Will the new Glickenhaus SCG 007 win Le Mans in 2021? | GRR
Suddenly, America is going hypercar crazy. Following in the tyre tracks of the Hennessey Venom unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show a couple of years ago is the Czinger 21C, and now hard on its heels comes the equally new Glickenhaus SCG 007. This is more than a hypercar, though. This beast has bigger fish to fry – to be the first American car to take the overall win at Le Mans since the Ford GT40 Mk IV in 1967.
The SCG 007 is a pure racer designed to compete in the new hypercar class that replaces LMP1 in the 2020/21 World Endurance Championship that begins in September. That season should culminate at Le Mans in June ’21 when, fingers crossed, you should be able to see this car, plus a lot more hypercars besides, battling for the overall win.
The Glickenhaus SCG 007 promises to be worth seeing, not just because it looks the hypercar business but because Jim Glickenhaus and his esteemed Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus (SCG) are no strangers to 24-hour racing. In the past decade SCG cars have competed in eight 24-hour races, with eight finishes that have included five class wins, one second and one third.
For SCG, the new hypercar class means “a magical opportunity” for smaller constructors to take on the big boys on the biggest motorsport stage of all. “An American car hasn’t been first overall at Le Mans since 1967. It’s time,” says Jim Glickenhaus.
To design the Glickenhaus SCG 007, SCG has recruited specialists from both F1 and the WEC and has again teamed up with Podium Advanced Technologies with whom previous WEC cars have been developed. The new car’s spec is impressive: all-up weight of 1,100kg and power from a 3.0-litre twin-turbocharged V6 that, says the firm, can deliver 840bhp for 30 hours straight. Jim Glickenhaus tells us: “If your hypercar can’t race for 24 hours it’s not that hyper.” The car comes with a price tag of €2 million.
SCG had planned for the engineering to be complete by June, the sub-systems assembled in July and the car built in August ready for shakedown tests to begin in September and the start of the new season, although that timetable might have changed slightly now.
“We will race at Le Mans with one of the best cars on the grid,” says SCG managing director Jesse Glickenhaus. “There are thousands of ways to lose a race, and only one way to win. With a little luck, we will win.”
Jim Glickenhaus adds: “I will be standing in the rain all through the night, watching a car we created blur past, enjoying the thrill and going for the most prestigious win in motorsports. It will be a proud day for us and America.”