Two years ago, American supercar manufacturer Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus announced it was building something wildly different to its regular brand of Nurburgring-slaying road race cars: the SGC Boot, a brick house of an off-road racer styled after the Baja Boot once raced by Steve McQueen.
The plan: take this 450-horse V8 SCG Boot monster down to race the Baja 1000, then take it on an insane tour of the planet's toughest driving challenges in 2020, attempting a new altitude record in the Andes, the Trans-Siberian Highway, the Road of Bones and a 53-mile crossing of the Bering Strait between Russia and Alaska using an amphibious setup and a pair of outboard motors.
Step one of this plan went smashingly; the SCG boot won the Class 2 category at the Baja 1000 in a year when only half the field even finished. The remainder looks like it might end up being yet another Covid casualty; now is no time for dashing intercontinental Boot adventures. But the Baja victory was no joke, and the day after the win, SCG sold half of its 2020 manufacturing capacity of Boots (which start at US$250k) in a single day.
Now, the company has announced it's planning a miniaturized version of the Boot for backyard spannerheads: a SCG 008 "Mini Boot," if you like, to be sold in kit car form. And boy is it a beauty. Where the regular Boot is a rough and ready desert bruiser, the mini Boot appears to take some design cues from SCG's supercar department, placing a body that looks a lot like a ruggedized SCG 004 three-seat road racer on top of a Baja-ready chassis.
The motor, which you'll have to buy separately, is a tad more humble than the looks might suggest. It's designed to take a 2.2-liter GM EcoTec crate motor, which'll run you less than three grand 'Murican and make a very reliable, unfussed 140 horses and 150 pound-feet (203 Nm) all day long. You'll also need a Sadev transaxle, in either 2WD or 4WD as suits your build.
The kit will include everything else you need to get going, including a street legal muffler and catalyzer kit capable of meeting all DOT registration criteria as a home built car at a significantly lower price point than anything else the company is making. It won't be sold as a complete car. SCG says it'll also be eligible for racing, aiming at Baja 1000 and Dakar regulations.
All that aside, can we just agree this will be one of the coolest looking cars on the road? A supercar shell with giant, chunky tires, lifted suspension, rally bars and lights and giant, chunky wheel arches might sound like a witch's brew on paper, but damn, that render looks like a teenage dream. Gorgeous!
Source: SCG Facebook
