You’re looking at the ‘entry-level’ road car from Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus. It’s a carbon-chassis’d, carbon bodied mid-engined supercar with a 650hp bi-turbo V8, a tri-seat, McLaren F1-style cabin layout with a manual gearshift, and a base price of US$400k. Some base model…

A sizeable chunk of cash for a new supercar upstart, too. But consider this. The Ford GT cost more, is sold out, and that’s just about the only car we can think of that offers crazier road-going aero than this. Check out those flying buttresses. That whale-shark mouth. So perhaps the SCG004S is a bargain…

What’s more, Glickenhaus and co have proper, race-proven pedigree. You may remember James Glickenhaus was the man behind the Pininfarina P4/5, the stunning one-off homage to the P3 racer of the 1960s that stunned the car world in 2004. At the time, it seemed madness to tear up a Ferrari Enzo to build a retro-inspired special. Now it’s a design masterpiece.

Glickenhaus then applied elements of that design to a Ferrari F430 GT racing car, and built the P4/5C, which competed at the Nürburgring 24 Hours only 18 months after being conceived. And since 2015, the bespoke SCG003 has been competing at the N24 and even took pole in 2017, ahead of Porsche, Audi, BMW and Mercedes-AMG. SCG is not in the business of supercar vapourware.So, a bit more on the 004S, then. Not a pretty name, or a particularly pretty car, to some eyes in the TopGear.com office. The specs though? Cor blimey guv’nor.

Thanks to all-carbon construction, the car apparently weighs just 1,179kg – less than a suitcase more than the McLaren F1 with which the SCG004S shares its three-seat layout. Take the old McLaren 650S as a comparison (same power, similar chassis), and the SCG is around 250kg lighter. The twin-turbo V8’s 650hp and 720Nm ought to make short work of that. SCG claims a redline in the region of 8,200rpm.

There aren’t any speed claims yet: how quickly you go from 0-100 will depend on how handy you are at slotting gears in that open-gate 6spd manual. However, if you’re lazy and mad, (or without the use of limbs) SCG will build you a two-pedal, paddleshift model.

SCG says it expects to have running prototypes of its new US-built supercar by the middle of 2018, and deliver the first 25 ‘Founder Edition’ cars (Tesla tribute, anyone?) in 2019. The long-term plan is to be building 250 cars a year by 2021.

And in order to bring the SCG story full circle, Glickenhaus has plans to build GT3 and GTE/GTLM racing versions, with a view to one day competing at Le Mans. A racing version of a road car that’s made by a race team that started with a road car. Er, cool.

What say you, Internet? A worthy addition to the supercar fraternity? 

STORY Ollie Kew