Glickenhaus might not roll off the tongue like Pagani. It might not sound as exotic as Koenigsegg. But Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus, or SCG for short, Jim Glickenhaus's plucky, New York-based race team and supercar company, is easily in the same league as these boutique hypercar makers.

"You go to Koenigsegg for wild engineering, Pagani for works of art," Glickenhaus tells me. "You come to us for race cars you can drive on the road."

SCG has been running its 003 race car at the 24 Hours of the Nurburgring since 2015. Last year, we rode in the 003CS—for "Competizione Stradale"—Glickenhaus's first road-legal car. Glickenhaus designed it to be a car that you could drive to the track, swap in a homologated race engine, race it, swap back, and drive home. It's more of a race car you can drive on the road, not a road car you can drive on the track.

DW Burnett/Puppyknuckles

The white car here is the first pre-production prototype of the 003S, for "Stradale," Jim's full-on road car with no concessions for sanctioned racing. It has a mid-mounted 4.4 liter BMW V8 pushing somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 horsepower. It weighs around 2700 pounds. And it's aquatic.



"I think it looks like a shark," Jim says as the 003S disappears out of sight on Monticello Motor Club's challenging full course.



He has a point. Jim's newest creation is styled with both flowing lines and sharp angles. It looks great on a track but would be at home in a remake of The Spy Who Loved Me, flying off a pier in Sardinia to transform into a submarine and thwart Carl Stromberg.

DW Burnett/Puppyknuckles

SCG isn't at Monticello to set lap times, much less develop a sub for a British secret agent. The team isn't here to go for a record or to push its newest car. Today's testing is an integral part of development for the 003S; the entire engineering team is developing traction control and ABS for the road car. You might think this is a piece of cake, since SCG has so much motorsports experience at the Nurburgring 24.

Not quite.

Calibrating these systems for the road, and particularly road tires, is different than doing it for slicks. Your grip levels and tolerances change. You have to account for drivers who aren't pros, varied weather conditions and temperatures, pavement that isn't up to the quality of a race track. It's a lot of work.

The 003S (white) along with the more hardcore 003CS. DW Burnett/Puppyknuckles

SCG isn't a huge company. It doesn't have the resources of the larger hypercar makers. That doesn't mean it'll cut corners. The entire approach to development is organized, methodical, and focused on real-world testing. Today, SCG's pro driver, Thomas Mutsch, takes the car out in one-to-two-lap test stints, and then brings it back in to debrief with engineer Luca Ciancetti and his team. Each run results in minor changes, some steps forward, some steps back. It's fascinating to observe. It's better to be a part of it. A few hours in, Jim asks Thomas to take me for a lap around the track.

The first thing you notice once inside the 003S is that the interior doesn't leave much space. The cockpit will take you back to college, when a twin bed in the dorm was all the room you had. You better really like the person next to you. Those close quarters thankfully don't hamper visibility. The windshield and windows wrap around to form a canopy. When you're inside, it doesn't feel like you're trapped.

DW Burnett/Puppyknuckles

There's not usually much you can learn from a single lap as a passenger, especially when you're terrified. Mutsch, a supremely talented, race-winning driver with massive experience in SCG's cars, has never been to Monticello before this day. I should have confidence in him, but I'm the world's worst passenger. Most of the hot lap is spent holding my breath with eyes wider than dinner plates, occasionally putting my hands on the dash when we're braking far later than I think should be possible. Because that'd help me.

The speeds this thing can hit are immense, which is what happens when you have a car that weighs around 2700 pounds and has about 700 horsepower. The turbos make the BMW V8 sound like a Group B rally car. And at 160 mph, it feels like it's just starting to pull.

I didn't just come to ride in the car. Jim wants me to drive it. He's quick to emphasize that the car isn't finished, that his team is still working flat out on the car.

DW Burnett/Puppyknuckles

If there's just one person in the car, it's not cramped at all. It wraps around you. Even though there are mirrors, the center screen is flanked by two smaller screens linked to rear-view cameras. It's the system they use on the race car, Jim tells me, so they left it in place on the street model. There's no airbag on the motorsport-style steering wheel. Glickenhaus isn't required to have one, since it's a low-volume manufacturer. Paddles control the Cima seven-speed, single clutch gearbox. Ciancetti tells me a dual-clutch was too heavy for the application.

I drove the car for two laps. There are caveats. Jim drove the car to the track that morning, so I wasn't going to do anything that wouldn't let him get home. The car is worth more than everything that's ever been in my life, so the consequences of a mistake were rattling around in my brain. The ABS was working well, but the traction control was still finicky. It was recommended I be cautious on corner exit, since 700 horsepower through street tires can be a handful.

Even driven fairly slowly, this car is a riot. It's the rare supercar that doesn't need to be driven flat out to be fun. Somehow, a car that can run a 6:33 at the Nurburgring in race trim is also fun when it's cautiously hustled around Monticello. It's mind boggling.

The author putt putting around the track. DW Burnett/Puppyknuckles

And it doesn't even feel like it needs that much more work. Sure, traction control would be nice, but it's not necessary. If you don't treat the throttle like you're mashing grapes, the 003S is predictable and progressive. Even though I'm told this car has some understeer built in, it must be a near placebo amount. The front end is quick and connected, with a pointed, direct turn-in. The tail will rotate when provoked, but feels neutral otherwise.

The gearbox, which is yet to be finalized, is a bit slow to respond to inputs, but that calibration will come in time. The ABS, also still in development, works without a hitch. And then there's the aero.

DW Burnett/Puppyknuckles

Since this is essentially a race car with road tires, there is actual aero. Tangible aero, working aero. It's how Mutsch was able to brake so late and take corners so quickly. Mechanical grip is easy to understand. You can see and feel it. Not the same with aero. It varies based on the air, which is harder to put your mind around. You need to trust something you can't see. It's a mental leap that's tough to make.

I can't quite make it. I'm too much of a chicken in my two laps to get close to Mutsch's braking points or cornering speeds. But the capability is there. So many manufacturers brag about track-readiness, but here's SCG making a road car out of a race car that runs at the Nurburgring 24, and keeping it as true to the original as possible.

DW Burnett/Puppyknuckles

As I'm talking to Jim in the paddock, he motions towards a kit car on pitlane. Glickenhaus doesn't have kind words for it, intimating that you take your life into your hands if you drive one. Jim's SCG003 might not be done quite yet, but it doesn't feel like a deathtrap. It has better build quality than some automakers that have been in business for decades. It's also better to drive, even in this development phase, than products from supercar makers that have been around long enough to celebrate meaningful anniversaries. It's why Glickenhaus keeps getting orders without having built a customer car. It's why his cars are the buzz of the Nurburgring. It's why people lined the garage all day, trying to find out more about the man and his company.

When the 003S enters production, people will be saying Glickenhaus in the same breath as Koenigsegg and Pagani. And it won't sound odd.

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