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Origins
Kevin Czinger's 21C of 2021 arrived as manufacturing manifesto: its structural nodes generatively designed by AI and 3D-printed in aerospace alloys — the Divergent production system the company existed to prove — assembled into a tandem-seat hybrid hypercar whose 2.9-litre twin-turbo V8 and electric motors totalled 1,250 horsepower in under 1,250 kilograms. Production-car lap records followed at Laguna Seca and Circuit of the Americas, silencing renderware suspicions. Eighty units at 2 million dollars were planned from Los Angeles. The 21C's deeper product is its process: Divergent's printed-structure system sells to established manufacturers, making the hypercar simultaneously halo and demonstration unit — Silicon Valley's approach to Modena's oldest trick. If the process conquers the mainstream, the 21C will be remembered as its beautiful sales brochure.
Czinger 21C blackbird interior at Quail 2023 · Prova MO · CC BY-SA 4.0
