Saleen
When I went to pick up my rental car I got a Mustang. (More about how that came about in the entry about that car.) It turns out that a new store had opened in the Irvine Spectrum called "Saleen[a]".
2006-09-28 14:12
Saleen is an auto parts store for people with deep pockets. (It is also a t-shirt and baseball cap shop for people with shallower pockets.) Their specialty is to modify Mustangs - give them a new gearbox, add a supercharger, racing seats and so on. Their motto - as can be seen here on this Mustang parked right smack in the middle of the Spectrum - is "Power in the hands of a few".
2006-09-28 14:13
The vents that can be seen on the top of the hood are the intakes for the supercharger. With all the trimmings, the modifications add 450 horsepower to the base engine.
Perhaps fitting then, that the front-page news story of the Orange County Register the same day I learned about Saleen was that a teenager had died and two had been injured in a street race[b]. (That guy drove a BMW.)