‘Doing the naked minimal’ as a phrase has pejorative connotations.
It implies a component of coasting, refusing to surpass expectations and settling for mediocrity – even, maybe, giving up. But right here we’re in 2024, when producers (not simply of vehicles) are confronted with hovering manufacturing prices and are rigidly dedicated to lowering their affect on the surroundings.
Products mustn’t simply be cheaper to make: they need to even be lighter than ever earlier than, use minimal supplies of their make-up and be fabricated quickly, utilizing as few sources as attainable. Doing the naked minimal, it’s clear, is now nothing lower than an overarching goal for the business.
Nowhere is that felt keener than at 19601 Hamilton Avenue, Torrance, California, in any other case referred to as the headquarters of producing masterminds Divergent – or, as it would little question quickly come to be recognized, the epicentre of a daring new period for the automotive business.
Divergent is finest recognized for being the dad or mum agency of Czinger, creator of the ludicrously highly effective and fascinatingly engineered 21C hypercar – a 1233bhp V8-powered showcase of what could be achieved with the agency’s new-school strategy to car manufacturing.
When it was revealed again in 2020, the 21C shortly got here to be referred to as the ‘3D-printed hypercar’, which is an outline that’s directly each vaguely correct and one thing of an undersell. Because there’s absolutely no automobile, road-going or in any other case, being constructed proper now, wherever on the earth, that may lay declare to such magnificence in its engineering.
Its rear subframe twists and wraps hypnotically round its masterfully offered engine, freed from ugly welds and clearly as mild because it might presumably be with out sacrificing a mite of structural integrity.
Its intimidating, ground-sucking aerodynamic addenda – producing 2000kg of downforce at 190mph – speaks of its track-honed efficiency potential. And its cockpit would appear to have been lifted straight from a Le Mans Hypercar have been it not for a centrally positioned driver’s seat and one other behind for a fortunate passenger.