t is the end of an era. For the first time since the early 1980s there won’t be a Saleen Mustang next year, hell, there won’t be a new one by the end of this summer. Revstone Industries, the company who now owns and operates the brand has decided to shift their focus onto building and creating high performance parts, not building whole cars. This decision is understandable as it had to be getting harder and harder to sell the cars in a crowded market being squeezed by tight financial times.
We’re whistfully nostalgic when thinking back on the Saleen name. Steve Saleen has not been involved with the company that bears his name since 2008, but the legacy of the name is sure strong with the 30-something generation. There was not more opined for, dreamed about, or drooled over version of the Fox Mustang in the 1980s and 1990s than the vaunted Saleen. Guys would glue the distinctive wings onto stocker GTs and try to pass them off as authentic. There was event the Saleen Explorer, Ranger, Focus, and of course the crazy S7 that had the suds and performance pedigree to hang with all the world’s best high end sports cars.
We’re sure that the Saleen name will live on with the parts line and if Revstone holds to their word in that the engineers that design and conceptualize the current crop of cars will remain in place to develop and refine the parts lines that are to come, some neat things could be on the horizon for the brand.
Over the long run of production, there were many variants of Mustang produced, but we’ll always default to the ones we craved as kids and those would be the Fox bodied cars that were stuffed with 351 power. The idea this guy had the audacity to yank the factory engine out of a brand new car, plop in a warmed up or supercharged 351 and then sell it through a normal Ford dealer really wowed us. Of course, there are about three hundred companies doing what Saleen started doing back in the day, now. They may be bigger, but none will be more special in the annals of Mustang history.
(Saleen Mustang Production to End This Summer)
.jpg "Saleen Mustang")
