Steve Saleen was a racecar driver before becoming a manufacturer of Ford-based performance cars, just like Carroll Shelby in the ‘60s. Saleen Autosport was formed at Steve Saleen’s dinner table in 1983, with concept drawings for his logo and Mustang-based car sketched on napkins. Saleen then went on to start hand building the very first of the now-legendary Saleen Mustangs from his tiny garage in Petaluma, California in 1984.
This 1985 Saleen Mustang was the 9th car Saleen bull, although serialized as #16 to give the impression of a much more “robust” production run, as many small manufacturers have done throughout time. #16 features many unique early features only found on the first handful of cars such as a 3-piece fiberglass front air dam and huge rear spoiler that was later changed to a much more subdued design for the production cars. It is this unique rear spoiler that has earned these early Saleen Mustangs the moniker of being “Big Wing” cars. Less than 25 Big Wing cars were produced including the 3 ‘84 Saleens. Interesting fact: the Big Wing is a modified wing from the MSE Trans Am Special Editions by Mecham Brothers racing at Mecham Pontiac.
The “build sheet” for #16 is a hand-written document from Steve Saleen’s notebook that shows, and was confirmed by Steve in recent years, that this very early car was literally built over Christmas Day 1984 in Petaluma. It remained a California car for much of its life, and has since been owned by the “who’s who” of the Saleen world. The very few “Big Wing” cars are the Holy Grail and where it all began for Saleen as a manufacturer, much like the coveted “two- digit” 1965 Shelby GT350s built at Shelby’s Princeton Drive factory. As such we’re honored to have this bad boy in the collection.
