1988 Ford Mustang Saleen Convertible #499

1988 Ford Mustang Saleen Convertible #499

I’m selling my 1988 Saleen Mustang. I picked it up last August intending to use it as fun warm weather driver but it turned out to need a little more work than I was aware of. Due to other projects and family commitments, I haven’t had the time to deal with it so I’m reluctantly putting it up for sale. This is #499 of 708 Saleen Mustangs built in 1988. Out of those, 137 were convertibles and 43 were white. The letter from Saleen that I was shown by the previous owner says that it is a “1 of 1” built with the particular colors and options, which make this a fairly rare car. It does need some work, but it could be a really great car and I’m sure it will be a good investment for someone. There is around 3,000 miles showing on the odometer so I assume it has 103k miles on it. As far as I know, it spent its entire life in California until I bought it last year and brought it to Colorado.

The body is very straight and rust free. There is a little surface rust in the bottom of the spare tire well but that’s it. The paint on the rear quarters and trunk are not a perfect match but I wasn’t too concerned with that as I planned to drive it. The ground effects are in good shape and it has the correct wheels. The top was recently replaced and functions well.

The interior is in fair shape at best. Someone replaced the Saleen Flofit front seats with ’86 Mustang GT front seats and they are both passenger side seats. The rear seat has been replaced with a delete panel and it has a bolt in roll bar. The Saleen instrument cluster is in good shape and the dash has been signed by Steve Saleen. The Momo steering wheel is in decent shape. It has a Steeda Tri Ax shifter and a goofy shift knob. It’s missing the steering column cover and the passenger side sill plate. The passenger’s side door lock cylinder is in the glove box. The left rear power window motor is missing but the window stays up on its own. The power door locks, power mirrors, trunk popper and fuel door popper don’t work. It could be as simple as a blown fuse but I haven’t checked.

I don’t know much about the engine but was told it was recently rebuilt. It has fresh paint and new freeze plugs. It has SVE aluminum heads, ARP head studs, Trick Flow roller rockers and valves covers, a Trick Flow intake manifold, a BBK throttle body and EGR spacer and some kind of big MAF. It sounds like it has an aftermarket cam but I’m not sure what grind. It also has an SVE aluminum radiator, long tube headers and Flowmaster mufflers. Unfortunately I suspect it may have some blow by. When I bought it, the dipstick was up a little and it looked like it spit a little oil out of the tube. I pushed it back in and didn’t pop back out the next time I drove it though. It also has some coolant trails from the heads studs so I suspect that when they built the engine, they didn’t put any sealant on the studs. In spite of this, it’s still impressively fast. I would plan to at reseal the top end of the motor at the very least. The heater core has been bypassed and the A/C has been removed. The condenser, compressor and hoses were included when I bought it and will go with the car.

The transmission grinds going into 5th gear. The car came with a spare T5 that I will be selling with it. The previous owner told me it was good. The rear end has forged axles and I was told it has 3.73 gears. It also has weld on subframe connectors. The tires are in pretty bad shape and it has a bit of a “shimmy” at highway speeds that I suspect is from them.

As I said, this car is kind of a project but it has tons of potential. I looked for a long time for a car like this and if I had the time and funds, I would love to keep it. At this point, I just want to sell it so I can buy a different convertible Mustang that doesn’t need any work. I have a clear Colorado title in my name. It also came with a binder of receipts from work done early in the cars life which I will include. I have done my best to describe this car honestly and to the best of my knowledge, unlike the guy I bought it from, because I want the new owner to know what they are getting. Please feel free to ask any questions. Thanks.