Glickenhaus SCG 003

Scope of this guide

This guide is scoped to the Glickenhaus SCG 003S, the road-legal "stradale" version of the Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus SCG 003 with its 4.4L BMW twin-turbo V8 petrol engine, about 750 bhp, rear-wheel drive and a mid-engine, two-seat carbon-fibre layout. It is not a guide to the SCG 003C competition car, which is a track racer with a 3.5 litre twin-turbo V6, nor to the one-off SCG 003CS that Jim Glickenhaus kept for himself, nor to the later SCG 004 or the SCG 007 Le Mans hypercar. The catalogue stores the category as track-only, which is how the platform started life, but the figures stored against this entry are the road car's, so that is the car we describe. Where a source mixes the road and race cars, we say so.

We have not driven this model for this article. Everything here comes from three cited sources: designboom's report of 24 February 2017, which repeats the maker's claims for the 003S, PistonHeads' report of 21 February 2017 on the Nurburgring target, and the government recall checker. We also read Jalopnik (11 October 2016), evo (20 February 2017), PistonHeads' Geneva 2015 report, Podium Engineering's race reports, a dealer listing, auto-data.net and Wikipedia, and we flag every point that rests on them. Sources disagree on several numbers, and we say where. Prices are history, not valuations.

The figures at a glance

• Engine: 4.4L BMW twin-turbo V8 petrol, a reverse-flow design with dry-sump lubrication according to a dealer listing, mounted behind the cabin. Sources give 4.4 litres; the catalogue stores 4395 cc, a figure none of our sources prints.
• Power: 750 bhp. Designboom's release-based report says "in excess of 750 horsepower". PistonHeads and a gtspirit report say 800 hp, evo says 789 bhp at 7000 rpm, and the dealer listing says 700 hp at the rear wheels. We use 750 bhp because it is the maker's claimed minimum and matches the catalogue.
• Torque: 800 Nm. Wikipedia and auto-data.net print 800 Nm (590 lb ft). PistonHeads and evo print 627 lb ft at 5900 rpm, which converts to roughly 850 Nm, so the later figures are higher.
• 0-100 km/h: 3.0 seconds. The maker's claim is "less than three seconds" for 0-100 km/h (and "under 2.9 seconds" to 60 mph in preliminary material we saw only in summary), so 3.0 seconds is a rounded ceiling, not a measurement. The catalogue's stored 2.97 seconds appears in none of our sources.
• Top speed: 350 km/h, from the claim of "in excess of 350 km/h" (over 217 mph). The dealer listing says above 230 mph. The stored 351 km/h is not in our sources either, and none of these is a measured top speed.
• Drive: rear-wheel drive with the engine behind the driver. Wikipedia lists a 7-speed CIMA dual-clutch gearbox while PistonHeads and evo call it a seven-speed sequential with a single clutch, so check the gearbox on any car you view.
• Weight: about 1,300 kg (2,866 lb), from Wikipedia and auto-data.net. PistonHeads gives only the monocoque weight, 105 kg.

Which SCG 003 is this?

Cameron Glickenhaus first showed the SCG 003 at the 2015 Geneva show as a pair, the Competizione and the Stradale. PistonHeads' report of 27 February 2015 gave only the racer's details, a heavily revised Honda 3.5 litre twin-turbo V6 with 530 hp, 516 lb ft and 1,350 kg, and said the road car would also use a twin-turbo V6 "of some description". That road car never appeared in that form. In October 2016 the company announced the 003S with a 4.4 litre twin-turbo V8, and the production car was shown at Geneva in March 2017. So 2015 is the reveal year of the platform, not the start of the car in this guide. Our notes record 2017 as the start year for the 003S, and the catalogue's 2015 should be read as the programme start.

The engine question

The catalogue says BMW, and the dealer listing agrees ("4.4-liter BMW twin-turbo"). Wikipedia names it as a reverse-flow version of BMW's S63 V8. A German Motor1 report attributed the engine to Honda, and a Chinese-language report attributed it to Paolo Garella's firm; both look like confusion with the race car or the builder, and we found no maker page that settles it. The maker's own site is now a private, password-protected page, and the old scg003project.com press pages that search results still list return 404, with the domain now carrying unrelated content, so there is no live manufacturer specification to cite. That is why our first source is a press report that repeats the maker's release.

Why the quoted power varies

The 750 bhp headline is a preliminary claim. Different outlets quoted 750, 789 and 800 hp for the same car within a week of each other in February 2017, and a dealer listing says 700 hp at the rear wheels, which suggests a different measuring point from the crank figures, although the listing does not explain it. We cannot say which is right for a given car, and a buyer should ask for a dyno sheet and the build specification. Torque has the same spread: 800 Nm in one set of sources and about 850 Nm in another.

Build, price and numbers

Manifattura Automobili Torino hand-builds the 003S in Turin, according to designboom and PistonHeads, and sells it to order in limited numbers. PistonHeads said in February 2017 that a price had not been confirmed. A dealer listing later showed a starting price of 1,578,000 euros with an optional carbon body at 115,000 dollars, and press from the period quoted figures around 2 million dollars. All of those are history, not a current price. We found no source that states how many 003S cars have been built, so the catalogue's null production count stands. Wikipedia says the company's US low-volume manufacturer status was approved in July 2017, allowing up to 325 cars a year; that is a legal ceiling on sales, not a build count.

Racing background and what it means

The race car's results are the 003C's, not the road car's. Podium Engineering and Jalopnik put the first 003C at 35th overall in the 2015 Nurburgring 24 Hours after penalties, belt failures and a final push to the line. Designboom says the race car won its class that year, which Podium's overview does not support, so treat that claim with care. The 003C took pole in the 2017 top-30 shootout, according to a search summary we did not open in full, and it won the SP-X class in 2019 as the only entry, finishing 8th overall according to Podium. None of that tells you how a road 003S will wear. The road car shares the platform idea and the Nurburgring ambition, not the engine, gearbox or components of the race car.

What to check before buying

• Confirm that the car is a 003S and not a 003C, a 003CS or a race-converted car, and ask for the VIN and build sheet.
• Ask for the engine specification and a dyno result, given the 700 to 800 hp spread in published claims.
• Ask which gearbox is fitted and for its service history.
• Check how the car is registered and whether it can be used on the road where you live. The dealer listing described it as compliant with US low-volume rules and legal in at least 49 states, which says nothing about UK or EU registration.
• Inspect the carbon bodywork, the wooden skid layer under the front splitter and the lifters for damage, since the car sits very low.
• Request records from the builder, Manifattura Automobili Torino, and from any former owner, including track use.
• Get an independent inspection by a specialist who knows carbon-monocoque cars, because there is no ordinary dealer network.

Recalls and the DVSA check

We did not run the government checker, because we are not looking at a specific car. The page says a car with a registration number can be checked on the MOT history service for outstanding safety recalls, and that a car without one can be searched by manufacturer, model and year. It says non-safety recalls are not covered and come from the manufacturer directly. A hand-built, low-volume car built in Italy and certified under US low-volume rules may not appear on this checker at all, and an absence of results is not a clean bill of health. We found no recall notice for the 003S in any source. For a US-market car, ask the builder whether any US safety recall or service bulletin applies.

About the photograph

The picture at the top of this page shows a 2021 SCG 003S in carbon and gold at the 2021 Greenwich Concours d'Elegance, taken by Mr.choppers and used under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons, cropped and resized. It is a road-car body, so it shows the right shape, but we do not know its specification and we do not claim its engine matches any figure above.

Verdict

The 003S in this guide is a claimed 750 bhp, 800 Nm, under three seconds to 100 km/h and above 350 km/h, rear-wheel drive and mid-engine, built by hand in Turin in very small numbers. It is a road-legal version of a racing project rather than a conventional supercar, and its paperwork matters more than its headline figures. Every number we quote is a claim from 2016 to 2017, the maker no longer publishes a specification we could cite, and the sources do not agree on power, torque, gearbox or start year. If you are shopping for one, ask for the build sheet and a dyno result, confirm registration rules, and get a specialist inspection. We have not driven it, so use the sources and a proper inspection to decide.