Or so it appears anyway. Anyone else heard this?
tinyurl.com/kljxv7
I wonder if this means Saab will start making good cars again.
Adam
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quote---------------The buyers have signed a letter of intent to buy Saab," SVT said on its website.-unquote
they must be doing it on a budget then as i would have rather used a hotel rather than in a tent
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BBC flash
"General Motors agrees to sell Saab to Swedish sports car maker Koenigsegg"
What will we see from this "marriage" ?
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Hopefully something positive will come out of it for Saab as their individuality was one of their strongest features. Nobody wants to buy a Scandinavian car and get a rebodied Ford.
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Nobody wants to buy a Scandinavian car and get a rebodiedFord.
Or Opel, even.......
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To me Saab are a bit like Citroen. They are supposed to be slightly quirky with very distinctive qualities which, love or hate them, make them unique.
I stopped liking Saabs when they lost this quirkiness. The 9-3 I drove last year could have been any Eurobox. Not a bad car, but all that told me it was a Saab was an unconventionally located ignition switch.
Without knowing the financial details, my gut feeling is that this is a potentially good partnership. It could provide the kind of creative input Saabs need, and which they've lacked for years.
Cheers
DP
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Saab went downhill when they stopped fitting Ford engines!!
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>>Or Opel, even.......<<
Yeah that would be it :-)
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Koenigsegg schmoenigsegg, Saab willl still end up buying engines and lots of bits from another major manufacturer ....
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Going back to their roots then - they bought in engines from Triumph long ago,.
Edited by Pugugly on 16/06/2009 at 17:36
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they bought in engines from Triumph long ago
The last Saab-made engine was the 3 cylinder 2-stroke in the 96 I thought, with a freewheel mechanism too. Later 96es had a Ford V4, that engine that lunched itself in 50,000 miles... then Triumph engines with the 99 and 900. But I think Saab engineered the engines themselves anyway with the turbo models. Don't think there was ever a turbo Triumph.
Edited by Lud on 16/06/2009 at 17:44
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Would anyone complain if the stuck a BMW 'six under the bonnet though? For instance.
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It was the ford V4 they used to win the rally's.
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plus ca change, plus c'est la meme for Saab then.
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I still remember fondly my first Saab 96, yes with the two-stroke engine, one pint of oil to four gallons of petrol (four gallons for a quid on special offer). Amazing car, only had about half a dozen moving parts .... used to eat spark plugs .....
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Amazing car only had about half a dozen moving parts
Four wheels moving, so what were the other two parts?
alfalfa
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But surely that's just not big enough to cut it as a car manufacturer? Who are they going to partner with to design the next generation of SAABs?
JH
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>They are supposed to be slightly quirky with very distinctive qualities which, love or >hate them, make them unique.
thats technispeak for no-one bought them isnt it?
Lets not get all dewy eyed about SAAB, they were never that good that they need to be saved at all costs.
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Agreed. I owned a 9000CDE LPT, and drove a number of 900s. They were heavy, dull, unreliable, uneconomical and nowhere near as good as their image. They would have been no loss. In some respects you could say that Subaru occupy a similar sector of the car spectrum, but at least they produce interesting and reliable cars (if still thirsty!). However, if they failed, I would be sad but not distraught as some people have been over SAAB.
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Don't GM own part of Subaru - hence the SAABaru in the States?
I think it's a link via Fuji Heavy Industries and there was/is a Saab 9-2X and a 9-1 before that, both of which were Subaru Imprezza's.
Edited by rtj70 on 16/06/2009 at 22:09
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I must be in the minority, and i dont want to offend anyone. but while saabs might be technically good, ive never liked the way that they look,
I think that the only thing ive ever liked is where the ignition key is, and the fact that when you operated the wash wipe the wash came on a second before to ensure the window was wet (im aware that this is probs standard now but when i had a go in a saab (G REG) it was a good idea then)
for me its the little things that matter in a car but ive never looked at a Saab and thought "wow look at that", and i used to lust over a Volvo T5
But i agree that GM has throttled Saab, and if anything Koenigsesgg buying them must be a good thing.
Lets hope that we see some good out of all this
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And let us hope volume production is not an issue - Koenigsegg make 15 cars a year don't they.
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Back in the 70s and early 80s, they did have an enviable reputation for robustness and resistance to rot, when much of the other stuff on the market fell apart like rice paper. They were also individually styled and the 99turbo in particular developed a cult following - don't forget SAAB's contribution to the turbo'd petrol hot saloon. I agree they've been ruined by GM -let's hope they have a future, although not sure how experienced Koenigsegg are with volume production?
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Had a shot in a friends 9000 Carlsson a few years ago - made the Volvo T5 feel as if it still had the brakes on.
What I liked about Saabs: Freewheel, heated seats, seatbelts, heated rear windscreen (albeit warm air) heated side windows, nice thick rubber bumpers that could withstand writing off Hillman Avengers in a head-on, hazard warning lights, headlight washers, folding rear seats, fitted radios, head restraints - and all this in the early 1970's when Ford, GM BL thought having a variable heater switch was a technical advance...........
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What I recall most about certainly the 1980's Saabs was that they had some of the most comfortable seats in the business and it was safe compared to rivals. Now of course Renault has taken up safety heavily, a credit to them.
IF Saab can go back to slightly idiosyncratic, but decent cars, they are certainly worth saving as there are just too many dull cars out there.
I know several people who own old Saabs and wont own anything else. Its that sort of loyalty that many car makers dream of.
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And my SAAB 95 has the best cupholder in the business !!!!
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