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2005 Saleen S7 Body style(s): 2-door coupe
Notes
For the second year in a row, Saleen added power to their flagship S7 supercar.
However, while the output increase was 25 horses in 2004, 2005 saw power rise by
seven times that much. Armed with two turbochargers, the S7's Ford-derived V-8
gained 175 horsepower, reaching a grand total of 750 net. The price jumped to
a staggering $555,000. With such outlandish figures, the S7 became the most
expensive car sold in the United States in 2005 (with gas tax, both options,
and delivery, it came to $574,656, and that was before registering it and (gulp)
insuring it. It was not, however, the most
expensive production car in the world for '05: that honor belonged to
the Maserati MC12, of which only 25 were built each in 2004 and 2005, at a
cost of £515,000 British sterling (€600,000, or about $795,000 at the time).
The S7 TwinTurbo was the most powerful production car ever sold in America --
it was more than 120 bhp ahead
of the other all-American supercar, the 1993 Vector W8, and beat the Ferrari Enzo
by nearly one hundred. It also beat the Enzo on price, being about $90,000 cheaper
(although this probably mattered not one whit to potential buyers). It could not,
however, match the acceleration of the Enzo in independent tests. In fact,
Road and Track found that the hypercar took longer to reach 60mph than
the 2003 naturally-aspirated S7 -- the enormous power required careful take-offs.
However, with the taps opened, the S7 TwinTurbo came into its own: at the end of a
standing mile, the S7 TwinTurbo was more than a thousand feet ahead of one of its only
competitors, the Lamborghini Murciélago (which was no slouch at speeding itself).
And, at 3.4 seconds, its 0-60 time beat all challengers in 2005, making the S7
both the quickest (acceleration) and fastest (top speed) production car in the country.
Upgrades to the aerodynamics were necessary to cope with the new power, and the higher
top-end speeds it promised. As before, the seats were custom-fitted to the customer in
one of four sizes, and then fixed into the frame. The only options were polished wheels
and a GPS navigation system. For one glorious year, the Saleen sat atop the supercar heap in America, but it
could not last. For, in 2006, the long-delayed Koenigsegg CCX and Bugatti Veyron
both arrived on U.S. shores -- the two cars that beat the McLaren F1's 240 mph speed
record, and suddenly the lead slot in the supercar world changed hands again. design
DIMENSIONS
Technical
Standard Equipment
Notable Options
Performance
Other vehicles
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