“Who knows where this world of ours is going to go? It’s changing, in front of our eyes.”
Glickenhaus has attracted a large number of followers with a disarmingly open and honest social media presence, showing pictures and videos of the Hypercar during every stage of its build and then continuing on in the same fashion with its race coverage.
The former film director believes he can see how the team’s open PR approach and attitude towards racing has garnered it fans, financial support and made its road cars a more attractive proposition.
“I think that all of our racing gives credibility to our road cars,” he comments. “Racing the Baja 1000 in Class Two and beating the factory Ford Bronco two years in a row sells our Glickenhaus Boot [SUV], racing at Le Mans sells our road-going Hypercar, though that’s not the top car in our business.
“The number of people that came up to me in Amelia Island [auction event] and said, ‘Jim, we’re rooting for you – you did so well at Le Mans last year, you better win this year, we’re gonna watch you in Sebring.’
“Listen, last year, we had 120 million people follow us on social. This year, we’re going to have well over 200 million people follow us on social media, and we bring fans to the race.
“We are going to have more sponsors this year than we had last year. We don’t have enough, but we will have more. And the reason we have them is because people know who we are, like following us and want to be a part of it.”
Last year the American outfit’s 007 Hypercars finished a solid yet distant fourth and fifth at Le Mans. Ahead of this weekend’s 2022 World Endurance Championship opener at Sebring, in which the team will enter just one car, Glickenhaus asserts that adjustments to the team’s double 007 Hypercar permitted by the FIA (crucially not one of the five joker upgrades allowed throughout the season), along with the ACO making adjustments to the Balance of Performance regulations, could build on that solid first La Sarthe showing.
“I thought it was terrific,” the B-movie mogul said of last year’s performance. “The cars were strong. They both finished, we sorted the issue that we had theoretically going into the race with the brakes, they lasted the entire 24 hours.