Fancy getting into supercar production, but want a bit of a head start? CA Global Partners, as we reported briefly on our piece about Saleen Automotive’s current financial difficulties, currently has an open, online auction for the remainder of assets from a previous iteration of a company once headed by Steve Saleen.
CA Global’s auction includes the assets of six uncompleted S7/S7R supercar bodies and frames along with the sole S5S Raptor, which debuted at the 2008 New Auto Show to rave reviews just before Saleen, Inc. began its spiral downward. The auction includes that small handful of unfinished S7 bodies (looking pretty sharp in their unpainted carbon fiber glory, to be sure), associated frames, the S5S, some body molds and various tools and tooling.
Designed by ASC (whose placard still adorns the space for the license plate on the concept in the auction photos), the S5S promised spectacular acceleration from its supercharged V-8 and presented quite handsomely in its brilliant yellow finish under the show lights. Unfortunately, just as the bread and butter Saleen Mustangs were being upstaged by competition from Roush and others, along with factory iron in the form of the Shelby GT500, and the S7 supercar proved not only a sales dud, but had reliability problems to boot, the economy also went haywire.
Saleen, Inc. also had a contract to perform the majority of assembly operations for the Ford GT supercar, along with significant paint work on Dodge’s Viper, encouraging the company to expand from their Southern California roots with a significantly larger facility in southern Michigan. When the Ford GT contract ended with that car’s limited production run and the S7 faltered, maintaining that factory was no easy feat.
Saleen, Inc. went through three CEOs in a year and laid off a significant portion of its staff, all while offering itself to the highest bidder, which turned out to be MJ Acquisitions, who also had very little luck selling Saleen branded cars or getting the S5S beyond the concept stage. MJ itself was absorbed by Revstone Industries and ultimately stopped production after a very slow 2011 and even slower 2012 for Saleen Mustang production.
Along with all of the actual hard assets—the stuff, if you will—being auctioned, CA Global is also liquidating their client’s intellectual property rights to producing the S7/S7R and the S5S Raptor. However, one thing you don’t get were you to win this auction would be the rights to the Saleen name.
While Saleen Automotive is the current entity headed by Steve Saleen, it took from 2007 until early 2012 for him to get his name back. In the interim years, his company went by the moniker SMS Supercars. But with Saleen back in charge of his own name, any buyers of the rights to the S7 supercar will need to think of another name, should they actually decide to produce it, though that would seem a pretty far-fetched idea at this point. CA Global is abundantly clear that this auction has nothing to do with Saleen Automotive.
CA Global’s auction continues November 18 at 10:00 Pacific time, when the bidding closes.
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