Steve Saleen trashes GM, and the Camaro

[Mr. Wyndham]

Repost your comments, or post new ones. BUT KEEP IT CLEAN, and relatively Civil.

There is a difference between complaining about something, and actually doing something. I want to do something. Therefore this thread will be linked in this letter to Saleen, and possibly other letters once they are written. If you don't wish to have your comments visible to the Saleen company, then don't reply to this thread.

So I can't stress enough how clean you need to keep this. But besides that, Let full loose!

The letter I plan to send to Saleen:

To whom it may concern,

I want to express my intense anger and frustration I am feeling towards the entire Saleen name right now, due to this video. Found recently, by multiple Camaro enthusiast forums, on YouTube. The video is hyperlinked through the words "this video".

I challenge Mr. Saleen to back up any claims he made in that clip. Specifically about the V6 Bumblebee, and the 'Small Company" General Motors, and the fact that General Motors "cannot build their own pony car". I also wish to challenge Mr. Saleen to show enough spine to apologize through a post on these three Camaro sites, in the appropriately linked threads, at least:

http://www.camaro5.com/forums/showth...1213#post31213

I daresay that he will find plenty on very angry Camaro enthusiasts taking part in these conversations; which is why I said 'spine' above. The linked forums were duplicates, where the posters were asked to be polite, and quell any outbursts. But he ticked quite a number of people off, and if there ever was a plan to build a Saleen Camaro (which I now hope never happens), I would venture to guess that it wouldn't catch on as much as he'd like.

I understand that he is a Mustang enthusiast himself, so perhaps he was playing to the Mustang-enthusiast crowd. And it would be understandable if that was the case. But no one can say such things with so much conviction, without meaning them. I doubt what Mr. Saleen said is very far from his own beliefs. And no person I've ever known can string together that many 'friendly jests' of 'jokes' without aiming for them to be malicious. I think it is unfortunate that a man as well known as Mr. Saleen would say such audacious things about the worlds largest auto company.

If Mr. Saleen would like to Email me back, personally, I would be more than happy to delegate his response, in full, to the above-mentioned threads.

Finally, I want to apologize myself for any harsh words encountered in this Email, but I am one of those 'very angry Camaro enthusiasts'.

[Dan]

Hes a ford guy, I dont care if he lives or dies, so I certainly don't care what he thinks.:middlefinger: :middlefinger: :middlefinger: :middlefinger: :middlefinger: :middlefinger: :middlefinger: :middlefinger: :middlefinger: :middlefinger:

[stovt001]

Hey, whatever makes them sleep better at night. It does bother me that he flat out lied about 1) GM buying the Camaro's role 2) Bumblebee's engine (he "built" the car, he should know) and 3) What it was he actually did. Regardless, I say let them have their delusions for a few more years, then shatter them on the race track.

[Power Junkie]

I'm just gonna have to laugh alot when the big power Z28 / SS (or whatever GM want to call it) rips the doors off of a Saleen mustang.

[lonestar_z28]

Nothing but envy on the part of ol' Steve. His products will become irrelevant when the new Camaro hits the streets.

[Jeff]

I lost all my respect for him. After all, hes not showing us any.

[DGthe3]

I found it funny, in a pathetic and sad sort of way. He likes mustangs, so we all know there is something wrong with him to start with. Because of this I can laugh at him, not with, at!

And if Bumble Bee had a V6 like he said (which i question the truthfulness of) thats one hell of a V6. Imagine what the V8's will do! As far as a Camaro never beating a saleen . . . there is a slight possibility that there will be a factory Camaro that has the same power as the S281 Extreme Mustang. If not, there will be aftermarket Camaros that will top it. Thats all well and good in straight lines, when the road gets twisty, bye bye rustang!

[Silverado]

He sounds just like most of the democratic presidential candidates...he's pandering to whoever he is standing in front of. If he were in front of a Camaro Club gathering, he would be talking about "what an honor it was to build the Bumblebee Camaros" and "how great it was working closely with GM on the project"....

If he was so "anti-Camaro", then he would have turned down the movie project altogether and would never have allowed his car to be "shown up" by a Camaro. But, in reality, he is a businessman. And, it was good business to get his car in a movie, it was good business to replicate the Camaro's for GM, for the movie (possibly building a future relationship with GM), and as much as he knocks it, GM "bying their way into the movie" was good business. It was also exactly what he was doing when he "approched Michael Bay about having an S281 star in the movie". Sorry Steve, but GM just has deeper pockets and could afford to pay more for product placement. Oh, GM also offered a wider range of products than Saleen does, to use in the movie (Camaro, Solstice, Hummer, Top Kick, etc).

As for that being a V6...doubtful...were there any GTO's built with V6's? I didn't think so, but I could be wrong. I mean, we all know that the Bumblebee's were redressed goats.

I wouldn't take anything he said in that video as anything more than pandering to the crowd. It's what he's supposed to do for that crowd. If it was a different crowd, it would have been different comments.

[stovt001]

I should clarify, Steve didn't so much lie about GM buying the Camaro's roll as grossly mis-characterized it. They paid for a huge amount of product placement in the movie, not just Bumblebee, and after the partnership was formed the film makers selected the Camaro out of other GM products to fill the BB role.

[z28camaro2471]

Well hopefully that seals the deal for him and any future business with GM. I'll be happy if it negatively affects his bottom line in the future!

:middlefinger: :middlefinger: :middlefinger: :middlefinger: :middlefinger: :middlefinger:

[1bad67camaro]

all over steve saleen

[Pencil.Fight]

As an enthusiast of the Chevy Camaro, I also have respect for the Ford Mustang and its followers. I recognize that the rivalry is largely friendly and have myself engaged in making light of Ford's pony car as a way of ribbing our adversaries across the street.

However, with that in mind, I was greatly offended by Steve Saleen's comments regarding the Chevy Camaro. It is one thing to poke fun at the competition, but it is completely unacceptable for someone in his position to flat-out lie as he did in such a public medium.

As mentioned, there were those of us who you might say were rather excited by the rumor (spread by Steven himself) that Saleen might be involved in custom 5th Gen Camaros. We'd seen his work on Bumblebee in the summer blockbuster "Transformers" and thought that he might actually have an appreciation for the beauty that is the 2010 Camaro. This is no longer the case.

Whatever his motives, Steve is obviously harboring some ill-will towards GM and the Camaro. Given the upcoming situation over the next few years, this is completely understandable. However, there is a time and a place for comments such as these, and his choice was clearly neither.

[Eisenhower]

Well, if Saleen took a backseat to GM and built the Camaro for GM-- then who's pimpin' who?

Steve Saleen got OWNED!!!!

[Emher]

Intresting to see this video. Obviously it's an attempt to amuse the masses at this event. Obviously it's also full of things that just aren't true. For us that followed the development of Transformers (remember the "s" there, it's the little things Steve ) have learnt on several occasions from different sources that GM was involved from the beginning since director Michael Bay has a history with them, he having made several commercials in the past for them, and simply went with that working relationship they had. The Camaro was chosen since Bay had the oppurtunity to go have a tour of GM's upcoming vehicle's section and he spotted the concept Camaro and quickly chose it because he liked how it looked.

As for how good or not the Mustang is, obviously this is a Camaro forum, so naturally there's some rivalry going on here, but I harbor no ill feelings against Mustang fans in general. But Saleen as a company has certainly lost a future customer in me, as I had plans to at some point perhaps buy a costumised Mustang from Saleen if I had the money. Such a thing will never happen now.