Saleen SA10 Details

As Burger King said, “Have it Your Way!”

In July of 1993 Saleen Performance announced to the members of the Saleen Owners and Enthusiasts Club (SOEC) that there would be an opportunity of a lifetime. The chance to own one of ten anniversary cars that would be produced to celebrate ten years of Saleen building and racing Mustangs. The cars, as Steve Saleen said, “combine something old and something new”. The cars would be based on the P41 chassis that Ford produced from 1979-1993. The Mustang hatchback was the foundation for the first Saleen’s produced in 1984. So ten cars were ordered from Ford with consecutive vehicle identification numbers. The cars would be numbered one through eleven. Saleen didn’t use the number six so that number was skipped and not used.

Ten Cars – Nine Built.

Saleen ordered ten black with black interior, five speed, 5.0 LX hatchbacks that would be transformed into custom one of one 10th anniversary vehicles. The VIN’s were consecutive. For example; if car number one had a cumulative unit number of 100001 then number eleven would be 100010. Remember the number six was skipped. The cars were built by Ford in the middle of July 1993 and delivered to Saleen later that month. They would be built during the 1994 model year even though they were a 1993 Mustang.

Production began late in the fall of 1993 on car number one. Orders slowly trickled in and each person worked through their desired options with Steve. A deposit was put on car number four and it was slated to be built. Before the individual could go through the options with Steve, they had to back out and get their deposit back. The car would never be built because for whatever reason Saleen didn’t have another buyer step forward to fill the slot. Number four, as I call her, would be sold in March of 1994. At this point I don’t know if Saleen or a dealer sold her or who the original owner was. This is part of the puzzle I’m still piecing together. Hopefully I’ll have more details as time goes on.

So nine cars were built to be Saleen SA10 models. Numbers 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11. To find out what options are on the cars you have to 1. be REALLY good friends with a person who owns one or 2. own one of the cars yourself. The reason is that the build sheet for each car has the detailed information of the options the original owner wanted. Each car is that custom where there is no “standard” option list for them. Even in The Saleen Book it says “see build sheet” in the options column.

There are eight cars left. Number seven was stolen in the mid 1990’s a short time after the owner took delivery of the car. The other eight cars are still around and well cared for.

SA10.. Options? What is what?

The “base” Saleen SA10 was a factory supercharged Saleen with many “Saleen SC” upgrades. The upgrades on the SA10 over the factory supercharged Saleen inlcuded, but weren’t limited to, 200mph “grey” face gauges, Recaro leather seats, SC roll bar, rear shock tower brace, K frame brace, strut tower brace, Saleen bolt in subframe connectors, carbon fiber vented cowl hood, Stern three piece wheels and upgraded front brakes seen in the pic to the right. The rest was standard Saleen aerodynamic ground effects package, wing, and suspension.

Each car was taken from that package and upgraded to the owners taste and was only limited to the imagination or wallet. The Saleen Performance Parts catalog was the option list. It was filled with a myriad of parts such as Edelbrock aluminum heads, “tri-ladder” subframes, aluminum driveshaft, headers, roll cages, transmissions, and balanced and blueprinted short blocks to name just a few.

Each car is a 1 of 1 with options because of this. Some buyers upgraded the motors, some did interior upgrades but the one thing that they couldn’t change is that all of the cars had to look the same on the exterior. That is the one constant in all of the cars. When they are parked next to each other you can’t tell one from the other. Except for a couple having different seat options you really can’t tell which one is which without lifting the hood or looking at the bumper number.

So what options will Number Four get??? Stay tuned to the blog and you’ll find out. I have a Saleen catalog that I am using to design my options for the car. I’ll post pics of the catalog as I get the parts.