06 Cobra vs 06 Saleen

The Cobra will always be lower than the Saleen. The '03 Saleen S281-E is $15,000.00 more than the '03 Cobra with the same hp. The E has a 2 valve 4.6L and the Cobra has a 4 valve 4.6L. Cobra wins hands down.

its 2004. no one has ne idea

We don't even know anything about the Cobra. There even a lot we still don't know about the GT. So who knows what plans saleen has? There are a lot of rumors that point to Shelby if anything.

From what I've read so far. Saleen does not have a contract with Ford for the new mustang yet. So he may very well get out of mustangs. At least in the tuner car sense. I do know someone that has driven a modified 03 Cobra and owns an 89 Saleen vert. And he liked the Cobra for it's power (+/- 450 at the wheels). He felt his Saleen handled better. And actually couldn't wait to get back in the Saleen.

long live the cobra!!!!!

TrueBlueCajun said:

The Cobra will always be lower than the Saleen. The '03 Saleen S281-E is $15,000.00 more than the '03 Cobra with the same hp. The E has a 2 valve 4.6L and the Cobra has a 4 valve 4.6L. Cobra wins hands down.

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S-281E base price= $61,120 with 445hp. Two valve or four makes little difference as there are people with 2v running 8's these days. The saleen does have forged steel crankshaft, rods and aluminum pistons and heads and alot of other trick saleen stuff. The S281 supercharged base price is 43,322 with 375hp. The S-281 base is 43,322 with 290hp.

http://www.saleen.com/home/home_set.htm

mp67 said:

S-281E base price= $61,120 with 445hp. Two valve or four makes little difference as there are people with 2v running 8's these days. The saleen does have forged steel crankshaft, rods and aluminum pistons and heads and alot of other trick saleen stuff. The S281 supercharged base price is 43,322 with 375hp. The S-281 base is 43,322 with 290hp.

http://www.saleen.com/home/home_set.htm

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You're slightly off on the S-281 case model price. It is not the same as the supercharged.

spanky442 said:

We don't even know anything about the Cobra

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Actually, we do know a little.

We know this much. This is from an article that was posted a few months back. Sounds like the making of a killer Cobra.

Phil Martens has put his fingerprints all over the new mustang.....Martens also has an idea where the next SVT Cobra is headed: We have to have a Cobra that is world-class level. The old fox platform couldn't deliver that; this one can". Expect a bigger, broader separation between Mustang GT's and SVT Cobra's, he says. BMW's M cars are serving as inspiration....The expectation in this category is for a much more refined product.

"Also likely: supercharging and a substantial increase from the current Cobra's 390 hp. Ford has set no firm price ceiling, Martens says. "The only restriction is that you have to build it on the mustang line, and the quality has to be there.".

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mp67 said:

S-281E base price= $61,120 with 445hp. Two valve or four makes little difference as there are people with 2v running 8's these days. The saleen does have forged steel crankshaft, rods and aluminum pistons and heads and alot of other trick saleen stuff. The S281 supercharged base price is 43,322 with 375hp. The S-281 base is 43,322 with 290hp.

http://www.saleen.com/home/home_set.htm

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$61,120.00 for a Saleen? What engine has the most potential...the E or the Cobra?

SVTdriver said:

You're slightly off on the S-281 case model price. It is not the same as the supercharged.

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The S-281 non supercharged should say base around 36,000.

TrueBlueCajun said:

$61,120.00 for a Saleen? What engine has the most potential...the E or the Cobra?

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Hard to say. Does the Cobra have forged steel crankshaft and rods and forged pistons?
And its not all about the motor with the Saleen. Even so, I would not pay that much for a saleen. I could buy a new C6 Vette, and have a chunk leftover for mods.

TrueBlueCajun said:

$61,120.00 for a Saleen? What engine has the most potential...the E or the Cobra?

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I think it's pretty much a wash as for what engine has the most potential. Both are forged internals. The difference is in the suspension and larger brakes. But the E is also significantly more limited production.

It's difficult to see how Saleen will be able to carve his "niche" out of the new Mustang, especially his ultra-high-end ultra-high-price models. As Ford continually raises the performance bar and the wow-factor bar on their more affordable stock factory Mustangs, it squeezes out that comfort zone that Saleen used to occupy and sell a decent amount of cars in. Back in the mid 90's when the SN-95 came out Saleen made a huge comeback because Ford's stock GT's and Cobras were both tepid performers and not that exciting from a styling standpoint. They sat high, on relatively skinny tires, with p*** poor seats, and handled fairly sloppy. There was a ton of opportunity for improvement there, you could park a new Saleen next to a new Cobra or GT on the showroom floor and the Saleen addressed all of the shortcomings of the factory cars, and then some. Even if you didn't have the extra dough, you could add up the cost of all the parts Saleen added, tack on the exclusivity and collectibility that you can't bolt on yourself, and justify the car in your head. That was the S281 and S281 Supercharged. The ultra-high-end supercharged S351 was just over 500 h.p. and retailed in the high 50's for what was a totally trick hand-built car. NOTHING in that car's driveline or chassis was stock, from the radiator to the exhaust tips. The parts list to build your own to an identical spec (I did this list a long time ago before I ordered my '97 S351) was staggering, and the 50-some thousand pricetag was not a bad deal when you broke it down to cost of components to build your own S351. Furthermore, back when they were building them 1994-1999, there was nothing else on the street that could come close to competing except maybe the Viper GTS, which cost even more. So for $50+, which was and still is a painful amount of money to spend on a Mustang, you got what was truly the king of the hill on the street that came with a warranty. Today, you can drive off the dealer's lot with a new Cobra that looks aggressive, sits low, has fat tires, good seats, and handles fantastically, for just north of $30 grand (they're really dealing on Cobras right now) and go to the track and run high 12's on the gas that came in the car. The $60,000 S281E has become irrelevent, because there's no justification for it, the Cobra is fixed in all the areas that Saleen used to exploit opportunity. And anybody who would drop 60 large on a gussied-up Fairmont derivative chassis rather than jump the fence and buy a real-deal sports car in the Z06 is just a little too blue-oval crazy to claim sanity. Now the '05's are coming, styled incredibly, sitting low, nice wheels that push out to the wheel lips, good seats, good stock power, supposed to be a better handler than we've ever seen. And the Cobra will be a close to 500 h.p. BMW killer?? Ford has taken Saleen's market and invaded it like we invaded Iraq. I don't know what he can do to this new car that will sway people to blow the extra cash. I don't sell him short, but it sure will take a brilliant plan. He sold cars by fixing all of the Mustang's shortcomings. This new Mustang has damn few shortcomings.

As an owner of a Saleen I will have to disagree with some of whats been stated already. Though I am a very disgruntled SALEEN owner, I feel I have good insight into this. First off, I will just mention a few general things I have noticed about the Saleen compared to other mustangs, especially the cobra. Mind you I am trying to get rid of my Saleen for a cobra or an 05. The cobra does not look nearly as good to me from all angles and never gets the same looks as my Saleen. The cobra to me is to heavy to begin with, but that can be taken care of. The cobra has taken to many hiatuses over the past few years. Lastly, here in Ga or anywhere for that matter, everyone and there mom has a cobra, few have saleens. Highest cobra prodcution i believe was about 10000+, the highest Saleen production was around 950+.

Secondly the saleen does not use a less efficient supercharger than the cobra, it actually uses a more efficient one. All blown saleens as of 03 have used the twin screw that the E uses. So its the cobra using the roots style eaton m112 that SALEEN DROPPED a few years back. My car has the beyond shi**y eaton m90. Also its not that the saleen blower sucks that much its more that SVT put way more development into their intercooler. Apparently they took their idea from saleen and made it way better.

Third, it was mentioned that saleen really filled their "niche" with the intro of the sn-95. While this is a valid point, it was more in the minds and dreams of people that wanted a bad ass s351. In reality sales those years never went above 200 untill the original s281 came out, and still sales were low. My year, 99, saw only 395 saleens built. But after the 99 cobra disaster, and people seeing that the blown saleens are kinda fast compared to what else was out in 99, sales boomed in 2000 to almost 1000 cars. Even with the advent of the 03 cobra, saleen has steadily been selling around 1000 cars a year till now.

Lastly with SVT taking another break, Saleen actually has the chance to really get back in the game. Especially if they even attempt to make their warranties and customer relations a tad bit better. To me Saleens possible downfall will be due to the way customers get treated at MOST, not all of their so called "certified" dealers. Like i said i love my car but cant deal with the headaches. If I do get rid of my car it will be because i cant afford to deal with the issues saleen tries to avoid. If i can afford to keep it, i will keep this bad boy forever and just swap my blower for a KENNE BELL. Believe it or not their are people out there that would rather pay more and be unique than having another cobra. Right now I cant decide what i wanna be anymore.

Did any of you guys attend SAE in Detroit today? They had panel discussion with Dutch Mandel (Autoweek Editor), Carrol Shelby, Jack Roush, Saleen, and the guy head of ASC? It was really good. There was a question from the audience about the '05 stang and whether Roush and Saleen were working on something. They all said they were and were excited. Carrol said he hopes Mr. Ford approves the real cobra, so i don't think he will be working on a mustang version and leave it up to Colleti and team...

Interesting discussion. As a Saleen owner I think I have a little insight into this as well. For the most part, I agree that Ford is pushing into Saleen territory by making the Cobra and the base GT much better than before. However, the new Cobra won't be out until 07, so if Saleen decides to tune Mustangs, and I'm sure they will, there will definitely be a market. Saleen afterall did build the concept Mustang GT-R.

The S281E probably has as much potential as the 03+Cobra. Even though it's a 2v, it's been shown that 2v's can run fast as well. The S281E is lighter, faster, and handles better stock. I think with slicks they got an S281E to 11.70 otherwise stock. The question is whether or not you'd be willing to drop that kind of coin on a Mustang.

there are always turbos? A twin turbo 3V 281 would be pretty sweet. granted some off the line boost is lost but...

Or they could go with the 5.4 4v with a blower like in the GT.

What am I talking about I could never afford it anyway.

SVTdriver said:

From what I've read so far. Saleen does not have a contract with Ford for the new mustang yet. So he may very well get out of mustangs. At least in the tuner car sense.

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During the Saleen party at the Mustang 40th in Nashville last week he indicated that there would be something out in the September-October time frame.

Friends of mine that has connections at Ford told him about shoehorning a V10 into the next SVT. This would support the need to move SVT away from standard mustang GT. I think the SVT HP limit will be the Ford GT, SVT will not be allowed to produce more HP than that car. So I’m thinking if they have a V10 planned, it will be naturally aspirated with mid-400 hp level.

But...in terms of refined performance they can't touch the M3. Not with a cobbled up platform...what? Cobbled up? Sure the LS platform is light-years ahead of the FOX, but just think back to when the LS platform was developed...it's already aged. The LS was released in 1999, originally intended as 1998..that would put the platform design to sometime in 1993. It's a FOX story all over again...Just to be clear, not saying Ford messed up; I don't think they could have spent the money for "all-new" platform for such a niche vehicle, but the 2005 Mustang hardly has an "all-new" platform. So in the end those wanting M3 level of refinement can hold your breaths until the cows come home, it aint gona happen.