California’s New Hypercar: Czinger 21C

You hear that?

That's not just a Toyota truck.

That's the sound of no crowds, no alerts, no distractions, and no telling what you'll find

next, you know, like a detour.

So why would you ever take a tour, and you could take a detour, Toyota Trucks?

All right, here we are, welcome to Spikes Car Radio.

Back with Johnny Lieberman and Newly.

Still looking good.

I'm looking, Mike.

Last week, you came on just a t-shirt, you had your beard trimmed, didn't you?

Look, guys, you still look fresh.

That's amazing.

My beard looks exactly the same as last week.

Yeah, I'm glad you took my advice.

You look presentable to be on TV.

Oh, yeah.

This is good.

This is TV.

Apparently, this is all that's left of television.

Fair.

We have a good show for you guys.

Lucas Zinger is here.

I know, that's exciting.

You know, I had a dog named Zinger.

Nope, didn't know that.

You didn't know that?

Zinger was my aunt's dog.

When I would go down to Cape Cod, I used to wait tables in bartend, and my aunt would

let me, she'd rent out a little bedroom to me.

Is this with the moose costume?

No, this is not a different story.

And she had a dog, and the dog's name was Zinger.

And I used to bring this dog over to my friend's house, and we'd go out in

the boat, and we'd go fishing and get clams, and one day Zinger decides, and it's probably

my fault, but Zinger's big black lab type dog.

Zinger's thirsty out in the open ocean and starts lapping up salt water.

It's water, ain't it?

And I don't know, I'm a moronic high school kid pretty much, and I'm like, yeah, sure,

drink that.

And then my friend Dave, whose house it was, his parents were very wealthy.

Dad's computer's a big brand new house.

Back then, $2 million house, right?

That's a lot back then.

He's got his dog, I've got my dog.

We're both waiting tables.

I go, what are we doing with Zinger and the dog?

He goes, just leave him in the house.

And I'm like, okay, seems like a good idea.

Forgetting that Zinger had lapped up a gallon of salt water.

And which isn't fatal, but we worked our shifts, made a little money, came home.

We had dates that night, some girls were coming by and opened the door of the

brand new $2 million house that was covered in feces.

Salty feces.

Back to Zinger, when I see, when I hear the word Zinger, I flash back to Dave's mom,

who was absolutely Zinger gets here.

What happened to my $2 million house and my $10,000 carpet, which I later bought.

I didn't have $10,000 then, but later on, I really Dave called and said, hey,

could you invest in my company?

And he goes, he was looking for 10 grand.

I said, yeah, here, here, take 10 grand for the carpet.

Because did you ever see the money?

What's that the 10 grand back?

I didn't need it back.

No, no, no, I'm just asking.

I haven't yet.

Because I heard it's actually coming back.

I invested 10 grand in a company.

Yeah, you don't get that money.

No, you don't get that money back.

But again, I feel like I was paying for the carpet.

It wasn't just the carpet.

It was high up on the walls, high feces.

This has nothing to do with this amazing car we're going to see today.

Well, it really doesn't.

Lucas Zinger will be here in a minute and he's got the car.

It's right behind us there.

And on Patreon, we're going to get to drive it.

He said I could drive it around the block.

Finally, I understand you're going to be driving it, too.

I only want to jinx it.

But yeah, apparently I'm really going to be driving it for multiple days.

When he's on the show, you can ask him whatever you like about it.

I got no questions.

Yeah, I don't want to jinx it.

Maybe you get one.

Maybe he's going to be like, you know, I heard what Spike said about Zinger.

He's smart enough to understand I'm telling a funny dog story.

There's no sea in front of my dog's name.

Right. Zinger.

I still we're still not sure how he gets so high.

How he shot it so high on the wall.

It was suspect wicker.

It was I remember, I remember I didn't know anything about anything.

And it's his mom called him and she said it's a handmade Irish

wool carpet that we're throwing out.

And get get ferrished in and get the dog out of there.

So I real quick,

I worked at a temp job.

I worked at like a Marshalls or something for it.

Like, and they were like, your job is to clean up the changing room.

Yes. People try on clothing.

Yes. And my first day, there was feces on the ceiling.

And I walked out.

I just left because, you know, it was 425 an hour back then.

Why in that changing room?

Yes. That's what I want to know.

It was all up the wall.

I'm assuming someone just had the dirty undies and flung them.

But like, oh my God, literally over my head on the ceiling.

And I'm looking up at it and I'm just thinking 425 an hour.

Fuck that.

Like, you know, I walked out.

That was the best thing about temp jobs.

He just brings in your Marshalls.

I wonder if it's so excited to have a dog didn't know the first thing about him.

We just got back from Willow a while ago,

but I think this is the first chance we've had to look at our footage from Willow.

Oh, we had a great time.

Thanks to Sam Byrne.

This is our either arrival or departure.

On this lovely helicopter here.

James Pumphrey came with us and his partner at speed.

There's the gang and we were giddy and having fun.

We we don't get to ride on helicopters much.

So we had a good time yourself.

But yeah, look at this lovely 9-11.

They had a lovely car show going on here.

I'm just kind of recapping the matter.

Say, look at that.

There's the car we're seeing today.

Look, wait, wait, Matt Ferris, smoking weed.

Shocker, shocker, me pointing and laughing.

There's a Zuckerman meeting one of his fans with the Zuckerman shirt.

Yeah, some lovely racing that was going on there.

And there's RFK came with us.

RFK Junior Junior.

And there's Sam, who organized the whole thing there.

Look, what does it say on the menu there?

Shrimp Cocktail Tower.

Lobster rolls.

Exactly.

It was a massive success this event.

And Sam, I guess I can't thank two-dimensional Sam there,

but thank you for flying us in.

It made all the difference because, you know,

that was the first time they had people showing up there.

It's the first time they had more than 100 people ever at that track.

Let me, you know, the last five decades.

Oh, look, I'm wearing that Sheffield.

Look, I've got the orange sets, the same parts.

And by the way, we have the new Sheffield,

though, which I'm wearing right now, right here.

That's for sale right now that you've got to check out.

But there was a massive, as we came in,

we saw this giant traffic jam.

So we were leaving Santa Monica and I'm looking at them

because we ran out of things to say to each other after two minutes.

Well, it was loud.

And we had headphones on.

And we were, you know, we were talking like we were podcasting

through the helicopter headphones.

It wasn't good.

Very quickly.

I thought it was fun.

Zuckerman turned it off right away.

But so I'm getting texts like, is that you?

Because there was two helicopters.

Yeah.

And they're like, we're stuck in a 90 minute line

trying to get in and I'm like, it didn't look good for us.

And I'm like, no, we're in a much bigger helicopter.

Yeah, you'll see our helicopter.

It's the black one.

I feel like I feel like we have to explain ourselves here.

Just in case you didn't hear the helicopter story,

it's a really simple story.

That fella up there, Sam said, you know, I like you Spike

and I like Johnny and I like your show,

but I'm really a huge Zuckerman fan.

And I said, well, I hate to disappoint you.

There's no way in hell.

There's no way in hell he's going to.

I am having trouble getting him to come in and sit here.

And he said, well, what if I send a helicopter?

And I said, Zuckerman's ears pricked up.

Oh, how much?

How much are you going to spend?

Oh, I called him and I said, what if he sends a helicopter?

Because if he sends a helicopter, I'll go.

Yeah.

By the way, he complained about the helicopter.

The whole time.

I don't think helicopter is even in the future anymore.

But our intention was never to kind of drop in in front

of everybody in the line and helicopter in that.

We were just there to speak for yourself.

But people were making funny AI videos

and calling us spoiled podcasters.

And it's a little unfair.

Well, or it's totally accurate.

But the best part was as we're coming back.

Yes.

A helicopter crashed.

Yes.

That was the other thing.

OK.

That's very right.

So we're coming back.

You know, there's already been a lot of talk about we're

going to die in a helicopter.

Yeah.

What I hadn't anticipated is this.

My wife and my son, the same weekend,

go down to Mexico to help build houses

with an organization for the weekend, right?

And say, by the way, you're going

to have trouble texting us.

Things are difficult, right?

I forget.

We come back.

There's a helicopter crash.

I hear from everybody on Instagram.

Is that you guys?

Yeah.

I'm like, oh, you morons.

No, it's not us.

Honning Beach is not us.

My wife hears about a helicopter crash.

Five injured.

Yeah.

And then five of us.

Yeah.

And they can't communicate with me.

Right.

And she's panicking for hours.

Oh, that's so great.

Panicking for hours.

I love it.

I got to say, you know, I did really enjoy her panic.

The most my wife has really cared about me.

In years.

I got to see for a second, like she really

would be upset if I died.

Yeah, I couldn't tell why she would be upset.

She didn't really get into that.

Can you use this to your advantage

with this new knowledge you have?

Let me tell you what happens.

So then eventually, of course, the boy who's down there

figures out a way through an app to get in touch with me.

And he goes, he just writes this.

This is the first message.

Mom's trying to find you a helicopter crash,

but I can see you're on a tennis court.

That's what I get.

Yeah, I go, yeah, it's fine.

I go, yeah, tell it to relax.

The kid is in a different part of the camp building the house

than my wife and doesn't tell her that.

So another hour, bless your son.

Finally, she finds a pay phone or something,

goes, are you OK?

And I go, yeah, I didn't check.

Tell it.

She goes, no, he didn't tell me.

So it's not you guys who crashed.

OK, I got to go.

Now she's mad.

Now she's mad that I didn't crash.

And she had to care about me for.

I still don't even understand what just happened.

But all of the joy I had.

Yeah, then and then now I'm in trouble again.

Yeah, we're not crashing on a helicopter.

Leno called me to ask if we had crashed.

He called me.

Well, I like how people are called.

Hey, did you die?

Are you are you dead?

Yeah, I did you crash?

Yeah.

But yeah, he called me like, hey.

By the way, that crash that crash was a cars

and helicopter causing copter.

Yeah, I who has the copter, I guess,

is well known in the Southern California car community

and does a lot of cool stuff.

But had I seen that crash,

I don't think I would have got up on the helicopter

because, you know, it's always that there's that little rear

rotor thing that snaps and then these things go down.

They crash a lot.

But we were on like the succession helicopter.

I mean, that yeah, that thing would take

a, you know, act of God to bring that sucker down.

I don't know.

Yeah, I don't know.

It's just a copter.

Good copter.

Yeah, maybe Airbus Airbus solid.

Anyway, I don't want to waste too much time

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You also drove something pretty cool.

Oh, not the wheeler, didn't you?

Yes.

What was that?

Go ahead and tell us quickly.

Now we gotta bring Lucas out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Corvette ZR1.

So this is the Chevy that makes 1064 horsepower

on just the rear axle.

So it's a 5.5 liter twin turbo flat plane,

banana pants engine.

Banana paint.

Banana paint, yeah, yeah.

I was really, when I, you know,

I looked at the photos of this car,

but when I saw it in person up at Willow,

I got really excited about it.

Yeah, it was, I was supposed to drive it on the track,

but then Zuckerman had to leave early

because he couldn't stand being anywhere.

So I didn't get to drive it.

He's so difficult.

He's really a pain in the butt.

But yeah, so it's 828 pound-feet of torque,

but I was saying like when the Veyron came out

and was a thousand, actually it was under 1,987 horsepower.

Yep, all-wheel drive.

So each wheel got a little bit less

than 250 horsepower to work with.

The rears on this each work with 532 horsepower

and it's drivable.

It's like really drivable.

They did an incredible job with this thing.

And yeah, it's, you know,

it's the performance bargain of the century,

but it handles fantastic.

It's basically a zero six with an extra 300

some odd horsepower and it's great.

What does it cost?

It's really good.

I want to say it starts at 173.

I believe this one was one,

I can't remember, 190 something like that.

This is like the track pack.

They have all these idiotic like,

oh, it's the ZTK package, whatever that means, right?

But it's, you know, it's like lowered

and it's like the wheels are aligned like this.

It's got the massive wing.

But yeah, it's cool, functional aero.

Maybe it's a little heavy,

but it's so much power you don't notice the weight.

It was probably in the 3,900 pound range,

something like that.

It just goes like a bomb and yeah, just a cool car.

So this Corvette we can see on your YouTube channel?

Yeah.

Well, and, you know,

I've been thinking a lot about your YouTube channel.

Sure you have.

I know you know that I'd rather

it be called What's Johnny Driving.

That's terrible.

I watch your, I've subscribed.

Good, good.

I watch.

As everyone should.

But I've come up with a couple

of new theme songs for you.

Oh good.

That I want to play for you right now.

I loved, is this AI, did AI help you with this?

Yeah, I wrote it, okay.

I wrote it with AI.

Yeah.

What's Johnny Driving?

Go ahead.

Okay.

What's Johnny Driving?

Who cares?

See?

What's Johnny Driving?

His beard.

It doesn't anymore.

Now you have a clean beard.

What's Johnny Driving?

Himself to another day.

What's Johnny Driving?

I like this song.

It's some streaks and it's a dream.

Wow, wow.

This is a pretty catchy little song.

Yeah.

And then it goes right into the second verse.

I just think someone with your pedigree,

your writing pedigree could be more clever.

I could.

You're right.

You know what I'm saying?

If I wanted to apply more time to this.

Yeah.

I give you a C for effort and a C for execution.

I appreciate.

I'll take that.

I appreciate songs about me.

That's all I'm saying.

All right, move over to the other chair over there.

I'm going to bring our friend Lucas over here.

He's the CEO of the newest hypercar company

that everybody's talking about.

Zinger vehicles.

And here he is.

Oh, Spike.

Look at another handsome guy.

Yeah.

He's really clean cut.

This is this.

Why you're clean cut because Lucas is here.

Yeah.

Oh, good.

It seems like all we're talking about these days

here in Southern California is Zinger.

Why is that?

Is it because Zinger is the only hypercar manufacturer

in Southern California?

Do you think?

I would hope it's a bit more than that.

Go ahead.

Tell me what it is.

What is everybody excited about here?

Because I hear, sorry to interrupt,

but I hear a lot about the 3D printing process

and blah, blah, blah, blah.

I don't get as excited about that.

I mean, unless you're going to release that 3D

printing software so we can make these cars at home,

I don't get it so much excited about that

than I do as the car behind me, which is stunning.

Appreciate it.

So from your standpoint, this company,

where is that excitement coming from?

That excitement comes from a really deep passion

for automotive.

And it comes with a vision that started a decade ago

about how to engineer and manufacture a better car.

And you need to understand both diversion and Zinger

to fully understand the car behind us.

So Divergent is the parent company.

You guys are a manufacturer of iteratively developed 3D

printed stuff.

Right.

Absolutely.

But we developed our own materials.

So the aluminum alloys that are on that car,

the nickel-based alloys that are on it,

those are our own materials that were developed.

The 3D printers that actually laser weld those parts

together, those are our own 3D printers

that we developed, engineered and manufactured

those machines.

But why did we do all that?

Well, one, the mission is a very big one for Divergent,

which is create the 21st century industrial base.

Like literally create the manufacturing network

that's going to make cars, that's going to make planes,

that's going to make missile systems.

But we have a product passion ourselves, right?

Kevin, myself, founders of the business.

And we wanted to apply that technology

to a product that we love.

And that happens to be the 21st century, right?

That's right.

That is a development where some people think

it is more of a side project to Divergent

or was the initial marketing play for Divergent.

But it's so, so much more than that, right?

It is not a good business decision

to spend many tens of millions of dollars

to create a car to just market a technology firm.

So that certainly value it has brought

is in the marketing as well, but it is its own business.

It is here to be an American OEM

and we're incredibly excited about it

because frankly, once last time you had an American team,

yes, great international teammates on it as well,

designed their own powertrain,

designed their own manufacturing system,

put together a unique seating layout,

integrate into a car and then say,

we're going all the way.

We're going to crash test this thing,

we're going to emissions test it,

we're going to qualify it,

have it be a global release

and we're going to do it all here in Los Angeles.

And that sounds like so much together, so much buzz,

but that's what the last year has been.

Is this car getting on to the road?

Yeah, I mean, the last time was like,

shall we in like the 60s?

Well, that's why I wanted to kind of untangle

a little bit of it because like I said,

a lot has been said about the manufacturing of the parts

and that's all really cool.

I think for us today,

I wanted to dig a little deeper into just cars with you,

like growing up you and your dad,

what were the cars that really stood out for you?

That you loved and that kind of kicked off this dream of,

you know, I love this,

but I want to make something a little better.

Yeah, I'd say when I was a kid and still today,

I think when we get to do what we love to do

and we get some success while we do it,

we start thinking of the way we were when we were a kid

and what we really liked when we were a kid as well.

So I think about early American muscle cars

and that's really through my father,

his brothers were Chevy mechanics.

He grew up in a small,

I guess you would say suburb in Parma, Ohio,

and those were the cars that he was into.

So I was into him because you're a kid with your dad

looking at those cars.

So early Mustangs, you name it, that was what we're into.

I then developed a case or really a love for JDM cars.

So my first car was actually a Mitsubishi Evo 8

and I was building that thing up when I was 13, 14,

and then by the time I had my permit at 15 and a half,

it was half race car, half Evo 8,

and that was a love for driving then, right?

That thing was just raw and fast

and I thought it was cool.

I loved the way it looked.

And I still have a 1956 F100 in my garage.

So I like driving old cars as a kind of reminder

of what all essentially the evolution

of the automotive industry is.

Yeah, so it was like when I grew up,

the two cars that were blowing everyone's mind apart

were the 959 and the F40.

And so the 959 was, it had a lot of turbos

and it was all wheel drive and it could do all these things.

And then the F40 was Kevlar.

And it like, whoa, here's this material

that's lighter than steel

that you could actually use in an automobile.

And it actually had a little carbon fiber.

We didn't know what that was,

but Kevlar, where you can make bulletproof vests out of it.

And it was like, you know,

so it was like really seemed like the future, you know?

So when does the process begin?

You start designing this car when

and how long does it take to get it to here to our floor?

What's the space of time there?

I'd say probably decades of thinking, right?

And Kevin, my dad, he's he's 66

and we kind of went into this together.

He's our chairman, I'm our CEO.

But he's been turning his wheels

on the thought of designing,

gnostic manufacturing, not to make a mouthful of it,

but a manufacturing process

that can virtually make any complex structure

and make that in a better way, right?

Designing, gnostic manufacturing.

And then the vehicle side of it became

one a feedback loop for that early engineering effort.

We made our own design engineering software.

We made our own materials, we made our own assembly system.

You need to test that stuff, you need to test it quickly

and you can't rely on external partner to test it.

One, we...

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Because then you'll make the mistakes

with a customer, which is not good.

And two, you'll be relying on the customer

in terms of timeline,

which means you're gonna go slow.

So the Zinger Chassis became a program within Divergent

to get that feedback loop on the engineering side.

And to make the best tools,

I would say Divergent's a manufacturing company,

but a tools company.

And then about three, four years into that development,

we looked and we said, okay,

what are the business choices we have?

Could Sunset and Zinger, right?

The Chassis program, there was no Zinger name yet.

We could take it into a full bore car company

or we could do something in between, right?

And we decided, let's go all the way.

Let's hire the full team.

Let's put together a product brief for this.

Let's live the dream and create the 21C.

And that was, geez, about five and a half years ago now

that Zinger was, you know, lying in the sand,

we're raising money,

we're putting tens of millions towards this.

We're gonna hire the best from Mercedes F1,

from Bosch Engineering, from various OEMs.

We're gonna combine them with the Divergent team

and we're gonna do this the right way

and do it quite different.

And that product brief to your point,

there of course are styling cues,

there of course are cars that you admire,

but we went for bringing divergence technology

into a vehicle that technology is new

and therefore the product brief was new

from the layout to what we were trying to do

with the strong hybrid to the combustion engine

and its power density and its size.

And really almost every major subsystem of the 21C

is quite unique compared to the hypercars out there today.

You recently did a California Gold Rush documentary

covering 1,000 miles across California in this car.

You set five track records in five days,

which it says here,

established a new benchmark in the hypercar space.

Tell us about why you did this

and what you learned from it

and where we can see the documentary.

We can see it on YouTube.

It's free to everyone.

It's the only place it's in business right now.

Here it is right here, I think.

We premiered that at Monterey Car Week,

so we had a great theater rented out.

Oh, that's fun.

We had 100 people in there and we showed it,

but this project was really about bringing visibility

to what the 21C was.

So we kind of set our own challenge here,

but we wanted to be in California.

That's our roots, right?

We wanted to go to the great tracks

that are in California.

We wanted to capture the team behind the car.

We wanted to capture the performance of the car

on the track and we wanted to show

that this is a car you can actually enjoy on the road.

Right.

This is a car that makes its performance available,

which is a rare characteristic

in very, very high performance cars.

So you can roll up to a track

without a full team of technicians.

You can spend single digit minutes there.

You can then set a track record

instead of setting up the car for a day or two,

getting everything tuned perfectly

for that environment and then going.

Have you been up to Willow with the car yet?

Oh yes, we've got the record at Willow.

You've got the record around the track.

Wow, production track at Willow

and really happy about the new project

that's going on there.

When you raced,

do you put two people in the car or just one?

Just one.

I can't imagine that backseat is comfortable

when someone's racing.

Yeah, it's a unique experience.

You and I I think are gonna take a drive

around the block after the show

and that'll be up on Patreon,

but I haven't decided where I wanna sit.

You know, you were nice enough to say

I could drive the car,

but I'm kind of thinking it might be more fun

to be sitting behind you

because I've never had that experience before.

Up to you or we could do both.

We'll figure that out.

So what did you learn?

I'm guessing, too, you brought this up to Monterey

because you also wanted to sell cars, right?

Oh, absolutely.

You're showing people this.

I mean, just that one shot of the car

going down the road that we just saw here.

See, this makes me crazy.

This looks so good and it's that fighter pilot

kind of position and cockpit you've got going on here.

Does that make it easier on the racetrack, do you think?

I do think so.

And what we're in an optimal position

where you're fully symmetric left and right,

so you get back into a normal car, quote unquote,

and you all of a sudden feel like you're offset

in a way that's uncomfortable.

Right, right.

So you can place the car

once you're used to it in a more precise way.

You also are seeing your front fenders very, very clearly.

Yeah, yeah.

So you've got good visibility to the front of the car.

And who's driving?

We're usually using Joel Miller,

who's been our development driver.

He was a Ferrari factory driver and he's a great guy.

He's also a great engineer.

So he's been giving us feedback

over the last three and a half plus years

on setting up this car for all systems

from traction control to stability control

to braking field to power delivery.

That's him right there.

There he is.

A man myth legend.

Yeah, drivers that can do some

a little bit of engineering work are very valuable.

Yeah, you need someone in development

that's not just fast.

They need to have good feedback for the team

and Joel is really, really fast,

but also has tremendous feedback.

And he set all five of those track records.

Johnny, have you ever raced center seat before?

Have you ever been in a car like that at speed?

Yeah, couple.

I mean, look at that.

I mean, that...

Not like this, but yeah, couple.

That looks fantastic.

That looks like so much fun around the track.

You're gonna get to drive this car, aren't you, Johnny?

That's the story as of now, yes.

Yeah.

Well, you're talking to the guy.

Well, he's the guy who can...

I don't wanna jinx it.

You're gonna do this or you can go, you know.

Right now it's like here.

Yeah.

You know.

Where are you gonna be driving it?

It's a...

I think actually it'll be over by the time

this episode goes live.

So, it's the Secret California Rally.

And it's Velocity Invitational.

It was nice enough, they asked me to come

and they said, bring an old 90s super car.

And I said, what about something

that isn't gonna break down?

Cause I don't wanna deal with that.

Yeah, yeah.

And they said, oh, yeah, okay,

we'll get back to you.

And they said, hey, how'd you like to drive a Zinger?

And I go for three days?

Yeah, so it's great.

So, you're gonna spend three days in that?

Yeah, I'll be recreating the rally here

without the track records.

Nice.

You're just gonna hand him a $2 million car for three days.

This is what people do, Spike.

This is...

They don't do that to me.

You're giving me second thoughts.

He knows what people do to me, Spike.

No, but seriously, you're gonna give him

that car for three days.

You're not gonna have a young Cooper here

providing support sitting in the backseat.

We might send some chaperones in and around.

How many of these press cars do you guys have floating around?

We've got two.

You've got two, see?

The silver one behind us is the million one we use.

You're not precious about them

and you want these guys to take them out

and have them photographed.

We are precious, but we want people to experience them.

Yeah, and use them.

Especially as a young brand,

we want a show what we've done

and we want it to be done in an unvarnished way.

So how many...

People like Johnny will do that.

Johnny will do a great job in it.

How many are we gonna make?

And how many have been sold?

80, the majority have been sold.

I won't give you the exact number,

but the majority have been sold partially

because we actually started advertising Zinger

four and a half years ago.

So we built an initial investor base for the car,

interest in the manufacturing.

We hosted tours of the facility,

so we had quite a fit.

Well, you've been at the Quail.

I was at 4th year.

Yeah, I was just gonna say quite a...

And from what I understand,

if you want to sell hypercars,

it's one place that you can do it.

And that's at the Quail, right?

Yeah, and the Quail is the least hypercar bird,

I think of any.

Well, it's like short and it's overweight,

and it's got weird things on it.

Yet that really has become a hypercar event.

Can you speak to that?

Like, if you want to sell hypercars,

where else do you do it?

It's the Mecca, right?

All of the kind of closed building car shows

have gone away largely.

Right, right.

We have Geneva,

and now it's the place to launch cars.

If you're doing supercars or hypercars,

now we're having European car companies

definitely do their US launch,

but sometimes they're global launch in Monterey.

Lamborghini was right next to you guys.

So I come to you and I want to order a car.

There's a little buy it now button on your website.

Yeah, what?

Scan a QR code.

Tell me, this is good,

because I feel like I'm starting to focus in

on the brand.

And what you're saying,

yeah, we've been around for four years in doing this.

It has been a little ambiguous,

but it seems like in the last five months,

with Matt Farah and the smoking tire,

you guys are now focused.

You've got the product,

the car is cool,

you're making content

and you're selling them right now.

This is our first year of production.

That's the big change.

First year of production.

I come to you,

somehow against all reasonable expectations,

I've made two million extra dollars

and I order a car.

What happens?

Do I get to meet Lucas?

Yeah.

And do you bring me,

where do you bring me

and what do we get to do?

Yeah, you go through a full journey with us

and we're small

and that lends itself

to actually really getting to know us.

And we'll take that really

as far as the customer

who we see as a business partner

really wants to take it,

but we'll host myself,

our sales team,

our marketing team

at our LA based facility.

We'll explore.

You're right here in LA.

We're in Torrance.

So we'll explore the full divergent side.

Well, that's Torrance.

The full center side.

It's not LA.

It's in the Los Angeles store.

Why are you,

Spikes thinks if it's more

than two miles from Brentwood,

it's not LA.

Is that near the country mark?

No, I'm joking.

Yeah, yeah.

So you will come in,

you will see the company,

you will meet the people that work there.

You'll spend time with me.

Then you will go through your specification process.

So tell me materials.

Yeah, tell me about that.

Like how many paints am I choosing from?

How many materials or is it the sky's the limit?

Sky is really the limit.

So we've got a sample set

that's very broad.

And then we've got a color program

where you could really engineer your own color with us

on the interior materials.

We've got a great partnership with Alcantara.

They actually do quite a few unique patterns

and cuts just for Zinger,

which is great.

But we can also stretch to any leather,

any other material that's automotive grade.

Of course, we'll keep people in check, right?

We want these cars to be aesthetic.

We want them to perform.

We want them to be a good experience.

So that means no cowhide print interior Johnny

like you would do, right?

The blue and white.

What I was going to say is you're also making more

than 121C, right?

You have like the track version,

which is I think this one.

But then you have like the long tail,

the blackbird, right?

Is that what it's called?

Yeah, so we are doing 80 total.

And within that 80, there's two body variants,

the V-Max and then the 21C.

The 21C has all the fixed arrow on it,

the big wing, and then the V-Max is longer tail,

less fixed arrow, higher top speed.

Both are fully road legal.

But one, you're getting if you're also

spending time on the track.

That downforce kit is really, really meant for tractor.

All right, well I want you to take us through the car

and then we have a bunch of questions for you.

But first, I want to talk about race deck.

You need some race deck down and towards.

Race deck was invented to cost effective durable,

truly do it yourself, modular flooring system.

You know, it's a flooring system.

For the garage.

Yeah, for the garage.

You've seen it.

You know they could just program their machines

to make it.

What if I wanted a race deck interior?

Could I get a race deck interior?

Would you do that for my $2 million?

Race deck's multi-battant design allows

for easy do-it-yourself installation

without a hassles and mess of toxic epoxy coatings.

Race deck is the original modular flooring system

engineered for the garage with over 33 patents

and proudly made right here in the USA.

Over 20 styles to choose from and it transforms

your ugly garage into the coolest garage on the block.

Race deck was born out of our passion

for the garage life.

And Jorgen Mahler, who started the company

when he saw his wife putting these tiles in the backyard

for his daughter's dance recital

and said, I'm going to put these in my garage.

Now has over 100,000 square foot and lots of employees

and a thriving business because these...

Lucas could make a mechanical Jorgen if we need one.

A mechanical Jorgen?

A Robo Jorgen.

A 3D printed Jorgen?

Yes.

That would be pretty good.

That would be good.

You're having to keep them here.

We like the regular Jorgen was up at Willis Springs.

We saw it.

A lot of fun.

It was fun.

Anyway, check out his product, Race Deck

at racedeck.com.

Use code SPIKE356 for an exclusive 15%

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Today's show is also sponsored by Acre Gold.

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All right.

What we're gonna do is,

Cameron's gonna break a camera off.

He's gonna show your car right up here

and you can direct him any way you like

as you tell us about the beautiful 21C.

All right, here we go.

You brought this beautiful, one of the press cars here.

Is this the car that Johnny's gonna have?

This is the car Johnny's gonna drive.

Excellent.

And so, do you have a special name

for this silver paint here?

God, look at that thing.

Yeah, so that is a one-off silver

that we did for Monterey Car Week.

All right.

And you can see that livery is almost 100% painted.

So the front splitters painted,

the sides are painted,

the mirrors are painted,

the mirror struts are painted.

In the sun outside,

it looks like an absolute spaceship.

These intakes, stay with that dead-on shot, Cameron.

That was nice.

Dead center there.

Tell us about what we're looking at here intake-wise

and where that air is going and what it does.

Yeah, so you're looking right at the front there,

which is where the majority is coming in.

And then you're also seeing in the rear haunches there

where we're taking even more in.

And you've got radiators really

right in front of the rear tires.

And then you've also got them behind the rear tires.

So there's a huge cooling system in here.

Right, it's a car that's got a screaming V8.

It's also got two battery packs and three EV motors.

So there's quite a bit to cool.

And this is the VMAX design.

So it looks quite sleek.

There's not all the fixed arrow on it

that you see on the 21C.

And then on the front there,

the headlight and the headlight assembly,

really cool looking

and actually fully three-printed housing.

So if you look closely at that,

you'll kind of see this gyroid structure

that houses the natural bulbs in there.

You know, it's wild.

Raise the camera up, Cameron.

Let's look, you know,

what's interesting is looking at what I thought

was the craziest, most aerodynamic car lately,

the GT2 RS behind it.

And then you put this in front of it and you go,

this is a completely different kind of creation, isn't it?

Yeah.

But also look how small this brand new hypercar

is compared to like 70s and 80s BMWs,

which we now think of as so small.

Yeah, right.

And like, like there's a 73, 9, 11,

which towers above it, you know?

Yeah, no, no, slung, automobile.

You're riding low

and you've got the center seating, right?

And that means your frontal surface area

is much less than typical,

which is great for aerodynamics.

And that was part of our being able to achieve

those track times was really minimizing that area.

But the car is quite wide.

Okay.

I mean, it's about 20, 50 millimeters wide wheel to wheel.

So even wider.

So over the six feet.

Yeah.

Do you ever just lay in that intake there

on the right and just go for a ride?

That's it.

Have you thought about it?

I mean, I don't know much about cars,

but you put a pillow there and a little,

you have a nice little ride outside.

If you're into tailgating pickup trucks,

you could just use this instead.

So tell us about the powertrain,

because that's, you know.

Well, he's got his guys here

who can come over and open up.

Cameron, go to the other side of the car

because he's going to open up that door.

And I want everybody to get a look at the length

and size of this door.

Cooper, go ahead and open the door up

and then you can get inside and start her up.

There's Cooper from Treasure State.

Yeah.

There was great cars and coffees here

in the west side of LA.

Just turned 12 years old today.

That's good.

Tall 12-year-old.

It's his birthday.

I want to know what powers it.

How does it go so fast?

Look at that.

Wow.

So strong hybrid, three electric motors,

two battery packs.

One V8 engine.

Total system output.

1,250 horsepower.

That's good.

Yeah.

And then the Blackbird Edition,

which we did four of,

inside of the series of 80,

those have all sold

and actually all been delivered now.

That added 100 horsepower.

So that's a 1,150 total.

And right there, you can see the V8.

You can also see all of the additively manufactured

and generatively designed parts around it.

So you see the subframe there.

You see the top of the transmission case peeking out.

That transmission case is actually 3D printed,

engineered by us.

That's a seven speed AMT,

but you get the torque fill with the EV.

So you'll see when you're driving it,

it actually feels more like a DCT

than it does your typical big single box.

And you get the Lunar Foil, Johnny.

Like the old Apollo.

Gotta have it.

Rockets.

Sheet shielding.

Yeah.

It looks unlike anything I've ever seen as far,

and that's called a car.

Yeah.

Really interesting.

We didn't really get a chance to look at the interior.

We went right to the engine.

Let's just go look at the part that we all,

the place we all want to sit.

It says V-Max.

Push in a little more, Cameron,

so we can have a look at this thing

and get a real look at what the cockpit experience is like.

There you go.

Let's hold right here and talk about this.

So center driver focus clearly.

Everything where you need it.

Pretty small wheel, but driver friendly wheel.

You've got your paddle shifters right behind.

And then it's a road going car.

It's a car that's been engineered to drive

on the 405 and in the canyons as well.

So you've got Apple CarPlay right there.

You've got a good speaker system.

You can see the additively manufactured

speaker grills there.

I'm just staring at the pedals.

The pedals, look at the pedals.

Well, the left pedal is a dead pedal, I'm guessing.

For a second, I thought that was a clutch.

No, that is a dead pedal.

And then you see your brake assembly,

you see your gas pedal there.

It looks like little gnomes like holding up the pedal.

It's super.

Yeah, that's super cool.

Every single gram of material on this car

is there for a reason.

And you can see that more clearly in certain areas

like the pedal there,

which is giving you the grip with that gyroid,

but that gyroid is also giving you the lightest

structure for the stiffness of the pedal you need.

You see the connecting elements all the way through.

And down there, you can see our steering column node

is actually printed as well.

Parts of that steering column itself are printed.

The wheel, the full wheel is printed,

but then we are wrapping it with that alcantara.

But that's what you guys really specialize in is

you say, okay, I need a part X.

It's gonna hold a brake pedal.

And you say, okay, but how can we make it

as light and as strong as possible?

And rather than having humans think about it,

you have like a computer program

that tries 100,000 different iterations

and says, ah, if we invent this new metal

and shape it like this,

this will be 90% lighter and just as strong

as just a chunk of steel, right?

We call it Pareto Optimal.

It's finding that frontier point

where quite literally you can't change anything

without disturbing the requirements.

So now if I'm sitting in a back seat there,

camera, show, pull back and let's see the back seat.

Are my legs like wrapped around you

and throwing my chest?

Where am I putting my legs in the back seat?

We're gonna have a close experience there in a good way.

And your legs are gonna come around the driver's seat.

Should we get Cooper in there to demonstrate?

Yeah, sure, go ahead, jump in, Cooper.

Your feet are left and right.

But once you're back there,

and this is pretty key, you're comfortable.

Yeah, yeah. It's unusual,

but your knees are not against something hard.

You're not squished.

Your headroom's really good.

Your shoulder's shoulder is actually really wide.

What did you just press there, Cooper?

Is he moving?

He's moving the seat so he can move the front seat.

He can move the seat from there.

Oh, that's cool.

Yeah, yeah, so it helps if you're getting in and out.

And is that a foldable sports seat?

Is that what that?

Yeah, that'll fold forward a bit.

Oh, cool.

And we've got two seats,

so that's the comfort seat.

You can see it's still pretty race-central.

Yeah, yeah.

But we also have a race seat,

which is fixed and very lightweight.

I love it.

Yeah. It's a really cool design.

I climbed into that backseat a couple of years ago

at the Quill Lodge,

and I vowed never to climb in there again,

so enjoy it later.

Well, where do you want me to sit?

Where do you think?

Johnny, should I sit in the back?

You're in the back.

Oh, come on.

I'll go around the block in the back.

It's a comedy show, ain't it?

All right.

I'll do that.

You should drive it.

I think you should drive it.

Well, I'm not really going to get a sense

of driving it around the block today.

I want to borrow it like you for a couple of days

and have some fun in it.

So, you know, we'll do that.

Well, you know, look at those doors.

It's so good.

You know what I love about what you've done

is you've really made something original, you know?

And, you know, on the Simplet,

and it's a well-deserved compliment

because so many manufacturers, so many writers,

so many people that just do things

are always kind of doing things based on

a little too close to something else somebody's done.

You guys really have kind of,

you're just a one-off.

You're an original idea.

And, you know, if anybody wants to fault you,

they can't fault you for that.

You know, you guys are out there making something,

you know?

Made before and selling them.

Yeah, it's cool.

It's a really cool thing that you've done

and you guys seem to have pulled it off.

And you have my congratulations.

Thank you, sir.

Also, you guys make parts for like some pretty big OEMs.

I mean, I was just in Mulsheim

at looking at the new Bugatti Tourbillon

and like, I'm like, those look like divergent parts.

And it was like, yeah, those are divergent parts.

All the new Bugatti.

Martin and team are great there.

They're one of our close partners.

We do suspension, we're a frame on Tourbillon,

but McLaren's a great partner.

We do full suspension and frame on W1.

Oh, wow.

We've got various others that.

Our buddy Jay's getting a W1, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, those are good cars.

And we love engineering with this software,

with this manufacturing process

and improving the industry overall.

And in that sense, Zinger can be the tip of the spear.

You can show the art of a possible.

And then eventually you can have others

adopt these systems, these engineering processes as well

through divergent.

And that's been working really, really well.

And the Zinger car, when we first took it to Goodwood,

that's when we had a lot of attention

from the European automakers saying,

okay, this is for real.

This is a qualified part on a real vehicle.

How many OEMs are you working with?

We're working with seven game brand OEMs.

That's pretty good.

And then a number of smaller kind of startup-ish OEMs.

Kam, you can come back.

All right, I have a couple of questions from listeners

and then we'll get you out of here.

I know you were on a tight schedule.

Patience in Paradise wants to know, are you?

Introducing, taking share, lessons from leaders

with Rob Holmes, chairman, president,

and CEO of Texas Capital.

During each episode, you will hear from leaders,

decision makers, and culture shapers across industries.

What drives them?

What tips the scales when making tough calls?

How do they continue to evolve?

We're here to understand the thoughts behind their actions

and discover how they are taking share.

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Who old enough to drink?

Ah!

It's a yes or no question, Terry.

It's a yes or no question.

Yes.

Finally.

I'm actually retired from drinking already.

You have, but it's good.

So, wait, well, I have.

He, Johnny, hasn't.

I like to drink.

Friday, three wants to know, okay,

two-car garage, very common question from our listeners.

If you could, two cars, money's no object.

Our listeners are not original.

They're not original, but they always want to know.

Two cars, what would it be?

I'm a sucker for Porsches right now,

so I'd probably go 997 GT3 RSs for sports car.

What, a 0.1 or a 0.2?

Ah!

Please get specific.

0.2.

Yeah, yeah, good answer, good answer, yeah.

Yeah, that's one of them.

I guess the other one, geez,

I would go with something classic.

Honestly, I would rebuild in a very unique way.

My 56 F100 makes that a very driver-centric army.

There you go.

Put a Nelson Racing engine in there,

get some fun in there.

Pre-Christian, Pete Christian Rose wants to know,

are you gonna ever mass produce something

that would be a little more affordable

in the 250 or less category?

You know, never say never,

but I'm gonna say no on the Zinger brand right now.

Divergent is the mission to make millions of parts

for tens of OEMs and support that at volume.

Zinger has to stay expensive

because we need a high R&D budget

and we need a high bomb bill of materials

to make new stuff.

And we need to be that tip of the spear for the industry

because those new systems make their way down over time,

but for that reason, we're gonna stay high price point.

And of course, that's disappointing because of access,

but it is important to actually be able

to make those new products.

And it makes no difference to me, the price point.

There's a lot of folks asking about an IPO or stocks,

or is this gonna be a publicly traded company?

Why are they asking me these questions?

They're probably interested in investing,

so we've raised over a billion dollars now.

How much?

Yeah, over a billion dollars.

Over a billion dollars.

Let's talk after the show.

Yeah.

We could use some of that.

You know, I had a side conversation

with his dad one time when he explained

the whole strategy to me.

Yeah.

And I looked at him and I said,

so if this happens, you're gonna be the wealthiest person

in the history of earth.

And he looks at me and he goes,

yeah, that's what one of my backers says,

and walks out of the room.

Which means I don't have to talk to you.

Very nonchalant.

Yeah, that's what he said.

I don't need to put up with you the likes of you.

So currently you're not publicly traded,

but there could be, that could happen someday.

Yes.

Okay, what is one feature in cars

that you would like to get rid of completely?

This could be anything.

Mine, auto stop start.

I don't want to see that anymore.

I don't like the auto lane assist

on a lot of those normal cars.

Because I kind of like to drift

before I blink a little bit into the lane

and just kind of pulls me right back in.

But you know, maybe that's not the right safety.

CVT.

I don't love that.

Our friend, Bessimodo just said to say,

hi, it's gonna be a good one.

Nice.

We love you, Bessimodo.

Niche Motors, again, very cool, great guy.

Met him a few years ago.

These aren't questions.

You can lavish praise on him on his Instagram.

I'm asked for questions.

Spike, have you considered booking less likable guests

to get better questions, you know?

Okay, and the last question we'll just go,

okay, what is the one part of this car

that you're most proud of?

What's the one thing in that car?

I'm sure you're proud of the car, we all know that.

But the one thing you look at and you go,

yeah, we really nail it.

Like in Gunther Works, when you talk to Peter Nune,

he'll say that iPhone holder.

Oh, he loves that iPhone holder.

I worked for years on that.

He loves the iPhone holder.

And it's great.

It is great.

It's about the 8,000th least interesting thing.

But yes.

I know, but he's, the question is,

what is he most proud of?

What do you most proud of?

I mean, for me, it's the powertrain in the car

and specifically the V8 just because I know the effort

that went into that.

I had the job of kind of building our first prototype

with our chief engineer and hiring the people

that then kind of reengineered that full powertrain

and the amount of effort and the amount of uniqueness

that went into that as well in terms of IP was tremendous.

And then to get that California carb emission stamp on that

is such a juggle as well, sir.

So that's probably my thing.

It's much more difficult than people think

to build a California emissions V8

that makes that much power.

Cause you're making like 200 horsepower a liter

or more or much more.

Yeah. 300 plus.

I mean, we're 2.88 liter doing 850 horsepower and top spec.

And that's, you know, that's not running E85.

So we could run even higher once we get the E85 in there.

It's a good deal.

Is it a dual fuel system?

Oh, cause there's an E85 pump

on the bottom of the engine.

I'm kind of, you know,

I'm previewing something I maybe shouldn't.

Okay, yeah.

There you go.

Our listeners have no idea.

You're seeing it safe.

We have the guys who actually can afford this stuff.

That's fair.

And there's only a couple left.

So act fast.

Lucas, a pleasure to meet you, man.

Thank you.

In person.

I've seen the car.

I'm excited about what you guys are doing.

I love that you're here in Southern California

making beautiful new things.

So respect.

Yeah.

And that's our shift.

Don't go to Tennessee.

Don't leave and make sure that, you know,

I want to drive this too when he's done with it.

I'd love to give it a drive

and a proper kind of looking around Brentwood.

Well, come see us in Torrance.

They can't go down to Torrance.

That's something I can do.

I can't be seen.

I'm going down to Torrance.

I'll give you the full report.

I'd be happy to come down.

I'm just kidding.

And that's our show, ladies and gentlemen.

If you want to watch Lucas and I take a run

in this beautiful car,

we're going to do it right now on Patreon.

Go to Patreon.

You'll see that.

Drive around the block.

You'll also see a brand new episode of Spikes Car Radio

with Jerry Seinfeld recorded at Baldwin Hills

with cigars.

No ads.

I wasn't invited.

No filters.

It was very last minute.

I apologize.

No, it's fine, it's fine.

It could be the best Earth Wind and Fire episode

of the show we've ever recorded.

Wow.

And it's there on Patreon for you right now.

So subscribe.

Does that mean Jerry is more...

Everybody was really loose.

Yeah.

And we dove very deeply,

very deeply into car psychology.

The insanity and the obsession.

And also a car was sold.

A car went from Jerry to Zuckerman

and possibly me.

We'll see you next week

on Spikes Car Radio.

Subscribe to Patreon.

California’s New Hypercar: Czinger 21C

About this episode

Alcantara

Porsche 911

battery tender charger

Chevrolet Corvette

horsepower

twin turbo

torque

Bugatti Veyron

all-wheel drive

ZTK package

Zinger vehicles

Divergent

aluminum alloys

American muscle cars

Ford Mustangs

Mitsubishi Evo 8

Ford F100

Ferrari F40

Porsche 959

carbon fiber

Kevlar

Toyota

Mercedes F1

OEMs

Bosch Engineering

Willow Springs International Raceway

hypercars

top speed

race deck interior

cooling system

3D-printed housing

gyroid structure

powertrain

Porsche 911 GT3

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