James Glickenhaus made big news when he decided to fire up his own racing team and start building cars. The resulting company is called Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus, and its current product is a race car called the SCG003. That will spawn a street version, and SCG is cooking up other vehicles as well. The one I’m most interested in at the moment? A modern take on an off-road legend known as the Baja Boot.


The Baja Boot is the brainchild of GM Engineer Vic Hickey. Using some of his own early designs for a Corvair-powered vehicle called the Trailblazer, Hickey created a machine capable of high speeds and true off-road prowess. The top speed was said to be around 140 miles per hour and the Boot boasted nine inches of wheel travel. Steve McQueen got wind of the Boot and wanted one for himself. Hickey and his team built the first Boot in just 30 days time.
After a few off-road races with minor mechanical failures, the Baja Boot wound up at the starting line of the very first Baja 500. In 1969, the Boot proved its worth and finished the race in first place overall. 

Glickenhaus is eyeing a revival of the Boot, but with modern design and engineering behind it. There’s no old-school Chevy small block here, but rather a 5.6-liter V8 that will crank out 650 horsepower. It gets more interesting from there…

The SCG team are going with a three-seat layout up front, with a central position for the driver. Yes, like a McLaren F1 but we’d wager the SCG Boot would be even more fun. The ultimate plan is to create a street-legal yet off-road-race ready beast of a machine, and offer it as a two or four door vehicle.
Of course, it’s going to be colossally expensive. According to Road & Track, the two door will start at $250,000 while the four-door starts at $275,000.
Regardless of the fact that I’ll never afford one, I can still be excited that someone wants to build one. It’s a supremely rad machine and we can’t wait to see the finished product.