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Jim Glickenhaus – On A Podium At Le Mans, The Rest Of 2023 – And Beyond

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James Glickenhaus was proudly showing off the #709 SCG 007 Hypercar, resplendent in its filthy, as finished at Le Mans, bodywork, on Friday at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and sat down with the DSC Editor (pic below courtesy Simon Maurice) to chat about the story so far, and the chapters to come for his eponymous team and company.

The 2022 Le Mans 24 Hours saw the pair of Glickenhaus entries finish fourth (the ‘full-season’ #708) and third for the one-off #709 and that meant that Jim, together with drivers Franck Mailleux, Ryan Briscoe and Richard Westbrook, got to stand on the famous podium with the fans in attendance and in full voice:

A huge moment for you Jim?

“It was really very emotional. It’s been a long journey on the road to Le Mans.”

And it’s a tough road to that podium even if the numbers in Hypercar this year are not huge?

“At the Nurburgring, we compete against some incredible companies like Porsche, Audi, BMW and Mercedes, but it’s on a more level playing field in the sense of we’re all building GT3 level cars.

“And in fairness to the Nurburgring, they’ve made a real effort to balance those cars. And I think our only deficit there was we had one car versus seven BMWs or 6 Porsches etc.

“But we we had some good days, we got on the pole, we finished eighth once and you know, we were doing really well.

“Le Mans is really a different place. I mean, it’s the Cathedral of endurance racing, and the history that you feel when you’re there, you think of Briggs Cunningham, shipping a Cadillac over here and just racing it as a Cadillac. And then he made a body, the monster body and put it on.

“And you think of guys like Carroll Shelby coming over as a driver for Aston and then as a constructor and a modifier a British sports cars, the AC and then the Cobra. And then of course, the Ford GT.

“When you think of guys like Jim Hall, who really every time he showed up, it was a revelation, whether it was his sucker car, or his high wing car with a movable wing. It was wonderful, wonderful times and those were my memories of Le Mans and also memories of people like already Pescarolo, and John, Rondeau, you know, privateers, who said, You know what, I can show up, I have a dream and I can chase that dream.

“But thinking about it and dreaming about it is different than actually being there. And I think last year, which was, if you will, our installation laps at Le Mans, we were amazed that we finished with two cars.

“You know, a major manufacturer said at the dinner before, people were taking bets on how many hours we would last. And he said the highest number was two hours.

“And he said, You know, I’m not going to bet against those guys. I’m going to see what happens. And he said to me later, people were stunned when you just finished, never mind finishing as well as we did.

“And there was all the stuff around that people were saying that the P2s are going to be faster and this and that. But, you know, to race Toyota, and I’m not disparaging any of the guys who race at the ‘Ring, but to race Toyota in the top class at Le Mans. It’s just different.

“It’s just different than anything we’ve done and it was just very emotional to be there with a car with our name on it that wasn’t a joke, that was performing pretty well.

“Both cars finished. The only issue we had we had was one driver mistake which can happen to anyone. And 10 minutes. Yeah, it was 10 minutes and before that happened, we were 30 seconds down after eight hours.

10 minutes in the garage in ninety six hours of racing for your cars at Le Mans – that’s astounding?

“I don’t even know the dollar amount of us what we spent versus Toyota. But it was at least five to one or maybe even 10 to one what they spent versus what we we spent, but I was proud that it was a serious effort.

“You know that we weren’t four seconds a lap under or anything like that, which I think a lot of people suspected we would do. They thought we’d be you know, finished 14th behind a gaggle of LMP2s and that wasn’t the case.

“And it was a really interesting race. Because after the first year as you know, I really got into a bloodsport match with them about BoP.

“I said, I am not going to race an all wheel drive car. That wasn’t what I signed up for.

“I signed up for a BoP class and you said I can make a non-hybrid rear wheel drive car. And I did. And you said I had to go 3:30. And I did. And you said, I have to have a car that weighs this amount. And I did. And I have to have this horsepower. And I do. And I’m just not going to race it.

“And we went back and forth. And then finally I said, 190 kilometres an hour, that has to be the activation speed, because I’m not gonna race an all wheel drive car.

“Then Toyota is saying things like, “Well, why did we build a hybrid?”

“And my answer was, that’s a very good question. But because you did I should be penalised? That wasn’t the rules. If the rules were that it had to be hybrid, I would have thought about it. And maybe been there or maybe not.

“In 2012, I had 50 horsepower on my P4/5C at the Nurburgring. And I regenned 50 horsepower for 50 seconds from running the Nurburgring. So I could build a hybrid car and I originally was planning to do it.

“I was going to use an Alfa Romeo engine and a hybrid system and meet it that way. And then our friends at Aston Martin came in and said, No, no, it has to be 890 horsepower and Alfa said, we can’t make up the deficit, that’s not going to work.

“But we kept going. I remember the first time I called the FIA and say, I’m going to the first meeting. And they said, We you will not be allowed in the building. We have McLaren and Aston and we’ll let you know if we need you.

“I was at the Nurburgring when that happened and I wrote a letter. And I said, Look, guys, I’m not screwing around, I’m making a car and you either treat me with respect or I’m gone. And they said, Oh, okay, you’re right. We’re sorry. And in fairness to them, I think they really changed with their perception of who we were, and what we were and what we could do and what we couldn’t do and we have a wonderful relationship with them now.

We know that there’s a part season to come, you’ll be at Monza. We know you aren’t going to Fuji – Do we know yet whether you will be at Bahrain?

“We have a lot going on in terms of investors, in terms of possible alliances with some very respected and large companies. And we have the reality that we love racing in the WEC and Le Mans. We are very grateful for Richard Mille’s remarks that people have to give us a little slack. And we will absolutely figure out a way to stay involved.

“I don’t know what that is today. But we’ll be at Le Mans next year and we’ll be at other races.

“My goal is to be able to race the full WEC season and other things. But I just don’t want to be one of these people that make statements when I don’t know. And we’re living in strange times. The inflation is real. People are really hurting financially. We cannot get parts quickly and reliably, these are crazy times.”

So there is a future for the SCG 007 beyond this year?

“Oh yeah, absolutely. I hope it could be a full season. I just don’t know yet. But it will be something that we will discuss way in advance with the ACO and the FIA, and we will honestly tell them what we’re capable of doing and what we’re not and I think that they want us to be part of it and I feel very optimistic about it.

What about potential customer sales for the car. It’s shown a different way to do this than the perceived norm?

“We are looking for customers. And we are speaking to several serious people who could do it. As I said, we will sell a car for two and a half million euros. You do not have to buy any spares. We will have them available if you want to.

“And if you want to share a box with us, we will split it and carry part for their two cars. We’ll pay half but the three cars will pay a third, we will sell for less than a current LMDh car.

“And this isn’t because I’m trying to say I can sell it for less than an LMDh car because racing to me, I just don’t want to lose too much money. My little company is doing well. We are sold out for a good time, we think we have 300 firm orders.

And what is the future looking like at present?

“We are developing our hydrogen trucks. We want to keep ICE going with hydrogen and zero admissions at first and then eventually with hydrogen fuel cells. And our goal is to be the first company that races zero emissions at Baja 1000, and a zero emission 24 hour race, most likely it will be the Nurburgring where we’re going to make a hydrogen ICE version of our 004.

“It will be a four cylinder version of that. And we will have swappable hydrogen tanks so we think we can do a pitstop in about a minute.

“Our idea to the ADAC is for them to let us race, we think we can run five lap stints so they can balance the pitstops with cars that can run 8 laps.

“I think they’re into it. They said look, Jim, if you can come with a viable 24 hour car that runs at zero admissions, just tell us what you need. I think they would let us do it.

Let’s talk about 004. Because for me, the 007 is the halo car whilst the 004 is the car for now and for the future in terms of manufacturing volume.

“Yes, absolutely.

And that’s the car that might prove to be the racing future for this brand into the GT3 era at Le Mans.

“It is, and this is a very big part of what we’re talking to WEC about.

“In 2024, as you know, they are going to go to GT3. That will make it more affordable and more possible. And we are we would love to be part of that. We all hear different rumours and things, but I believe that if we are in the WEC and at Le Mans in 2023 and 2024 that we absolutely would be given entries for our GT3 car.

“I believe they’re going to have a kind of unique version of the car. But it’s not going to be radically different, it’s not going to be a GTE. I think they’re talking of an EVO kit. And they’ve already said we don’t want it to be super crazy expensive, between 50 and 100,000. So that is really the future.

“But in the meantime we think that the 007 with a little development, which we could do under the Jokers could be competitive until the hypercar thing is no more.

The final question on 007? You and I both aware there’s a lot of internet experts out therethat say this car is already at the peak of its potential performance.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, we have a lot more performance to come.

This was the first race we used brake by wire. It made a very big difference. We still need work to perfect it will make a very big difference.

“We are investigating a couple of things we could get. We could use much less fuel, which would be a big thing for us because we would be lighter in the initial stints.

“We can take substantial weight out of the car. We have parts already that, if we used them, would take a number of kilos out of the car.

“We haven’t run it yet that way, because we want to make sure that they’re completely durable for 24 hours. And the other thing is, so we could take weight, and we could run much more horsepower.

“I mean, we could run 900 endurance horsepower, until the cows come home, we didn’t change the engine after Aston disappeared.

“We’ve run this engine on the dyno at 1400 horsepower. So you know, in quality, I mean, we wouldn’t run 24 hours like that but there’s a lot more performance in this car.”

The post Jim Glickenhaus – On A Podium At Le Mans, The Rest Of 2023 – And Beyond first appeared on dailysportscar.com.
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