Irvine, California, isn't Modena, Italy, and Steve Saleen isn't Enzo Ferrari. But that hasn't stopped this Mustang racer-turned-car-builder from creating a 220-mph-plus supercar that's all his own--and all-American, right down to its thundering, mid-mounted 7.0-liter pushrod V-8. Make no mistake, the Saleen S7 is a remarkable achievement. But the new S7 Twin Turbo is designed to take the S7's max factor beyond Ferrari and into Bugatti Veyron territory. You read that right.
Steve Saleen has always talked a big game. And on paper the S7 Twin Turbo walks the talk, with a claimed output of "over 750 horsepower" at 6300 rpm and 700 pound-feet of torque at 4800 rpm. That's a 36-percent increase in power and 33-percent increase in torque over the naturally aspirated version of the S7 that made its debut in 2003. With a claimed curb weight of just 2750 pounds, the S7 Twin Turbo's weight-to-power ratio of 3.6 pound per horsepower rivals that of the Veyron. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure it's going to be stupid fast.
A postcard from the edge: We're lollygagging along at 50 mph in fourth gear, stuck behind traffic, when the road straightens and the double-yellow line ends. Signal, pull out, and nail the gas. The clattery, tappety metallic snarl of the big-banger V-8 sitting just inches behind our heads erupts into a booming wall of sound, and a relentless tidal wave of torque thrusts the orange S7 Twin Turbo forward with the intensity of a Saturn V on liftoff. We hit 120 mph in about the time it takes to read this sentence.
Don't let the simple architecture of the dry-sump, all-aluminum Saleen V-8 fool you: It might only have a single camshaft and two valves per cylinder actuated by good old-fashioned pushrods, but its Ford-based design has benefited from millions of dollars of research and development undertaken by NASCAR race teams. It's light--a street Twin Turbo engine weighs about 440 pounds, says Saleen engineering vice president Bill Tally, who started out wrenching for bike racer Kenny Roberts before moving to sprint cars and NASCAR stockers--compact, and very loud.
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