Glickenhaus Hypercar Could be ‘Evolution’ of 003C

James Glickenhaus says his company’s proposed SCG 007 hypercar for the FIA World Endurance Championship will likely be an evolution of its existing 003C racer.

Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus first declared its intentions to compete under the 2020-21 regulations in June before announcing the program a month later, along with an outline to build 25 road-legal versions of the 007.

The SCG 003C, which took pole position at the Nürburgring 24 last year, has been the flagship Glickenhaus racing project since 2015.

“While the final rules have not been written, our view of the preliminary rules that we’ve been able to look at – and of course this could change – is that it’s really an SCG 003C with a hybrid component,” Glickenhaus told Sportscar365.

“It’s certainly not impossible that we could build an ‘evo’ version of our 003, calling it the 007, that could run in WEC and Le Mans. That would be no joke and we do have the capital to do it.

“Could the final rules be such that our dream isn’t possible? Sure. But I think that if you look at what we’ve been doing for a while, we try to do what we say we’ll do.”

Glickenhaus believes SCG, which has not been involved in technical working group meetings for the proposed ‘hypercar’ formula, won’t be at a disadvantage despite joining a set of regulations formed by a consortium of other manufacturers.

“Do I believe in my heart that the manufacturers are going to stack the deck so it’s impossible for me to do well? I do and don’t,” he said.

“Porsche, for example, won’t. When we won the pole at the Nürburgring 24, the first person that came up and hugged me was from the head of Porsche racing, so I think they’re delighted for us.

“The Toyota guys – they want to see competition and they’re not afraid to compete on an equal basis. Whatever it’s going to be, we’ll face it.

“Are we in the working group? No. But I think they are quite aware that we are going to be there and that we’re going to do it.”

Production of 007 is forecasted to take place in the company’s facility at Sleepy Hollow, NY. while assembled cars will undergo race conversion at Podium Engineering in Italy.

Glickenhaus explained that SCG’s recently-acquired factory in Danbury, Conn., formerly owned by Highcroft Racing, will not be used for initial 007 production because it will take nine months “to get up and running.”

SCG intends to use GM engines for the 007, although a final decision on the type of powertrain has not been made.

“The cars will be American and the components will be American,” he said.

“We have not locked in what the engine will be in the LMP1 car, but from what we see there will be great latitude on what engine we use.

“There probably will be an advantage of going to a twin-turbo V6 in terms of weight and size, but it’s not impossible that a V8 motor could work.

“If we’re making both road and race versions, philosophically we want to use the same architecture.”

SCG Plotting GT3, GT4 Expansion

Glickenhaus has also projected a 2020 debut for the racing version of the SCG 004 supercar, which is the planned successor to the 003C.

SCG is set to work on gaining a GT3 homologation that will enable the 004 to compete in global competitions, including the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.

It also plans to homologate its vintage-styled sports coupe, the 006, as a GT4 package in time for a 2021 race debut.

“The honest time schedule is that prototypes [of 004] will be built in the summer of 2019,” said Glickenhaus.

“The race car will test in the fall of 2019. The competition debut of 004C [the racing version] will be at the VLN in 2020 and then the Nürburgring 24.

“Immediately we hope it will be racing in GT3 and hopefully in IMSA, and the first customer road cars will be delivered in 2020. We have a two-year backlog of those.

“We’re hoping to price it just under the [Ferrari] 488 GT3. Our GT4 will be in keeping with the best GT4, about what a Mercedes-AMG GT4 costs [roughly $230,000]. We think we have customers that will pay that.”

Glickenhaus also confirmed that the 003C will return to the Nürburgring 24 next year, running on Michelin tires for the first time.