Saleen S7 Twin Turbo
Ask a car nut to spin a globe and pick out the sources of the world’s supercars, and his finger is unlikely to point to Orange County, Calif., where flash-frozen traffic makes a 200-mile-an-hour car seem especially over the top.
Yet nestled among the malls and office parks of Irvine, a small, specialized factory is handcrafting one of the world’s fastest, rarest and priciest automobiles: the Saleen S7 Twin Turbo, a $585,000, 750-horsepower sports car that can reach not just 200 m.p.h., but 250 — faster than most racecars.
This American psycho is designed to take on European supercars like the $1.2 million Bugatti Veyron 16.4. And with roughly 25 Saleens built and sold worldwide each year, an owner is assured of exclusive rights not only at the country club, but possibly in an entire country. (Mexico’s sole owner ships his S7 to Monte Carlo for the summer).
Combine feathery weight with 750 horsepower — optional upgrades raise the horsepower to 850 or 1,000 — and you have a car that challenges the Bugatti for the world’s-fastest title. The missile launch to 60 m.p.h. takes barely three seconds.
But the Saleen is a drill instructor, not some New Age personal trainer. There are no air bags, antilock brakes or stability control. (The low-volume car received an exemption from federal air bag rules.) The S7 indeed felt like a racer, with a heavy twin-disc clutch, go-kart steering, indescribable grip and such volatile power that it takes patience to safely extract the performance.
Certainly on public roads, most any driver will go roughly as fast, and in greater comfort, in a less-costly exotic car. Lacking a racetrack to play on, or a police-free planet, the Saleen defies logic. (Many owners do race or track-test their Saleens, though that voids the warranty).
Of course, squashing logic flat is precisely the point of the Saleen S7 and its equally uncompromising owners. I’d say more power to them, but clearly they have enough.
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