3 days ago a listing came up for an esprit at $4 grand. I asked the seller if it looked like a ferrari or the car 007 drove out of the sea. He replied, sure! I arrived at a neatly trimmed block of 1 story italianette homes. The residence I arrived at was sorely out of place. It was a ramshackle affair with sorely overgrown landscaping. A young woman, who I later would figure was the look-out, waved me around back. There I found a young green-eyed Latino man with a hunchback. I struggled a handshake and some eye contact out of him and he motioned me to the garage. The backyard was strewn with rubbish and it wasn’t an entirely foreign scenario to me. I just wanted the cars. And so it began. After a short conversation it was apparent that the young man just wanted any cash and I whittled the price down to a mind boggling figure. What I got was a disheveled Europa with right hand drive and the sweet scent of rat urine and a blue sonnet buried in boxes. For 20 years they had sat. Time capsules, all this for $2 grand. I called Margarido and he was on his way to drag my finds home. We turned to count the cash and a stern voice said, “hands up boys! And have a seat.” The cops arrived, 6 of ’em and the plot thickened. I handed over my ID and stated my purpose. The green-eyed bandit however had no ID. He said it must be mixed in the boxes of refuse he had been clearing from the family home. It had been a drug den; I’m no spring chicken. One of the cops nudged a meth cooker thing like you see on breaking bad with his foot. His story crumbled further and I should have left when he said he had no ID. It was his grandpa’s house and he passed and they(he) were clearing it out to prep for sale. The cops were having none of it. They had seen this character before. The situation was deteriorating but I asked to stay to see if they could let him sell me the cars. The cops for some reason seemed to think that was reasonable. The bandit said he had mail coming to the residence and produced a letter to him from a bail bondsmen. At that point the boys in blue all began to curse him out and I asked to be excused. I hopped in the big green dodge and played my Steve Miller tape all the way back to Berkeley. The listing is still up, check it out, says lotus spirit on sf Craig’s.
You can’t make this sh$t up.

http://bringatrailer.com/2014/07/23/1972-lotus-europa-twin-cam-4/

I bought my first saleen in 1999 and drove it from Los Angeles to Michigan on a fishing & bike racing odyssey. You would not believe the attention it got, even though I got smoked by an acura legend on a lonely road north of Duluth at 2am.

I have just hauled home a Saleen Fox that was laying around here in sf last week. You will not be seeing these just laying around deteriorating any longer. I feel like I got the last one. They will be such a hot commodity when the current high school crowd grows up. Young people love the foxes, it’s their generation that will adore them. They even let them in the kung fu honda shows. That’s where the ladies are. If you’ve never been to hot import nights, it’s worth a gander.

These are the Shelby’s of the future. No longer do folks ask me what it is, they just want to know if it’s a real Saleen. If you say it’s horrible to look at and are all bummed out, cheer up buttercup, there are plenty of cars to love out there. You’ll find one to love if your heart is open. These are so reliable and can take a beating like Bruce Lee whipped Chuck Norris. Ask me how I know? I was hitting clover leaf burnouts in the 90′s. These early cars don’t hold a candle to Steve’s later masterpieces, the year 2000 version felt like the whole car would tingle when the supercharger came on. Maybe it was just me… talk about a rocket!

What else is good in this timeframe on the American side of things? There is a handful of doozies, but the automotive cup was pretty much mosquito larva and algae right then. To make these cars, Saleen bought a bunch of mustangs direct from Ford, took em to his house, put on some bitchin ground effects & graphics, ronal wheels, race craft suspension, flofit seats, momo wheel, cool gauges and.. does this story sound familiar? In the famous words of young mc, “Don’t just stand there, bust a move!”

http://bringatrailer.com/2014/07/28/1988-saleen-mustang-racer/