Saleen Mustangs Still Command Premium Price
Conventional wisdom would have you believe that modifying your car will wreck its value. Fair enough. Doing your own “improvements” out back with a hacksaw and a hammer certainly won’t do your car any favors when it comes time to sell, and buyers are often wary of even professionally tuned cars.
However, it’s not true that deviations from factory stock always make a car less valuable in the long run. Just look at what people are paying for RUF Porsches, early AMG Mercedes-Benzes, and Alpina BMWs these days. What sets those cars apart from the average modified car with bolt-ons and custom wheels is that the RUFs, AMGs, and Alpinas are series-built by well-known, small-volume manufacturers, often with the knowledge of the carmakers, which is a far cry from your local shop.
Another, closer-to-home example is Saleen. With the contract to build the 2005–06 Ford GT, not to mention its own S7 supercar, Saleen has done some big things, but it is best known for building souped-up Mustangs since the mid-1980s. Even the early Saleen Mustangs were carefully and professionally built, and you could buy them through your Ford dealer. They even came with a Ford factory warranty. Saleen also built its Mustangs with racing in mind and in small numbers (especially by Mustang standards), so it’s no big stretch of the imagination to think of Saleens as the Shelbys of the ’80s. Saleens are already significantly more than regular Fox-body Mustangs, and their values have been growing at a faster clip, but check how much a ’60s GT350 is worth and it looks like the Saleens have plenty of room to grow. There’s a reason why we put them on our Bull Market list earlier this year.
