from the bulbous yellow sun hanging high in the sky, or if your body is radiating intensely from some reptile-brained alarm. We pull on a helmet, climb in the backseat, strap on our seatbelt, and hear the driver’s voice crackle over our helmet intercom. “You ready?” he says from a meter ahead, under the same expansive glass canopy. “We’re gonna take one lap so you can get a lay of the land, then we’ll switch on Track mode and really turn on the jets.”