Looks like that by luck I found the solution to the problem. I really don't like the glm documentation, was my understanding that glm doc was intentionally skinny since it matches corresponding glsl and glut. Anyway documentation is a mess.
doc v 0.92 doesnt specify what unit doto use, the gluPerspective uses degree, so that sthat's why I used degrees.
doc v0.94 says is degree but if you define a macro you can use rad. doc v0.97 looks finally much better and now only states radiants. To be honest I downloaded the repo a while ago so I don't know what version i have (i removed glm git folder from my own repo). So I checked directly the source code and found: /// @param fovy Specifies the field of view angle, in degrees, in the y direction. Expressed in radians.
Which I found it really confusing. Anyway: TL;DR , switched to radians in glm::perspective all good.
Cheers
M.