Selling Dennis Rodman's Saleen was not a slam dunk

There’s always an extra bit of intrigue when a celebrity car comes to market. Price-wise, it adds a variable on top of the usual combo of condition/mileage/history/rarity/options, and star power can add anywhere from millions to a car’s price tag all the way down to absolutely nothing. So when a Mustang owned by distinguished former ambassador to North Korea, Jean Claude Van Damme co-star, and nose ring enthusiast Dennis Rodman sold on Bring a Trailer this week, we watched closely.

Just 18 bids and $47,775 later, though, it appears that even five NBA championships and two Defensive Player of the Year awards couldn’t help this used car bring any more than mediocre money for the model. That extra Detroit Piston (eight under the hood and one behind the wheel) just didn’t add any power.

Rodman’s ride isn’t just a normal ’89 Fox body. It’s a Saleen from 1989, the same year “The Worm” won his first championship and first Defensive Player of the Year playing for Detroit. Though not as famous, Fox-body Saleens are a lot like the Shelby Mustangs of the ’60s in that they came from a racer-turned-carmaker who transformed Ford’s bread-and-butter pony car into an unapologetic, track-ready corner-carver. For emissions reasons, early Saleens left the engine alone but added stiffer springs, Bilstein dampers, alloy wheels, stickier tires, nifty custom FloFit seats, and a body kit with bright graphics. Ford put them on the showroom floor right alongside LTDs and Tauruses, and Saleen Mustangs even came with a Ford factory warranty.

Being an expensive product from a small operation (an ’87 Saleen conversion cost over 20 grand compared to $13,000 for a normal LX), it wasn’t a big seller. Only people with deep pockets (like pro athletes) could justify that kind of ’Stang spending. Production totaled just a few dozen in some years, and even Saleen’s peak of 1988-89 saw little more than 700 cars annually. Meanwhile, Ford moved more than 400,000 of its own Mustangs in that time.

By 1989 (the 25th anniversary of the Mustang), Saleen had begun adding power in addition to the suspension and cosmetic goodies found on earlier products. The company made the usual hot rod tweaks to create the Saleen SSC (Saleen Super Car) model, the fastest new Mustang you could buy at the time. A larger throttle body, upgraded intake, new exhaust with high-flow cats, and other improvements bumped power from 225hp in the base car to nearly 300—big figures at the dawn of the ’90s.

Rodman’s car is #121 of the 161 Saleen SSCs built for 1989, sold new at Avis Ford in Michigan, finished in Oxford White with gray trim over gray and white leather. Other than a copy of a Texas title (Rodman grew up in Dallas) and a photo of him in front of a couple of Saleens, there isn’t much history represented and it’s unclear how long Rodman owned it. It’s also far from showroom fresh, with 87k miles showing, plenty of wear and tear, a replaced windshield, and several modifications including Borla mufflers and an X-pipe, a strut tower brace, modified suspension, and another set of wheels.

Fox-body (1979-93) Mustangs in general have shot way up in value over the past several years, but Saleens have accelerated at a faster clip and super-rare models like the SSC can be seriously expensive. The prior two SSCs to sell on Bring a Trailer brought $93,975 and $74,130, respectively. Yet this one, owned by a guy the NBA calls “arguably the best rebounding forward in NBA history,” brought less than the car’s condition #4 (Fair) value in the Hagerty Price Guide.

When it comes to celebrity cars and their value, there’s no exact science, but there is a basic formula. For star cachet to add major digits to a price tag, the owner needs to be household-name famous or close to it, and the owner needs to be known as a car person. Then there’s originality, whether the car itself is an interesting make/model, how much of a real connection it had to its famous owner, and when they owned it.

As for Dennis Rodman and his fast Ford, it just doesn’t tick enough of the boxes. Rodman is indeed very famous. You don’t have to be a basketball fan to remember the dyed hair bad boy on the court with the Pistons or his winning years with the Bulls. But even though he bought and probably sold this car well before some of his less-endearing antics, he’s famous for a lot of the wrong reasons.

And none of those reasons include him being into cars. He apparently does like motorcycles and has had some cool cars (including a Porsche 993 Turbo), but pretty much every high-profile athlete buys a cool car or two or five. Finally, although Rodman bought the car when his career was on the upswing, there were no representations from the seller on BaT how long he owned it or how much he traveled in it. At 6’7”, the SSC would’ve been a tight fit, so one’s left to wonder how many of the 87,000 miles Rodman put on the car.

In the end, it’s a rare but used car that sold for rare but used car money. The history, whatever it is, with a basketball great like Dennis Rodman is just a free bonus and a good story. And if a pair of his teammate’s old shoes can sell for $2.2M, it almost starts to look like a good value. A seller’s airball can be a buyer’s swish.