Past due notice; Where are those Saleen S7s, anyway?(Brief Article)

When we put the Saleen S7 on our cover (AW, Sept. 25, 2000), Steve Saleen told us the cars would be ready for delivery by ``the second quarter of 2001.'' Now, here it is a week away from 2002. Has anyone seen an S7 driving down any city street? No they haven't, not unless that city street was bordered in concrete and fence to masquerade as a racetrack. Nor did we see street cars at a promised press intro last July. So what happened?

Saleen insists the project is on schedule and S7 supercars will be in dealer showrooms by March '02. When he gave the original delivery date, he says, he didn't mean just street cars; he meant race cars, too, and there are S7R race cars competing. Four Saleen customer teams won four championships in 2001, the S7's first full year of competition, from the FIA Spanish GT to the ALMS GTS drivers' championships. Impressive, but still none are being valet parked.

``We're probably running about six months later than what we had anticipated [on the street car],'' said Saleen. ``Which is somewhat normal, I guess.''

Here's how that happened: When the Saleen team went to test for the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona a year ago, race car customers came out of the wood-or rather, carbon-fiber-work. So the attention Saleen intended to devote to developing a street version S7 instead went toward making race cars. That, and Saleen had to set up a dealer network. And add content to the street version. And work out ``all the nickel-dime issues.'' And crash an S7 for the Feds (successfully). And tune the engine to meet EPA standards (he expects U.S. certification in a month or two). And consolidate operations in a new building. And launch the S281-E Mustang. And put out the dog and bring in the cat.

He's been busy.

What got this question raised is that the prototype S7, the one shown at the Monterey Historics in 2000, is for sale at the Barrett-Jackson Scottsdale auction Jan. 16-20, 2002. But that car is not legal for the street. The prototype is being offered by a Saleen dealer who convinced Saleen to let him buy it. The dealer, Park Place Ltd. of Bellevue, Washington, expects it to go for more than $500,000, citing ``historical value potential.''

And there are two other things. The ...