At last year’s Goodwood Festival of Speed, the Rimac Nevera was crowned the fastest street-legal production vehicle to go up the famous hill. The electric hypercar completed the 1.16-mile course with its nine turns in a blistering 49.32 seconds. Unfortunately for Croatia’s ultimate EV, America is now the record holder with a car powered by a combustion engine.
With Chris Ward behind the wheel, the Czinger 21C crossed the finish line in only 48.83 seconds. Although the hybrid beast is the fastest production road car to lap Goodwood hill climb, it’s far from the fastest overall. That honor goes to the insanely quick McMurtry Spéirling, a single-seater EV. In 2022, former F1 driver Max Chilton lapped the short track in
Eagle-eyed viewers will notice that by the end of the run, one of the car’s side mirrors was dangling from the body following a minor impact with a haystack. That probably had a slight negative impact on the aerodynamic efficiency, but the Czinger 21C still managed to shave nearly half a second off the Rimac Nevera’s run.
Although technically a production car, only 80 units are being made. That makes it considerably more exclusive than the Rimac Nevera of which 150 examples are to be assembled. Designed and manufactured in California, the new record holder uses a 2.88-liter twin-turbo V-8 engine that revs to 11,000 rpm combined with two front-mounted electric motors to deliver a total output of 1,250 horsepower.
The record-breaking run was conducted with a regular 21C but Czinger also sells a 21C V Max that can reach 253 mph instead of 219 mph. In addition, there’s a 21C Blackbird as the highest-performance variant with 1,350 hp on tap. This track-focused derivative is the rarest of them all, limited to just four cars.