Saleen Power Trifecta

Steve Saleen is quiet and soft spoken with a look that’s anything but high performance. Accountant is more like it; maybe secondary school math teacher.

He’s a numbers man for sure. His placid looks are as deceiving as the cars that roll out of his shop in Southern California.

Saleen will produce about 600 performance cars this year, but today we’re focused on only 30 pearl white cars: 10 Camaros, 10 Mustangs and 10 Challengers that celebrate Saleen’s 30th year of survival.

While Hyundai, Toyota and Honda in the nearby hall at the Los Angeles Motor Show talk about hydrogen technology and zero emission and zero noise outputs, Saleen has never strayed from his desire to create power and decibels that say all you need to know.

“Each one of these 30 anniversary cars produces more than 600 horsepower (441kW),” a point of fact he claims along with pricing of $95,000.

His idea of performance doesn’t stop with the installation of a supercharger and a retrimmed interior. He’s matter of fact in saying, “Everything we do is functional.”
Look closely and you’ll see subtle design changes to the front and rear fascia that add length, more than several inches, to improve aerodynamics.

“We do a lot of CFD (computational fluid dynamics) analysis of the design and back up our CFD with wind tunnel testing,” he says.

Ceremonial colours for this 30th shindig are appropriate Tire Smoke pearl white with patches of Speedlab yellow and black across the front guards. Yellow is repeated on the large front multi-piston brake calipers.

“I still enjoy doing the suspension tuning,” he says, and talks about how important steering feel and response are to the overall Saleen philosophy of performance.

Thirty years ago Steve Saleen made a few bucks as a racing driver. The track work expanded to doing development work, which then gave Saleen, like Shelby, the confidence to start his own brand.

Two options are available. A rear-seat delete option using custom formed panels to separate the cabin from the trunk area. Without the rear seat, there’s access between the rear shock towers for a cross brace.

The second option is a frost-touch panoramic roof that flicks instantly from clear to opaque with the touch of a button. This technology is integrated into the panoramic roof and rear window glass to allow the user to diffuse the light in both areas independently.

These 30 anniversary cars are left-hand drive only, but Saleen is already mentally planning to build a few right-hand drive Mustangs for New Zealand and possibly Australia based on the next-generation Mustang.