From the traditional sports car enthusiast’s perspective, the concept of a high-horsepower, performance-oriented sport utility vehicle might still seem strange, yet today’s auto market has shown that buyers have a strong appetite for athletic SUVs packing huge power and are willing to pay the high prices that come with them. Cadillac’s supercharged Escalade V-Series is but one example of this, joining the Dodge Durango Hellcat and Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk on the list of contemporary, American-made hot-rod SUVs powered by blown V8s. 

But what was the first SUV to have a supercharged engine under the hood? It wasn’t a General Motors product or a Dodge. It was a Ford Explorer — kind of. The vehicle in question is actually the Saleen XP8, which was based on the hot-selling Explorer of the late 1990s and early 2000s but modified and sold by the well-known performance brand. The XP8 had its optional supercharger fitted as part of Saleen’s extensive conversion process, which also included many other unique performance and styling upgrades.

Today, more than 25 years after it debuted, the Saleen XP8 Explorer has emerged as a bit of cult collector classic, both as one of Saleen’s more unique production models and also as a high-performance sport utility vehicle that was ahead of its time in many ways.

Saleen is one of the more accomplished American performance brands of the past few decades, known not just for its success on the race track, but also for its long history of building specialized high-performance versions of the Ford Mustang. The Mustang, though, is not the only Ford model that Saleen has used as a base platform. Along with the groundbreaking Explorer XP8, other non-Mustang Saleen models have included versions of the Ford Ranger pickup and even the Ford Focus compact.

The XP8 debuted in 1998 and was based on the second generation of the Explorer — which, by the late ’90s, had helped elevate the SUV into one of the most popular segments in America. With the SUV’s growing popularity, Saleen decided to take the formula it’d been using on its Mustangs and apply it to the family-friendly Explorer.

Converting a standard Explorer into the Saleen XP8 included several changes, depending on how the vehicle was ordered. The exterior had more aggressive fascias and graphics, it got unique 18-inch magnesium wheels, and a suspension setup that dropped the ride height by about two inches. Under the hood, a small number of Saleen Explorers were built with the base V6 engine, but the majority were powered by Ford’s proven 5.0-liter small block V8, which, if desired, could be fitted with a bolt-on supercharger for extra punch.

In naturally aspirated form, the Saleen XP8’s 5.0 made a modest 222 horsepower, but with the supercharger option, that output was increased to a much more substantial 286 horsepower. By modern standards, that number might seem low for a supercharged 5.0 V8, but back in the ’90s, just getting near the 300 horsepower mark was a big deal.  No matter the engine option, XP8s were rare, with Saleen only building around 125 examples between 1998 and 2001.

When talking about the historical significance of the Saleen Explorer XP8 as the first production SUV to have a supercharger, it’s worth mentioning there’s a bit of an asterisk to that title, as it didn’t actually roll off a Ford assembly line that way. The first direct-from-the-factory supercharged SUV would actually come a few years later in the early 2000s, when Nissan introduced a supercharged 3.3-liter V6 engine in its first-generation Xterra. 

Today, buyers looking for a high-performance Explorer can still get that in the form of Ford’s modern 400-horsepower Explorer ST, which makes its power not from a supercharged V8 but from a twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter EcoBoost V6. The fact that the Saleen Explorer XP8’s modern-day equivalent can make so much more horsepower with a full two liters less displacement shows us just how far the high-performance SUV has come since the late 1990s.