This American Auto Brand Is Crowdsourcing A New Supercar After Years Of Crazy Drama

Saleen is a fascinating company in the history of American automakers. At times, it made supercars like the S7, a 550 horsepower and impossibly light monster that saw life as not only a supercar, but a bona fide race car. At other times, it was little more than a Ford Mustang and F-150 (and sometimes Tesla) modification company. It's about as American as apple pie and baseball, and about as bizarre as a game of baseball played with apple pies. 

Over the past few years, Saleen has been relatively quiet since it produced prototypes of the S1 in 2019 to race in 2020. Now, in typical Saleen fashion, it has announced another wild looking car, the S11. The S11 doesn't really exist yet apart from renderings and full-size models, but it's portrayed as a very low and long (probably midengined) supercar with gigantic wheels. 

A lot of mechanical and design properties haven't been finalized yet, because of potentially the weirdest part of the S11 development process: It's getting crowdsourced. According to a press release from Saleen, "Throughout the year, we'll present design choices to participating enthusiasts, and they can choose design details that will end up in our final product." 

As for what that will look like in practice, that's anyone's guess. It's unknown as to whether or not the choice include aspects like powertrain and suspension components, or aesthetic choices like the aerodynamic bits. Either way, it's an odd way to go about supercar production. At the end of the process, when and if, there's a car that comes out of the committee of "participating enthusiasts," it will likely make a splash. After all, it is Saleen at the helm of the project.

The model of the car will be displayed at the LeMay car museum in Tacoma, Washington for a year. In that time, visitors will be able to vote on design components. Whenever a new enthusiast car comes out, fans and detractors always have comments about the design. Now, those comments might actually contribute to something more than just a social media page or enthusiast forum. In about a year or so, keep an eye out for what Saleen is up to, it's sure to be weird.