God, the S7 was such a masterpiece. It’s really horrible it wasn’t as well known when it was new. It’s my go-to vehicle to mention when someone tells me “America never made a decent supercar”, followed closely by Vector’s W8
It really wasn't though. They had horrible build quality, squeaked and rattled like an old Ford Escort and had reliability issues abound. But they looked and sounded cool and had a good amount of HP, which was the supercar recipe back then.
This is probably the craziest and most rare car I’ve ever seen in person. I was at my local skatepark and one of the other kids’ dad pulled up in a yellow S7. It was so random
@Carl Gunderson really? A car that made less than 600 hp. Has a mclaren f1 rivaling top speed. Acceleration that's on par with most hypercars of today. And that's not even the twin turbo....so explain why its not a hypercar.
I've always been a gearhead and ever since I was a kid and I saw this car in Bruce Almighty of all places, I've never forgotten about it. Shout out to Turn 10, the team behind all the Forza games for including one-offs like this in many of their games
I find the car tricky to get right in Forza, but maybe that's a combination of the game's physics and my driving style, and not the 1000HP, unrestricted NASCAR block in the back that provides near endless acceleration. I can't seem to get it to turn in like a race car, even though it has every possible upgrade to make it work.
Gran Turismo 4 had it in its roster years before Forza Motorsport... But Saleen it's not the only American car manufacturer that became legend thanks to videogames. Think of Panoz and its Esperante GT1 , gorgeous looking car and a very good performer too in endurance races.
@@halofreak1990 lower the ride height at the front and change the toe in and camber on the front slightly , might give you a bit less understeer. But you are fighting a very long car.
Fun Fact: because the Saleen S7 can generate more than its own weight in downforce at 160mph, it is theorized (and physically very possible) that it could drive upside down in a tunnel and stick to the roof past 160mph
The Salerno s7 is such a beautiful car my first time seeing one was in fast furious 2 it’s been one of my dream cars since everything about it was thought out it’s just a masterpiece
I will always remember the S7 I was a kid growing up when this car came out, and even though I knew nothing about cars, I thought it was so cool to have an super car built in America. This video made me think, what they could have become if they stayed around.
@UCqzKw5znkTSpIgMbX3J6eqw well if that makes you click off the video then you really need some better hobbies cause that in it self in pathetic. And the fact that it made you click off kind of shows what kind of person you are. Extremely boring and need to get a life. Not everything has to be perfect. Seriously find a different platform for this strange behaviour. You’d fit right in on twitter.
@@takeastandorbeenslavedby-left hey not critiquing honestly sounds pretty cool tbf. But what does this have to do with my comment. Thanks for sharing tho bet you had a lot fun working on those Beasts
When you steal the design from someone else and make a worse version of it, calling it a work of art shows your quality level and expressing it i public is bad, when you should do it in the toilet. You must have been very young at that time, if you liked the S7 and didn't know about the F1 it stole and being a cheap copycat of.
It's weird how the most legendary things come in so hot and quickly disappear, sometimes. Literally insane that they built this car with no intercooler! I built an N54 to just shy of 600rwhp and by no means would that be possible without an upgraded intercooler. Insane, and this was 15 years ago, too.
Maybe because in reality they were never a legend to begin with. In reality theres quite many cool looking supercars from 80's, 90's and early 2000's that look cool on poster but in reality are not a good cars. Theres too many people who look some dry numbers on paper and think that if one car has 500HP and other has 600HP then the latter is automatically a better car. But in reality thats not the case. There is a reason why nobody gave a shit about Saleen, why nobody gave a shit about so called Venom GT or Ultimate Aero SSC. The reason is simple - those people with enough money to actually buy them have test driven them and found out that they are just shitty cars with big numbers on paper.
@@brudel001Agreed. Where are the actual real life figures and achievements about this and the cars by Vector? The McLaren F1 is a true legend. Some people act like this is on the same level. The only verifiable videos about this car are from Super Speeder Rob, who said it was the worst car in his rental inventory and Doug De Muro, who couldn't even fit in it to drive it. Not the most glowing praises.
I remember being able to see one of these in person at a supercar consignment dealership in SoCal in 2014. I was at one of the nearby shops and saw them bring in the S7 and went to go look at it. It was sick and sold within two days of being on the lot. Always wondered what happened to Saleen as I always saw their Mustangs all over SoCal. They used to have regular street drag races near their HQ and would pay to have the roads repaved constantly. It was a super cool spot for car people that knew about it.
I wouldn't say that. It just sounds like you had a tuner company full of gearheads try to break into the big leagues but they didn't leverage it well enough into marketing and sales
Another one was the Joss JT1 that only showed up once in Forza Motorsport 4. An Aussie supercar that was on every leaderboard yet never got off the ground afterwards in real life.
This is the saddest story in Motorsports. I remember as a kid seeing this in road and track. It’s been my favorite car ever since. I never could understand why it was a failure. In my mind it had everything one could want in a super car. Gorgeous looks, great handling, crazy power to weight ratio, ridiculous top speed……
Marketing is a huge thing when trying to capture the market of rich people (which are the core target of bespoke supercars). This is why companies like Aston Martin and Ferrari keep boasting about their racing heritage in order to remind people. I think the biggest problem is that only car guys seem to even know what Saleen is these days.
The one I was in, the doors didn't line-up and there were witness marks where they were hitting the body in the wrong spots, the wrap on the headers was poorly applied and was fraying everywhere etc., so for the price point....welllllll......
@@revolutionday1 well I’ll take that at face value but it may have had to do with money and manpower? I believe Saleen built the 05 Ford GTs for Ford and I’ve never seen a bad review of that cars build quality 🤷♂️
It was VERY expensive in comparison to other super cars. This thing was 500k in the mid 2000's. Twenty years later the Ford GT is selling for the same price as an S7.
why it didn't sell well? you ever sat in one? it's the most undriveable hypercar of it's relative class/time. it's a wonderful racing car. and absolutely gorgeous. but my word god bless you if you had the patience & money to maintain it to the point of driving it regularly. none of that relevant to how great this video was. great series idea mate keep it up
Under rated forgotten cars. When I hear this I automatically think of the vector w8, dodge m4s turbo interceptor, Callaway c7, Hennessey 1000 venom viper.
Three automotive channels did a deep dive documentary on the F1 around the same time, however no one has done a in depth dive on the S7, unfortunately forgotten legend is an apt title. Can't wait till the next essay!
Well the making of a Picasso is a little bit more interesting then your 3 year olds first fingerpainting………they were expensive sportcars around the same time but that’s were every comparison ends
@@Mark-vn7et except for your painting analogy is asinine. Both cars were revolutionary, the F1 was the first car to use a fully carbon fiber chassis while the S7 was the first one to be designed entirely in CAD. Also, the S7 won multiple, MULTIPLE races and series’ during its production run beating other super cars with better technology and resources. That’s the art equivalent of my first finger painting being more valuable than Picasso, Rembrandt and DaVinci and beating them in multiple competitions. A better art analogy would of been Picasso vs Basquiat. One had backing from major influential institutions, while the other was know to a handful of people in the industry and had to earn it the hard way.
@@VinceroAlpha bragging about entirely being made in CAD doesn’t make it special. It makes it cost efficient. Almost every car manufacturer used CAD long before that period, but they also realized that something on a computer screen doesn’t always work in real life. A great example of this IS the saleen, it might look great on a computer screen but almost no grown person could fit in it in real life. If the didn’t design it all in CAD they would have found that out really quickly in the early stages of development. What I am saying is that there is a reason why 3 channels made an in-depth video about the F1 and not about the saleen. It’s just not that special in those parts of the automotive world. One Is a car made to perfection and the other one is a tuned up engine with a big bodykit
@@Mark-vn7et it’s the same type of “bragging” that the F1 was bragging about being made from carbon fiber when other manufacturers have been doing for years before F1. But the F1 pushed the development of Carbon Fiber in road cars by a giant leap. Which is the same thing for the S7 and CAD. CAD wasn’t as extensively used as it was before the S7. It moved the technology forward the same way Mclaren did with carbon fiber. You’re also ignoring other variables for the F1 being more well known. It was and is exotic in every sense of the term. Development, materials, passenger configuration, drivetrain and heritage of the company that built it. But upstarts don’t have the same capabilities as established brands. They also won’t get the same level of notoriety as established brands unless they go crazy with their cars. (Pagani and Koenigsegg are great examples of this) Saleen is a company focused more on function rather than design and why you don’t hear about other brands without the flash or pedigree (Panoz, Noble and Weissman). Keep in mind that Saleen was a specialty tuner first and a car manufacturer second which makes the S7 wins all the more impressive seeing as how it was their first car. Finally it wasn’t long before the F1’s reign came to an end. Mercedes’ CLKGTR, Porsche’s GT1 came later TROUNCED the F1, then the Maserati MC12 came and beat those cars. I should also mention that the MC12 is literally built on chassis of another car that never raced! Perfection is the end all be all and meaning no car would ever beat it, the metrics for are usually in terms of build quality and performance. But in actuality, it was surpassed in just a few short years by the competition. The S7 may seem like a car with a “body kit” compared to the F1, but if that’s the S7’s competition and it’s able to compete with it as well as other competitors, then it maybe time to reevaluate the concept of “perfection.”
Easily my favorite car of all time. I got to sit in one in Chicago when I was maybe 12, and it started my love of cars. Thank you to the employee that was super chill wherever you are
You left out the most important reason as to why it didn't sell, it wasn't because it was as expensive as the ENZO or didn't have the Ferrari prestige, its because it just isn't a good road car. The lack of inter-coolers meant the engine would over heat during normal road driving, the speedometer was difficult to see, the pedals were too close together forcing drivers to use racing shoes to drive the car and the brakes were horrible. Overall driving this car on normal streets wasn't a good experience, that's what killed it. VinWiki did a story on this, it doesn't even make for a good rental car, renters hated the car and opted for something else. The S7 was an excellent race car and nice to look at but it was a terrible road car. The other manufacturers made better more usable road cars. You need to do a better job researching.
What a beautiful story, the analogy of David against the Goliath is perfect, and to add to that, David himself had a Goliath of an idea and concept which resulted in a deadly accurate execution, it's a shame people pick a badge over what a car is, hope saleen does something again if they can.
Unfortunately that is the nature of what sells cars is prestige behind the name. Ferrari does a lot of work behind pushing their image through formula 1 and merchandising. Everything they do is calculated and strategic. Heck even well known brand names sometimes have trouble moving bespoke units like Ford with the GT let alone a single tuning company building their own car.
In my honest opinion I first thought of this car as next line of GT40s and thought was mase by Factory5. What introduced me to the S7 = Bruce Almighty & Midnight Club 3 Dubedition.
Was always a fan of this car since first seeing it in video games as a kid. It's a shame that it wasn't as successful off the track as it was on the track.
Thanks for making these videos. I like that you dip into the engineering aspects of the cars without going full in-depth. I also like that you guys talked about it and don't sound monotone and boring. Keep up the good work. Also if you want any ideas of vehicles that are forgotten gems let me know. That's what I have an addiction to.
Just learned 2 things. The TT wasn't intercooled & boost psi was nothing 5-8 psi. That's insane because all boosted cars now go over that. Till this day a dream car. Just wished you'd go over the one off Saleens like the one in front of its headquarters.
I saw a race version at my local track in late 2000s. When it passes like 30 meters away on a medium/slow corner, the ground was shaking a bit. Really impressive car.
Things that killed the Saleen S7 Twin turbo on the supercar market: 1. Extremely tight foot space (some 20 centimeters narrower on each side than its main competitors) and difficult ingress/egress; 2. Generally uncomfortable, impractical and uninspiring, cheap-looking interior with basic spare parts; 3. No proper sound insulation, hence the loud noise inside the cabin; 4. Quite high price compared to the well-established brands at the time. Also, it's not true that this car was fully designed in 3d CAD with no scale models. In fact, multiple scale models were used in wind tunnels to test and adjust the drag coefficient and downforce during the development. Fun fact: This is the first sports car whose body is designed with Rhinoceros.
As a kid I remember some time in the 2000s seen a car whom I thought looked like the batmobile a sparkly burgundy purple color the most beautiful car I had ever seen. I saw that car for like 2 minutes and was amazed. It took almost 15 years before finding out it was a Selene S7. It still amazes me how beautiful that car is 😊
@337 SPEED Your lack of bias and your sticktoitedness on the factoids is really impressive. Just found your channel and really enjoy it. The folks commenting seem to be on track with you, no insults or one-upmanship that I have seen so far. Very nice. Sub.
To be fair, they invested everything into performance, but didn't look much into ergonomics or user friendliness. Doug Demuro couldn't even drive it in his review because he didn't fit. That's a pretty major oversight
its been interesting watching your channel change and grow over the years. Cant help but miss the old videos of you and your bro with the blue trans-am
The disservice that was done to this car by pushing it aside due to the lack of brand name, is the same way I feel about Genesis models today, I would IMMEDIATELY get a new G90 over a current gen S-Klasse, even being fully aware it's not on the same level. It comes so damn close that I could justify the money for "just a Hyundai"
The S7 was one of my favorites back in the day. It sucks there was never enough recognition for it. But even if I may never own one, I'm glad that Steve Saleen managed to bring it to life, nonetheless.
Even Bruce Almighty himself couldn't boost sales enough to save it. Awesome car this, and to get it made from scratch as a first from a mod tuner. Big respect 👍
Had a friend that owned a turbo, that he won at Barret Jackson. I'll never forget when he called me and asked "is a S7 a good car?", I said yes. He said good, because I'm bidding on one. Lol It's an amazing machine up close and I did get the chance to drive it. We were at a CC meet in the DMV area and as we were leaving, he asked if I wanted to drive it. I said sure and proceeded to leave the meet. I drove about a mile down a 35mph tight road and pulled into a neighborhood and said you can drive. It was very difficult to see out of, field of vision is limited and it is very wide and long. I told him that if we do a track day together I'd drive it then. It really is meant for a track, imo. Beautiful piece of machinery and it had history.
This wasn't the first car designed with CAD software, that was the Nissan 300zx (Z32) which was designed 14 years earlier (and released 11 years earlier)
The claim wasn't that it was the first to use CAD. The claim was that it was "The first production car to be completely developed on the computer without a full-sized model ever being made."
Absolutely love the videos you make, great detail and info as always. Was wondering if you could make a video on the history of the rotary engine sometime
I had a friend who was an engineer at Saleen when they were building the S7 and interfaced with the race teams. He told me how they were building magnificent cars, but management was seriously lacking. For example. the big reason that the Saleen Mustangs were so expensive (mid to late 2000's) is because they were paying consumer retail prices for Mustang GTs.
That's not surprising. Unless you have an in-house deal with Ford (or any company for that matter), the only way you're gonna get discount pricing for your vehicles is buying in bulk, and for custom tuned cars, the numbers just don't make sense to buy in bulk. This is true for many tuning houses, which is why they either need to have high volume money makers (usually by selling individual parts kits), or they get an in-house deal (which companies like Roush and Callaway had). Saleen, aside from providing the paint jobs for the Ford GT, didn't have that with their Mustangs, and once Shelby reconnected with Ford, it was pretty much the end of Saleen.
Steve Saleen knew that a recession was coming because he had been through one in the late '80s early '90s when he had to sell off his accessory Department. So if you bought a Steve Saleen spoiler for your Mustang to make it look like a Saleen from Steve Saleen, Steve Saleen wasn't getting the money the company that he sold that off to was. So Steve Saleen should have seen the writing on the wall especially when Saleen/ Allen racing parted ways and scaled back things before his company was taken away from him.. the S7 is a badass ride that will probably never see the notoriety it deserves and yes it's probably Steve saleen's fault but hey you know what they say hindsight's 20/20
I fell in love with the S7 when I first saw it in videos & pictures …it’s a bitter sweet ending because Although I would’ve liked it to succeed , I’m kinda glad it didn’t have a successor because how amazing it looks, IMO.
You forgot to mention it was an Aston Martin abandoned project, then Reeves Callaway had the chance to build it but would ultimately pass on it to Steve Saleen, who took it but never payed for the design.
A twin turbo non intercooled system is crazy. But, they made due with what they had and made something unbound. You don't have to be a big car company to make a car like this.
