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To celebrate its 26th year as Orange County’s most prestigious classic car show, this year’s Newport Beach Concours d’Elegance moved from its recent home in Irvine to the St. Regis Monarch Beach Resort in Dana Point. Still not Newport Beach, but much closer to the ocean at least. Benefiting the Mary & Dick Allen Diabetes Center at Hoag Hospital and the Assessment and Treatment Services Center, the event featured Cadillac as its honored marque to commemorate GM’s 100th birthday this year. Besides the gorgeous 1931 Cadillac Sport Phaeton V16 Fleetwood poster car, there were at least a dozen other notable Caddys, as well as about 150 other beautiful classic and collector cars, of which you can see most of them in our high-res gallery below.

Although a notch below the premier events like Pebble Beach, some of the most beautiful and significant vehicles around show up for this concours. Representatives from The Petersen, The Nethercutt Collection, the William Lyon Estate, the Mercedes Classic Center, the Simon Collection, the Caballeriza Collection, and the Marconi Museum were on display, alongside some superb machinery from local collectors like David Sydorick and Peter Mullin.

“A dark horse, which had never been thought of, and which the careless St. James had never even observed on the list, rushed past the grandstand in sweeping triumph.” Beautiful words from the quotable Benjamin Disraeli, and inspiration for the name of the latest Mustang to come from Saleen’s stable. Due to the car’s name it may sound like our title is a clever play on words, but the truth is our seat time was limited to the passenger seat. We can’t blame Saleen for being careful with the car - the 2009 Dark Horse Mustang you see here is the first one off the assembly line and is the only one built so far. To their credit, Saleen did take us out to Willow Springs Raceway outside of Los Angeles for some flying laps, so we were able to experience the full capabilities of the car’s performance. Follow the jump to hear about our day at the track with perhaps the most fearsome production Mustang ever built.

Following our quick review of Sterling Edition and the 420S, we headed over to the Dark Horse for its official unveiling by Saleen’s recently appointed CEO Chris Theodore, followed by a track session. During our ride-along with Derek Hartland, Saleen’s chassis engineer, we were reacquainted with how brutally fast Saleen can make its Mustangs. The supercharged 302-cubic-inch V8 forcefully pins you to your seat, while massive 15-inch cross-drilled rotors with 6-piston calipers pitch you forward just as hard. The Dark Horse is one of the better-handling Mustangs we’ve been in, complete with Saleen shocks, springs, and their second generation watts-link system. The combination of supercharger whine and deep V8 rumble sounds great, backing up the Dark Horse’s menacing appearance.

Unfortunately, all of this comes at a price. Saleen didn’t give us a specific number, but expect the Dark Horse to come in right around $90,000. Like the Sterling Edition, only 25 will be built, with production beginning in November. Obvious comparisons will be made with the Corvette Z06 and Dodge Viper SRT-10, but if we were going to spend the really big bucks on a Mustang, this would be the one.

The Saleen S5S Raptor was one of the stars of the New York Auto Show, so it’s not surprising that Saleen is considering building the 650-hp, V8 hyper car. According to an interview in Automobile with Chris Theodore, Ford’s former head of NA product development, one of the men behind the Ford GT and the man atop Saleen, “the car has the potential for reality.” He went on to say that the concept was “designed around a feasible business model,” and that the S5S was very well received after its debut. This could mean that a production version is on the way and that it would take all of six months to have a prototype in testing. The major hurdle Saleen has to overcome is finding a suitable production partner, but if that wrinkle is ironed out and they decide to build the Raptor, Saleen’s halo car might be spied in prototype form next year.
[Source: Automobile]