Upholding the Le Mans spirit of independents

Jim Glickenhaus doesn’t mind being called a privateer. In fact, he revels in that description and his underdog status. Yes, the American is a car manufacturer, or at least is well on the way to becoming a fully fledged one, but he’s in the tradition of a line of independents to take on the challenge of the Le Mans 24 Hours. The difference between his organisation and so many of the specialist builders that preceded him – think de Cadenet, WM and Panoz – is he’s pitching up with a genuine chance of victory. That’s what he thinks, and that’s what the new Le Mans Hypercar regulations were conceived to allow.

Glickenhaus Racing will be on the grid with a pair of new LMHs for the 89th running of the great race courtesy of those rules. They have facilitated the ambition of this retired film director with a handful of cult classics behind him to go to Le Mans with a car bearing his name, and to do it with much more than just a faint hope of winning. But for LMH, there would be no Glickenhaus-Pipo 007 LMHs competing at the Circuit de la Sarthe this month.

The new rules,