THE MAN TAKING ON TOYOTA

FACTORY BACKING? WHERE JIM GLICKENHAUS IS GOING HE DOESN’T NEED MANUFACTURER MONEY

-  GARY WATKINS

JIM GLICKENHAUS USED to be best known as a film director, producer and writer. The Exterminator, the 1980 cult vigilante movie, is probably his most famous flick. These days, however, he’s more prominent as the vocal boss of a fledgling sports car company with a big social media profile only matched by its aspirations on the race track. He’s campaigning in the FIA World Endurance Championship to take on the might of Toyota from this year, Peugeot perhaps as early as next season, and then Ferrari, Porsche, Alpina, BMW and Audi from 2023. And he thinks he can win.

The New Yorker, who turned 71 in July, is a self-confessed car and racing nut with a collection of vehicles significant in size and historical importance. That was the starting point of his dream to race at Le Mans, which he fulfilled with a pair of Hypercarsbearing his name and built with his money taking part in this year’s running.

The next step is to win.

The road to the Glickenhaus- Pipo 007 LMH - to give the Le Mans racer designed and developed in Italy its full name - has by his own admission been long and winding. There was “never a conscious plan,” insists Glickenhaus. Rather, his aspirations “grew organically”. But the seed of the idea to race at Le Mans was there almost from the moment he took the first step towards becoming a constructor.