Saleen Explorer XP8: Used Car Reminder
Posted by Doug DeMuro in Used Car Reminder on | 6 comments
Surely, you’re familiar with Saleen Mustangs. You know: big wheels, loud exhaust, owners have beards.
And surely, you’re familiar with the second-generation Ford Explorer. Especially if you run a transmission shop.
But did you know at one point the two were combined?
Behold the Saleen Explorer XP8, which has an Explorer engine and transmission along with styling upgrades from Saleen. These upgrades are no longer available, so don’t go wrecking a Saleen Explorer. All seven members of the Saleen Explorer forums will be crestfallen.
Apparently, Saleen and Ford collaborated to make around 125 of these in the late 1990s. They all had the Explorer’s 5.0-liter V8, which produced a midsize sedan-like 222 horsepower yet returned a Mack Truck-like 14 mpg city. Some got a supercharged V8, which brought muscle up to a claimed 286 horses. Eighty extra horses on a stock drivetrain: this is the stuff AAMCO’s dreams are made of.
If this isn’t strange enough, read on.
At some point, Saleen ordered a new batch of Explorers to convert into XP8s. Ford quality control being what it was, legend has it that V6 Explorers were shipped instead. Rather than send them back, Saleen had an idea: keep them and create the Explorer XP6! So, a few of these “high performance” SUVs use a 4.0-liter V6 that made only 160 horsepower. Losing the 50 horsepower had a profound effect on fuel economy, which jumped to an EPA-rated 15 mpg. Nice.
Market prices on these vary significantly based on two factors. One is the supercharger. Apparently 0-to-60 in 8.5 commands a four-figure premium over 0-to-60 in 9. Two is whether the seller knows the SUV’s rarity. Saleen Explorer enthusiasts – both of them – dream of finding one tucked away in a garage where a little old lady is growing a little tired of getting 14 miles per gallon in her white Explorer with white wheels.
6 Responses to “ “Saleen Explorer XP8: Used Car Reminder”
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Having owned a 2003 Explorer V6, I am indeed on first name terms with my transmission shop. Hi Tom!
I believe mine had a 5R55C transmission. The C designation was due to the hardened bearing surfaces and valve body being primarily composed of cheese.
Fortunately I sold it to my brother in law. Because I am a bastard. Unfortunately he’s a bastard as well and I suspect he’s about to give it back to me.
The list of systems failures that car suffered from new would make for an entertaining, albeit somewhat depressing post in their own right. The fucking thing actually killed one my cats. And it wasn’t even moving at the time.
Hah! The cat or the Explorer?!
The *string of expletives deleted* car! Ford, in their infinite wisdom, determined that they could save 37 pico-cents buy attaching the thermostat not to the block itself, but to a fiber reinforced resin (ha! a plastic rose by any other name, would in this case be roughly as brittle after 5 years of being boiled in antifreeze) junction box which was in turn bolted to the middle of the V, but not directly to the block. Where you couldn’t see the damn thing, let alone get at it. The part itself looked suspiciously like the fevered Detroit re-imagining of an early Jarvik 7, replete with hoses coming off at all manner of odd angles and going to the block, the heater core, the radiator and I wouldn’t be surprised if the throttle body may not have been involved as well but my memory isn’t what it once was. See as follows; Motorcraft RH148
Of course the damn thing was far too complex to cast as a single piece, so the two halves were cast and then ultrasonically (I suspect) welded together. Poorly. Of course, after a 100,000 miles of light commuter service in Texas, it started to weep silently from the weld. Not enough to leave telltale pools beneath, just enough to wet the bottom of the sump and evaporate repeatedly, leaving deliciously sweet and concentrated ethylene glycol and motor oil cocktail for one of my slightly developmentally challenged cats to discover and consume. Very sad business.
The maraschino cherry perched atop the whipped cream of this particular shit-sundae was delivered when I marched up to my friendly local Ford parts counter (shortly after paying an emergency veterinarian $670 to euthanize my cat) brandishing the offending part and the fellow took one look at it and volunteered a cheery “Oh, leaking round the joint I bet? They all do that sir!”
I saw a Saleen Explorer on my commute home the other night. I didn’t know there were so few of them!
I would still like to read a comparison test of this versus a Shelby Durango. Which overpriced, over styled, super-slow-despite-having-a-supercharged-V8, 90′s tuner SUV is better???
That would be fun. The problem is you’d have to talk to the approximately three people who drove them both! Also: how about the Tahoe Limited? It was lowered and muscular looking, though I don’t think it had any more power.