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Scuderia Glickenhaus Hints at Offering Plug-and-Play Hydrogen Power Units

The Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus is one of the weirder presences on the automotive scene, and not just because of its name. No, that’s mostly because of its projects, which vary from super sports cars to hydrogen-powered Baja 1000 buggies.
Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus Zero Emission Hydrogen Fuel Cell Boot Pickup Concept 11 photos
Photo: Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus
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Speaking of hydrogen fuel cells, that seems to be the small carmaker’s main focus lately. Unlike most of the industry that seems to think batteries are the way forward, Scuderia Cameron Glickenhaus (SCG) is putting all its chips on hydrogen as the next environmentally friendly type of fuel. Well, at least they agree on the electric motor part.

Toyota and Honda, two long-standing promoters of FCEVs (fuel cell electric vehicles) have changed their tune lately and, even though there are still a few other big names that haven’t abandoned the technology completely, it does look as though it has taken a backseat behind the much more popular BEVs.

Well, SCG isn’t accepting that without a fight, and to prove that it has just introduced the plan for a fuel cell-powered pickup truck that’s loosely based on the Boot model – the vehicle designed for the Baja 1000 competition. Of course, at this point, it is little more than a collection of mainly red pixels, but James Glickenhaus, the founder of SCG, says the company hopes to start building the first prototype by the end of this year.

However, even if the SCG truck were to become reality, it would still most likely sell in very low volumes, which means a lot of potential customers would be left out. Upon hearing the announcement, one Twitter user (sventastic99) came up with what seemed like a crazy idea: “While you’re at it,” they wrote, “if you wouldn’t mind making a conversion kit so I can convert my Toyota Tacoma, both myself and about 500,000 other Tacoma owners will be most appreciative!

The answer you would expect to such a massage is a simple “hahaha”, but that’s not what SCG had in mind. Instead, it wrote this: “We can do that. We are considering to offer a plug and play unit. Pull engine. That space becomes a trunk. Sell engine. Put in our unit.”

They make that “pull, sell, replace” part sound so simple, but it really is anything but. Assuming SCG would be able to make the replacement unit (though they would have to be brand/mode-specific), installing it would be a massive undertaking and a far cry from “plug-and-play”. You need to house the motor (do you hook it to the old transmission or not?), the fuel cells, as well as the high-pressure hydrogen tank, which is not the kind of project you’d want to start your DIY career with.

If you ask us, the most important word in that tweet is “can”. SCG is essentially informing everyone of its abilities, but it says nothing about its intention of following through. In that case, sure, we have no reason to doubt it could do it. It won’t, because it would be madness, but it theoretically could. We just hope sventastic99 isn’t holding their breath about it.

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About the author: Vlad Mitrache
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"Boy meets car, boy loves car, boy gets journalism degree and starts job writing and editing at a car magazine" - 5/5. (Vlad Mitrache if he was a movie)
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