After five years of gestation, development, and crash tests for global homologation, Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus is ready to begin customer deliveries of the 004CS this month. Conceived and developed as a GT3 racer that was then turned into a road car, the New England car company worked with Italy’s Podium Advanced Technologies honing the race version to do well at the Nurburgring. SCG namesake James Glickenhaus took the final ESC calibration prototype to the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este and talked to Road & Track about what’s ahead. In the immediate future, the Danbury, Connecticut factory expects to have 25 hand-built cars in customer hands by the end of the year, the three-trim lineup starting at $483,000.
There’s the standard road-legal 004S — the only one that can be had with a six-speed manual transmission, the road-and-track 004CS, and the track-only 004C. The first two are powered by a supercharged GM 6.2-liter V8 in 650- or 750-horse tune. The track car drops the supercharger, taking it down to 520 hp in endurance racing trim, but that can be upped to 600 horses if the sanctioning body allows. SCG hasn’t disturbed the small block with insanely complicated engineering, R&T summarizing the SCG philosophy in a way that would make any DIY enthusiast weep: “Glickenhaus believes the moment you’re no longer able to get a supercharged Chevy small-block fixed at the local mechanic, the world as we know it would have ended anyway, and your car wouldn’t matter much.”
The other side of that garagiste credo is hardcore racing performance. Despite a software bug, crashes, and errant holes in some parts, the SCG004C finished last weekend’s Nürburgring 24 Hours race in 12th place overall — and first in its class. The four drivers finished just a lap down on the race-winning Audi Sport Team Phoenix R8 LMS GT3 Evo, same as every runner from seventh to 14th, keeping company with much bigger teams like Falken Motorsports with their Porsche 911 GT3R and Mercedes-AMG Team Bilstein in an AMG GT3.
Despite the team’s entry in the World Endurance Championship, SCG might opt to narrow its focus to the ‘Ring event and Baja, where its off-roaders romp. James Glickenhaus is dubious about how much return on investment the WEC provides, where the disparity between top teams and smaller entries is much larger. “The only question is what we’re going to do going forward with the WEC and what we’re going to do going forward with our hydrogen pickup truck,” he said, in reference to the Baja Boot. “It’s dependent on the capital raise we are in the process of trying to finalize.”