Priming git clone with a local repo?

Hi, dear listers,

I'm wondering if there is (or will be) a way of doing almost

  git clone --reference localrepo host:canonrep

Basically, I don't want the implications of --reference but still the performance advantages of reusing local objects/pack files. I probably have to go and first do a

  git clone -s -n localrepo canonrepo

and then go into canonrepo, fix up the remote, fetch, and properly reset the local branch. Is there an easier way of doing a --reference-but-hardlink-objects-instead-of-setting-alternate within git? Or implementing it?

Andreas