“America’s Original Hypercar”? Really? I’ll stick with that statement. Look, Cobras and Corvettes and radical, winged Chrysler products nonwithstanding, a hypercar has to be so over-the-top and bombastic that nobody can come up with a downside to one besides “it’s expensive”, and in that regard, the Saleen S7 fits the bill. It’s got looks that would look right at home parked next to a McLaren F1 or a Mercedes CLK-GTR and it has a surprisingly old-school soundtrack courtesy of a Windsor small-block bored and stroked to 427 cubic inches. It looks semi-Italian with enough strakes on the side to emulate a shark and it sounds like a Trans Am racer from 1971, naturally aspirated and all, and that noise stands out even more with the other machines making laps at the Nurburgring’s Grand Prix circuit for the Oldtimer Grand Prix event. There’s shrieking, there’s screaming, and then there’s the all-American bass notes that come barking with authority out of the back of the racing version of the car seen in Bruce Almighty. Question Steve Saleen’s judgement calls in the past as you will, but at least credit him where it’s due…the S7 is a killer attempt at a world-class monster and the S7-R is a track weapon.
