- first teased in 2018, glickenhaus's 007 race car will be built this summer.
- the glickenhaus 007 will use a 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged v-6 when it contests the 24 hours of le mans.
- road-legal versions will also be built, and they will cost more than $2 million.
scuderia cameron glickenhaus is not afraid to boast. in fact, the low-volume manufacturer is already talking a bit of smack about throwing its upcoming glickenhaus 007 race car against some big competitors, well before the vehicle is much more than pixels on a screen.
the 007 uses a 3.0-liter twin-turbocharged v-6 engine that was developed specifically for glickenhaus. the goal is to enter the 2425-pound lightweight racer into the new le mans hypercars class at the fia world endurance championship and the 24 hours of le mans in the 2020–2021 season. the company promises that the new engine will be capable of producing 840 horsepower for 30 hours straight. that's six more than necessary. as glickenhaus says in its announcement, "if [your hypercar] can't race the 24 hours of le mans, it's not that hyper."
to give fans a glimpse of what the car will look like, glickenhaus has released this updated series of renderings for the 007. earlier versions were teased in 2018 and 2019, following scg's announcement in the summer of 2018 that it wanted to compete in le mans.
the story behind the 007 is that the company started with a blank sheet and let the design team, led by michael young and jim glickenhaus, create the car they wanted. so far, scg and its partner on the 007, podium advanced technologies, have started the engineering process and have completed preliminary wind tunnel analysis. moving forward, the plan is to start “extensive wind tunnel testing” this month, assemble the subsystems in july, build the car in august, and take it to the track for the first time in september. even with all that work yet to do, glickenhaus is already promising trophies and champagne the 007, saying "an american car hasn't won first overall at le mans since 1967. it's time.”
what prompted scg to start work on the 007 was that the automobile club de l'ouest and the fia published regulations to establish a new top class of endurance racing, the le mans hypercars, in late 2018. scg says they saw this as a "magical opportunity" and wanted to "build a beautiful sports car to race in the top class of the wec and at le mans." the company says it is ready to challenge "the big guys for an overall win on la sarthe circuit." the other manufacturers that have so far announced they will participate in the le mans hypercars category next season are toyota, aston martin, and bykolles racing.
one of the rules for the new le mans category is that every company entering has to build at least 20 road-legal versions of the race car for sale over a two-year period. as a nhtsa-approved low volume manufacturer, glickenhaus shouldn’t have a problem with this since it is allowed to make up to 325 u.s. road-legal cars per year. estimated price will be more than $2 million.