Fancy a 1,400PS Glickenhaus road car?

Yes, Glickenhaus has run the numbers and they are as follows. If the project is to go ahead, there will need to be 24 buyers, parting with a cool £1.65m plus taxes each. For that, their SCG 007, so Glickenhaus predicts, will be legal for the UK, USA, Europe, Middle East or Japanese markets. It’ll have three seats, with the driver in the middle, commanding 1,400PS (1,030kW). It’s expected to weigh around 1,270kg, pack LMH racer-level aero and even air jacks, so you’re able to fit track wheels and suspension settings on the fly. The car will also have both track and road-biased traction, stability and ABS systems. Glickenhaus say it’ll be “able to drive up to the track, do 100 laps and drive home on road tires”.

So if you’re interested, when can you expect to get one? Well, an undisclosed deposit amount will secure you a spot. Glickenhaus expect deliveries to begin two years on from the receipt of 24 deposits, with 24 being the magic number to make it worthwhile. An upper limit to production is not specified. On the other hand, those deposits crucially are refundable if they don’t reach the 24 required. Since posting the option a couple of days ago, the company has one deposit for a car.

Why are they doing this? Well, James Glickenhaus is apart from the name behind this company, a distinguished car collector. He owns some incredible machinery, including a Ford Mk4 and a Ferrari P3/4 – priceless Le Mans sports racers from the ‘60s. He’s enjoyed covering many thousands of road miles in these cars, that in period were never designed for road use. He wants to be able to offer that racer-on-the-road experience again.

Is it really the first of this type in this many years? Well, in the 20 years of the LMP era, none have been produced in road-going specifications (understandably). No, the Porsche 911 GT1 and Mercedes CLK GTR that came previously don’t count. They weren’t quite the top-level, with prototype class cars sitting just above them in terms of pace and classification. What about the 962 Le Mans road car of the early 1990s? It’s a possible candidate, as is Porsche’s own 935 road-going one-off and the Count Rossi 917. Now we’re getting back to an era of cars that are easier to prepare for use on the road.

Glickenhaus claims seatbelts and treaded tyres were all that were needed to legally run a Ford Mk4 on the road. There’s much more to be done to get the 007 on the streets, that’s for sure...