Tag Archives: Saleen

Automotive News

RACE-CAR DRIVER MAKES NAME BULKING UP MUSCLE CARS

By: CHRIS WOODYARD on June 11, 2007
Original Article: USA TODAY

Saleen Rolled Love Of Speed Into Company

IRVINE, Calif. — Among auto enthusiasts, the name Saleen carries a certain mystique — whether applied to the man or the company he founded.

Steve Saleen is the automotive Midas who turned Ford Mustangs and F-150 pickups into high-performance gold. He also produced the $580,000 Saleen S7, a worthy American-built rival to Ferrari and Lamborghini.

A race-car driver, Saleen decided 23 years ago that he could make a business out of installing racing components in Mustangs to create road rockets with a sizable boost in horsepower, road-gripping thrills and in-your-face looks.

From its start on the family dining room table, the privately held company known simply as Saleen has grown to nearly 400 employees. The company says it has about $100 million in annual sales.

After seeing it through more than two decades of growth, Steve Saleen sold the business to Hancock Park Associates, a private investment group, in 2003. He continued as vice chairman until May. Last week, Steve Saleen announced that he will be CEO of ZX Automobile of North America. A subsidiary of China America Cooperative Automotive (Chamco), it plans to bring Chinese vehicles to the USA.

He isn’t abandoning his namesake company. He says he’ll continue to support Saleen, including consulting on new products.

The company is now in the hands of CEO Dan Reiner, who wants to broaden Saleen’s customer base beyond Ford to include other automakers and projects.

Though they may have disagreed at times, Reiner says, Saleen has been a worthy partner as “the heart and soul of the company.” They share a common passion: “He likes to go fast, and so do I.”

Steve Saleen, 56, grew up in Whittier, a Los Angeles suburb. The son of the founder of a pet-food company, he earned a business degree at the University of Southern California. He worked for his dad, but his love was cars and racing.

While he was driving a Pontiac Trans Ams on General Motors’ racing team in the early 1980s, he noticed the slow-poke Mustangs. “Mustang has been one of the iconic cars of all time,” he says, but “We were beating Ford on the track.”

He switched to racing Fords and worked to make his own Mustang more competitive on the track. Other enthusiasts took notice and soon were asking Saleen for help. A business was born.

In 1984, Saleen sat down with his wife, Liz, in their dining room and figured out how to start the business with little debt. “I focused on cash flow,” he says. “If you were able to get a little bit of credit and turned the product fast enough and were paid on a (cash-on-delivery) basis, you could get a business up and running in a short time.”

He started with a single blue-and-white prototype Saleen Mustang, which he showed off at a race. His first plant began operation with five workers.

Over the years, the business hit some rough spots. One crisis came in the late 1980s when Ford considered stopping production of the Mustang in favor of the now-defunct Probe, a decision it rescinded. Another crisis came in the early 1990s, when the auto industry hit the doldrums. Saleen borrowed money and added some investors.

He credits his racing background with helping him grow Saleen: “The lessons learned and speed and accuracy apply to business.”

Saleen’s cars are known worldwide for pure, hard-driven American muscle. “Steven Saleen is one of the quietest influences in the exotic-car marketplace,” says Tom duPont, publisher of the duPont Registry listings of collectible cars. “He is so subtle and low-key, and his cars are just the opposite.”

Jim Julow, president of the Sports Car Club of America, says Saleens draw respect on the track. “Their reputation overall is very good.”

The product line today includes:
• Mustang. They come in three versions — hot, hotter and hottest. Or more accurately, 335, 465 and 550 horsepower, a big improvement on the stock version’s 300.

The hottest, called the S281 Extreme Mustang, has more content added by Saleen in Irvine than when it comes off Ford’s production line, the company boasts. The $70,999 car is repainted in Saleen’s own colors.

Saleen buys the cars from Ford, customizes them, then fills orders from about 200 Saleen-authorized dealers. “We are dramatically changing the DNA of the car,” Steve Saleen says.

Besides its own Mustang line, the company also makes a Saleen/Parnelli Jones Limited Edition. It’s a throwback to the 1970 Boss 302 that won races for Jones, complete with orange paint and broad black racing stripes on each side. The dashboard is signed by Saleen and Jones.

• S7. Customizing other automakers’ cars wasn’t enough. In 2000, Saleen embarked on building its own supercar. “We wanted to build the fastest, highest-performing car in the world,” Steve Saleen says. The resulting S7 blazes from zero to 60 in 2.8 seconds.

Each S7 takes about six weeks to build. The S7’s engine, sitting behind the driver, is so big that there’s no rearview mirror. Instead, a video display pops open that shows the view from a camera embedded in the rear of the car. The driver’s seat is molded to uniquely fit its owner.

The car has become a star. Jim Carrey drove one in the movie Bruce Almighty. So did bachelor Andy Baldwin in this season’s run of TV’s The Bachelor. The S7 also is racking up successes on the European racing circuit, setting a track record at the 24 hours of Le Mans race in 2001.

• F-150. The S331 Supercharged, a $53,999 Ford F-150 pickup, is so powerful that Saleen says it can beat a stock Mustang GT around a track and still tow up to 9,500 pounds.

Next will be Saleen-powered version of Ford’s already customized Harley-Davidson F-150.

To play up the brand’s exclusivity, all Saleen Fords have their vehicle’s sequential production number painted prominently on the bumper. That’s a big hit with buyers. “We’ve had customers who have had their numbers tattooed on them,” says Billy Tally, who was chief technical officer at Saleen. Tally will join Steve Saleen at ZX Automotive as CTO.

In keeping with CEO Reiner’s plan to broaden the product line, Saleen just landed a contract painting the next generation of Dodge Viper, its first contract unrelated to Ford. And it’s in the process of trying to acquire ACS, a small automotive supplier that pioneered installations of sunroofs and also does contract work.

Timing of the moves couldn’t be better, Reiner says, because of how the automotive industry is moving in an age of mass customization. The goal is to become a small manufacturer nimble enough to meet the needs of buyers who want cars tailored just for them. Saleen is suited to make limited-production runs of 500 to 1,000 vehicles at a time, which isn’t economically feasible for a big automaker.

Despite outside owners, the business has remained a Saleen family affair. Son Clint, 35, is controller, while Sean, 34, is in sales, and Molly, 23, manages Saleen’s nearby mall store that sells everything from racing jackets to cars.

Steve Saleen says his new job will take him “from one extreme to the other” as ZX will work at bringing entry-level Chinese cars to the USA.

Looking back, he credits intense focus for growing his first business.

“Don’t lose your dream,” he says. “Everything takes twice as long, twice as much money,” as you would expect. “But if you believe in what you’re doing and work at it and have the tenacity, you can figure out a way to make it work.”

Product Review

S331: SALEEN SOLUTION

By: MARK VAUGHN on June 11, 2007
Original Article: AUTOWEEK, VOL. 57 ISSUE 24

After decades of Mustangs, Saleen discovers the truck

Saleen made its reputation in Mustangs, producing tens of thousands of them in the more than 20 years of the company’s existence. Mustangs are fine things to make, since everyone loves to go fast. But when you look at the numbers, Ford sold only 166,000 Mustangs last year while moving almost 800,000 F-series pickups.

Now, we ain’t necessarily math wizards, but it appears there are more truck customers than Mustang buyers. This occurred to Steve Saleen, too, and he made the S331, Saleen’s first large-scale custom truck. (He did a production run of 50 Ranger pickups for homologation purposes in his wild SCCA truck-racing days in 1987. “Of all the racing I’ve done, the trucks were by far the most fun,” Saleen said.)

The S331 has everything you’d expect of a Saleen: a big fat supercharger underhood, big fat wheels and tires in the wheel wells and big fat aerodynamic add-ons over the rest of it.

The aero stuff is solid injection-molded plastic and includes about every edge of the truck-grille, skirts and rear spoiler, to name three. The hood is aluminum and includes a hole for “heat extraction.” Saleen engineers say the heat extractor hole works.

Air goes to a two-stage intercooler on the S331 Supercharged model from a 2.3-liter screw-type compressor. The screws are from Lysholm, but Saleen designed the rest. The air makes just one bend before feeding into the blower, located in the valley of the V, and then into the intake runners. Because the flow is so smooth, temperatures stay lower, and the whole thing needs only 5.5 psi of boost to bring power to 450 hp and torque up to 500 lb-ft. The normally aspirated S331 three-valve model still gets 325 hp and 380 lb-ft with bigger injectors, better airflow, custom accessory pulleys and a reflashed chip.

All that power stays on the road with a customized suspension-lower springs in front and Sachs shocks at all corners. Those are 23-inch forged wheels in the wells, bigger than even those on the out-of-production Dodge Ram SRT10, which has 22s.

There are two brake choices on the S331: 13.0-inch front and 13.7-inch rear vented discs or 15-inch slotted and vented rotors with six-piston calipers front and stock rear binders. The rear wheels are staggered offset to give the back end a wider, more stable stance.

Yes, there are kits from Roush that make 445 hp, and you could buy one of the last SRT10s on dealer lots to make similar power. The difference, Saleen says, is that his rig can haul as well as haul. We rode along in an S331 towing a Baja 26 Outlaw powerboat that, together with its tri-axle trailer, weighed about 7000 pounds. The S331 didn’t flinch.

The next day, we took the same truck to the Saleen Driving Experience, an autocross setup designed to teach new Saleen drivers the intricacies of proper car control. Again, the S331 felt fun, or as much autocross fun as may ever be possible in a 5500-pound, leaf-spring-rear truck. It was certainly more fun than a stock F-150 could provide.

Cost ranges from about $54,000 to $64,000. Again, we ain’t good at math, but that’s a lot of money. The Roush Stage 3 is about $56,000. The SRT10 is/was $45,000. Saleen has a deep cadre of loyalists, though, many of whom need or want trucks.

“The potential market for this is more than what we do with Mustang,” said Saleen. “Our dealers said three-quarters of their sales are trucks, so it made sense.”

Press Release

SALEEN SIGNS ON AS TITLE SPONSOR OF AMERICA’S LARGEST ROAD RALLY

“THE GREAT AMERICAN RUN”
~ Winner Takes Home a New Saleen S281 “Extreme” ~

IRVINE, CALIF. – Saleen Inc., manufacturer of the world’s fastest production car – the Saleen S7 – today announced it will be sponsoring the world’s largest road rally: “The Great AmericanRun.” This event marks the state-side arrival of Europe’s most famous road rally taking place July 29 – August 4, 2007. To celebrate the inaugural U.S. rally, Saleen Inc. has been commissioned by Cannonball Run World Events, Inc. (CRWE) to uniquely modify 25 stock Saleen S281 “Extreme” Mustangs with an additional 50 horsepower (aftermarket upgrade*), and identical black-on-black paint and graphics packages. CRWE has reserved one of the modified 600 horsepower “Extremes” for the winner of the event.

On July 29, 2007, 400 cars will start from four originating cities: Washington D.C., New York, Atlanta and Miami, to embark on a 3000 mile coast-to-coast free-for-all. Each night, entrants will enjoy luxury hotel accommodations at four star hotels and extravagant parties. Each of the cars will ultimately regroup in Las Vegas, where the remaining drivers will gather for the final leg of the rally to Los Angeles for the event’s award ceremony and track day at the historic Willow Springs Raceway.

“Saleen is proud to support an event of this magnitude that brings together all types of enthusiasts and all types of performance cars – foreign and domestic – in a fun and safe environment,” said Steve Saleen, founder of Saleen Inc. “Our mission is not just about building the highest performance cars in the world, but also about building opportunities for car enthusiasts to share great experiences with each other. The Great American Run will be an experience enthusiasts will talk about for years to come.”

CRWE is well known for developing safe and fun events with a track record of seven successful rallies. In fact, the object of the rally is not who can reach the final destination first, but rather who can most closely attain an average speed of 61 mph over the 3000 mile route.

“Safety is paramount to this event, and in the previous five years and seven events held in Europe, we have never had a serious accident,” said Tim Porter, chief executive officer of Cannonball Run World Events. “We believe that this is due to the way we police our events with very strict rules. The object is to complete the course with an average speed at or below the national speed limit, rather than racing to be the first car to arrive.”

25 “EXTREME” CARS FOR RALLY ENTRANTS

The 2007 Saleen S281 “Extreme” is quickly becoming known as the world’s fastest production Mustang. With 550 horsepower, 525 lb-ft of torque, Saleen’s patented Racecraft suspension, close-ratio six-speed transmission, 4:10 rear gearing with a Maxgrip differential, high-flow cooling system, 15” slotted and vented disc brake system, and numerous additional internal and external performance enhancements; the “Extreme” rivals all competitors in the high-performance sports car world, including the Chevrolet Corvette Z06, Ferrari 430, Porsche 911 Carrera and the Dodge Viper SRT-10.

For the “Great American Run,” CRWE will be commissioning Saleen, Inc. to modify 25 stock Saleen S281 “Extremes” and having them converted to 600 horsepower, with aftermarket options available soon through the Saleen SpeedLab®. CRWE has named this exclusive collection of cars “The Ultimate Bad Boy Edition” and will only make them available to race entrants.

The 550 horsepower Saleen S281 “Extreme” is currently available for purchase at “The Saleen Store” and Saleen Certified Dealers for those not participating in the event. Visit www.saleen.com for further product and dealer information.

Saleen S281 Extreme “Ultimate Bad Boy Edition” vehicles are all equipped the same:

2007 Black Saleen S281 Extreme
Aftermarket options include:

  • Forged 5-spoke, one-piece wheels (painted black)
  • 50 Horsepower upgrade* – VOIDS WARRANTY (Aftermarket option available mid-year 2007 as a Saleen SpeedLab product)
  • Numbered gold plaque (provided by CRWE) (Buyers may add upgrades – i.e. scenic roof, tires, stereo system, etc.)
  • Official “Great American Run decals (provided by CRWE)

For more information regarding “The Great American Run” or Cannonball Run World Events, please contact 1-800-619-8593 or visit cannonballworld.com.

ABOUT SALEEN

Since the company’s inception in 1984, Saleen has produced over 12,000 complete and EPAcertified vehicles, more than any other specialty automobile manufacturer. In addition, Saleen has equipped more than 600,000 vehicles worldwide, further emphasizing their commitment to excellence.

A nine-time Manufacturers’ Champion in GT sports car racing, Saleen manufactures the American super car — the Saleen S7, as well as the S281 Mustang, S331 Sport Truck and the Saleen/Parnelli Jones Limited Edition Mustang. Saleen’s manufacturing facilities are located in Irvine, California and Troy, Michigan. The Michigan facility has just completed all paint and assembly of the Ford GT as a special project for Ford Motor Company.

* Horsepower upgrades are only available on an aftermarket basis and void the manufacturer’s warranty on the vehicle. Customer is responsible for all emission compliance on any aftermarket powertrain modifications. The 550 horsepower Saleen Extreme is fully emissions compliant. Saleen makes no representation as to the emissions compliance of any vehicles modified by CRWE.

Enthusiast News

RACER AND CAR BUILDER STEVE SALEEN RESIGNS

Racer and Car Builder Steve Saleen Resigns from the Company that Bears His Name

May 15, 2007

More than 23 years ago, Steve Saleen founded a modest company that would produce specialty Mustangs much like those of Carroll Shelby before him — improving on the popular platform that Ford provided and creating a unique brand based on racing heritage and an exclusive image offering handling and performance and style. The slogan would be appropo — Power in the Hands of a Few.

Cheers to you, Steve — and to the vision you’ve had for the Pony Cars and Super Cars that you’ve brought to us over the years — and for those rolling works of art that hopefully you will continue to inspire in the future!

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Press Release

STEVE SALEEN RETIRES FROM SALEEN INC.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

STEVE SALEEN RETIRES FROM SALEEN INC.
~Saleen Continues Legacy as the “Go-To” Brand for OEM Performance Projects~

IRVINE, CALIF., MAY 14, 2007 – Steve Saleen, founder and vice chairman of the board at Saleen Inc., today announced his official retirement from the company’s executive team. After years of planning, Mr. Saleen will take a greater step back from the company’s day-to-day operations to act as corporate spokesperson and ambassador for the brand.

“I have a vested interest in the company’s future and intend to remain involved,” said Steve Saleen. “I take great pride in knowing I have assembled a team of the most talented and innovative professionals in the industry. Each person at Saleen has helped me achieve my dream and will help to continue my legacy into the next generation of Saleen products and
services.”

As founder and a major shareholder in the company, Mr. Saleen will continue to influence product design and development activities, as well as its branding strategies and promotional efforts.

OEM PROJECTS
Saleen Inc. has experienced tremendous growth in the past few years, producing nearly 5,000 vehicles in 2006 alone. Future manufacturing plans include multiple vehicle lines of Ford-derived vehicles (Saleen S281, Heritage and S331 Sport Trucks), as well as the S7 Twin Turbo, the world’s fastest production car. After tremendous successes in the design and production of the Ford GT for Ford Motor Company, Saleen Inc. will soon announce new original equipment manufacturer (OEM) programs with both Ford Motor Company and DaimlerChrysler to begin in spring 2007.

“Saleen has become a name synonymous with performance,” said Dan Reiner, chairman of Saleen Inc. “It makes a lot of sense to let Steve take on an auxiliary role to maintain his vision and continue building the world’s greatest performance products. Steve’s many years of hard work have provided a great foundation for the company in the automotive industry, propelling the company beyond Saleen-branded products to become an industry leader in the performance category.”

ABOUT SALEEN
Since the company’s inception in 1984, Saleen has produced over 12,000 complete and EPA-certified vehicles, more than any other specialty automobile manufacturer. In addition, Saleen has equipped more than 600,000 vehicles worldwide, further emphasizing their capabilities and commitment to excellence.

A nine-time Manufacturers’ Champion in GT sports car racing, Saleen manufactures the American super car — the Saleen S7, as well as the S281 Mustang, S331 Sport Truck and the Saleen/Parnelli Jones Limited Edition Mustang. Saleen’s manufacturing facilities are located in Irvine, California and Troy, Michigan. The Michigan facility has just completed all paint and assembly of the Ford GT as a special project for Ford Motor Company.

Saleen Media Bureau
(949) 597-4900
pr@saleen.com

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Enthusiast News

ASC FILES CHAPTER 11, AWAITS SALEEN

By: High Gear Media Staff on May 4, 2007
Original Article: HIGHGEARMEDIA.COM

The company that invented the modern sunroof has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, but company officials argue that the roof is half open, rather than half closed, what with ASC Inc. ready to be sold to the same private investment company that owns the high-performance specialty car manufacturer, Saleen.

ASC, based in the Detroit suburb of Southgate , has petitioned the courts to let it shed sizable assets and restructure debt incurred during its own, abortive push into the production of specialty vehicles. That included the Chevrolet SSR, a high-performance pickup truck ASC produced for several years on behalf of the General Motors division.

Barring a last-minute hitch, ASC expects to emerge from bankruptcy by mid-summer, with its remaining assets being sold to Hancock Park Associates, a private equity investment firm founded in 1986, which now owns Saleen, Inc., of Irvine, Calif.

“It’s terribly frustrating,” ASC President Paul Wilbur said of the bankruptcy, but referring to the impending sale, he told TheCarConnection.com that, “I think there’s a rosier future for this company.”

There’s little doubt that times have been rough for the Detroit supplier, formerly known as American Sunroof Corp. since the death of its founder, Heinz Prechter, in 2001. His widow, Waltraud, sold the firm to Questor Management Co., which shifted focus from sunroofs to low-volume vehicles, like SSR, a decision that also prompted the name change, which is short for American Specialty Cars.

Initially, things looked solid. The move away from sunroofs was no surprise, as they’d become little more than a commodity product, not the premium business Prechter envisioned when the German immigrant started out in Los Angeles , working from a two-car garage.

Detroit makers, as well as their import competitors, had been seeking ways to connect with consumers, and with the U.S. new car market increasingly fragmented, there seemed a tremendous opportunity to produce low-volume, high-margin specialty vehicles, such as the SSR and the Dodge Viper, a sports car for which ASC provided key pieces.

But the specialty niche hasn’t taken off as well as expected, and after an initial surge in sales off the SSR – which Wilbur says “took off hotter than anyone could have expected” – demand cooled quickly, Chevy pulling the plug on production. Compounding the crisis, the Viper’s big V-10 failed to meet government certification, forcing what has so far been a nine-month delay of the sports car.

With lots of ideas but no other immediate projects to replace the SSR and Viper, ASC lost roughly three-quarters of its business. Seeking a way out of the crisis, Wilbur and his senior management team, which includes former Ford Motor Co. product development chief Chris Theodore, began exploring a sale with a number of potential partners.

That included Hancock Park which, said Wilbur, pressed for a bankruptcy before completing a deal. That’s not entirely unusual, these days, added the Michigan executive. “Bankruptcy is becoming a financial strategy when you buy companies. You’re looking at the assets that create customer value and get rid of the assets that don’t make sense.”

In the case of ASC, that means cleaning up a balance sheet showing $31.2 million of total assets and $50.8 million of total liabilities.

ASC has already closed four manufacturing plants, in Livonia, Lansing and Gibraltar, Michigan, as well as in Bowling Green, Ky. , and three more engineering centers, eliminating 1000 jobs in the process. A technical center in Lansing will now be closed, as well.

According to Wilbur, “about 90 percent” of the remaining ASC workforce, approximately 250 employees, will remain on the job if the deal with Hancock Park wins final approval of the bankruptcy judge. Notably, that includes current ASC executives such as Wilbur and Theodore.

Under the law, ASC must still go through a formal auction process, likely to happen in the next 60 days or so. A new bidder could still enter the process, but in legal parlance, it would need to come up with a “better and higher bid.” Not only would it have to come up with more money, but also with a deal that would prove better, in the long run, for ASC, its debtors and employees.

Exactly what will come of the proposed partnership between ASC and Hancock’s Saleen division isn’t clear. The California-based firm produces the S7 supercar, as well as a high-performance version of such mainstream products as the Ford GT. Wilbur suggested there are plans in development which could result in several projects, possibly including both future niche vehicles and aftermarket performance products.

Asked for specifics, he demurred, insisting, “it’s too early to disclose them.”

What’s significant, Wilbur insisted, is that ASC will survive – at least in a slimmed-down form, anyway, once it works its way through the Chapter 11 process.

[Source: High Gear Media]

Lifestyle

WILD HORSES: YOUR MUSTANG SHORT OF GIDDYAP? ANDERSON FORD-MERCURY WILL PUT SOME SPRING IN ITS STEP

By: TONY REID on April 26, 2007
Original Article: HERALD & REVIEW (DECATUR, IL)

Apr. 26–CLINTON — On the face of it, the Anderson Ford-Mercury dealership in Clinton looks just like your typical car place.

Families come there to shop for their next kid-mover, whether it be a car or van. Working guys buy trucks they need for the job. Would-be owners peer at the window labels, carefully reading the EPA city/highway mileage figures, looking for whatever will give them the most motivation for their buck.

And then there is the sub-section of Anderson customers who couldn’t care less about any of that nonsense. They want potent Mustangs, and they have often ridden many miles — from places like Colorado and Nebraska — to corral their craving at this little dealership with a growing reputation for stabling potent ponies.

We’re talking of a breed of modified Mustang that sells itself with a direct appeal to the driver’s central nervous system. The cars have been reworked by specialist companies such as Saleen of California, for example, which offers Mustangs with tweaked engines, suspensions, interiors and bodywork and has promotional literature that reads like this:

“? Because this is one 335 horsepower beast you can’t break. It was bred to run. Born to be wild. And you have no choice but to set it free. Once you do, you’ll realize that no matter what the title and registration say, you don’t own this car. It owns you, the road, and everyone on it.”

Not exactly your typical Ford family sedan happy speak. And special edition Mustangs can cost up to twice what typical production line versions sell for and are aimed squarely at those motivated by passion and the means to indulge it.

“Most of these customers are not 18- or 25-year-old kids,” said Randy Anderson, the dealership general manager and owner. “They are doctors, lawyers; they are bankers. They are people who years ago wanted a fast car and couldn’t afford it. But now they can.”

So, while fleeting youth may have fled long ago, it’s never too late to gallop after it. Anderson Ford-Mercury has all the means necessary for hot pursuit with a Mustang lineup that includes those cars tricked out by Saleen and a Michigan firm called Roush. And then there are the muscle Mustangs produced by Ford itself, which include the Shelby Cobra version — a factory rocket packing 500 horsepower.

“We’ve sold seven of them this year,” said Randy. “The average dealer might only get one, but because of what we do in Mustangs, even though we’re a small Ford dealer, we’re a top Mustang dealer and we get a bigger cut of the pie. We’ve sold cars to customers in New York, New Jersey, Colorado, all over the place — 50 percent of the cars we sell are to customers outside of Illinois who are drawn by our reputation.”

Still feel a need for more speed? Randy’s brother Rick has a wagonload of goodies waiting over in the Anderson Ford Motorsport division, which he runs. A life-long racing enthusiast, he has developed his own line of go-faster Mustang products ranging from radically modified air and supercharger intake systems to camshafts and even a hand-held computer that lets drivers custom-tune their cars.

The dealership sponsors some very successful Mustang race cars, which earn lots of specialist racing press coverage and win the dealership’s products more fans throughout the nation and all over the world. “Kuwait is one of our biggest foreign customers,” said Rick. “We do a lot with them.”

They sell to both race enthusiasts burning up the quarter mile and regular owners who like to occasionally unwind their potent street cars at the track. The performance cars and parts business is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, and the motorsports division fields maybe 1,000 customer enquiries a month. It also ships out a constant stream of mail order parts, while its own service bays are kept busy fitting performance equipment for owners who show up in person, often having driven hundreds of miles for the privilege.

As Rick and Randy speak, a Shelby Cobra convertible is hooked up to a Dyno machine (a kind of rolling road for the wheels while engine performance is monitored by computer.) This limited edition street-legal Mustang costs about $70,000, and the owner immediately wheeled it over to the motorsport section for Rick to modify. By the time the maestro has performed his laying on of hands, the stock 500 horsepower will have been stepped up to about 600.

During a demonstration, the supercharged engine fires into life, roars for a while and then gets punched into what sounds like the equivalent of automotive warp speed with a jet-like whine that seems to come from inside your head before it’s shut off and the computer numbers checked. Rick says the car probably just did the equivalent of 140 mph while standing still and won’t let you down at the local race track.

“Oh, it’s got enough horsepower to go 190 mph,” he says, matter-of-factly.

Enthusiast News

SPEED TV: “THE AMERICA’S SUPERCAR”

Our friends at Saleen sent the following announcement:

“The America’s Supercar” – Speed TV
Debuts Saturday April 7th 8:00pm E/T
Repeats Sunday April 8th 2:30pm E/T, Monday April 9th 2:00pm E/T and Saturday April 14th 4:00pm E/T

This special features the creation of the Saleen S7 Supercar. It follows the S7 from the drawing board, through wind tunnel to testing the prototype in Wales, and to the assembly line in Irvine where race cars and street cars are built side by side. This not to be missed special will also feature the story of an automotive pioneer, Steve Saleen, who built an uncompromising car whose sole purpose was to beat the world?s best car.

SPEED TV: The American Supercar
http://www.speedtv.com/programs/495

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