Automotive News [sub] reports that GM is preparing to spin off its Saab brand, since its “strategic review” has failed to turn up any interested buyers. “Saab has been negotiating with GM and the Swedish government about becoming a more independent company, initially as part of GM,” explains a mysterious GM source. According to Saab’s union president Paul Akerlund, “under this [plan], the Saab board will be more like a normal board, and less dependent on what happens on GM’s European strategy board. They will make their own decisions.” Still confused? GM will still be the owner, but Saab will have its own budget, says Akerlund. Presumably only long enough to attract an interested buyer, though. “You have to make sure there is a company that GM can sell,” says Stefan Lofven, president of Sweden’s IF Metall union. “That means a company that is a separate entity where people can look at the balance sheets and you know what you are buying.” As in not GM, where top executives are “losing patience” with Saab. So instead of “GM life support” as Lutz so uniquely puts it, Saab gets production of the new 9-5 and an undetermined amount of cash (ha!) to retreat to the motherland and court buyers in peace.
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How do you get this and miss the Fiat/Chrysler story?
http://www.autoweek.com/article/20090119/FREE/901199986
Do you mean this story https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/chrysler-and-fiat-scusate/
(posted on TTAC at 0620 EST)
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So they’ll spin off Saab, but it will still be attached—for some unspecified time? That’s like putting passengers in a lifeboat (this one has a few holes in it) but keeping the boat linked to a sinking ship. Sure would like an accounting of what BO money has gone to Saab especially if the Swedishhhh government is getting involved.
This is a bit of a mess; aren’t some Saabs and Opels built in the same factories?
If Saab is a separate corporation with a separate board then GM should be able to just let it go bankrupt without any liability (just like Cerberus would have been able to do with Chrysler). At least that wouldn’t require putting any cash into it.
Possibly there is too much integration and the veil might get pierced.
If Saab leaves this country it will be missed, but hopefully we will always remember the best car Saab ever sold, the 9-2x Aero.
I wish Saab the best in this. I’ve been waiting a long time for them to get out from under GM to see what they can really do.
I agree with twonius, let’s hope if SAAB can become something unique again.
So GM is plowing US tax dollars into Saab with the hope that someone will buy it?
I think this is why they invented “Do Not Resuscitate” orders….
Maybe the 7 people who still own a Saab can each throw in $100 and buy it.
Well, I own two so I guess I better get those two bills out….but looking back over the years it’s definitely been a mixed bag. Right now my mind says any way, any how to get Saab away from the schizoid management that GM had with it over the past decade or two is OK with me. Whether it actually turns out well is of course, yet to be seen.
I don’t get it. The Swedish government doesn’t want to prop up the brand, even though it has a special marque status granted by the royal family. GM can use the plants to build Opels, or sell to other manufacturers. GM doesn’t want to build hatchback 900/9-3 cars.
Why/how is Saab Automobile still alive?
Watch them do the same to Hummer. GM’s creating mini co’s with assembly plants and everything in hopes that that will have value and can be sold.
The biggie is BPGMC. If they can calve that off of the mother corp and still leave a viable entity then they will accomplish everything that the B&B have wished for 2 years now.
I believe the full title of this news item inadvertently got chopped off. It should read, “Saab Spinning Off Into Oblivion”.
There’s nothing unique about these cars whatsoever.
I know FIRST HAND. Can YOU imagine having to have your ENTIRE DASHBOARD *RIPPED* out of your (expensive!!) car, only to have the GM/Delphi/JUNK A/C compressor replaced?
Who’d ever dream up such a f’n scenario, right?
Well, trust me, it’s real.
Unless the Swedish government decides to create Swedish Leyland, so long Saab….just a couple of years ago at a major international auto show, I wound up sharing a lunch table with some of Saab’s top marketing people. None of them seemed to have a clue about what their vision of Saab was…they just kept repeating the ‘Born From Jets’ mantra as if that was good enough. When the people doing your marketing don’t have clue or enthusiasm for the car, it’s over.
Actually – I think this is Saab’s only hope and, I suspect, the first step in what we’ll hear is a future Volvo/Saab alliance…these cars have benefited from their American relationships (Volvo more so) but it’s the Americans who have become the weak sisters, here…
Saab downsayers notwithstanding they are actually effin good cars.
Anyone who refers to a $40K car with the above “treatment” I described as “effin good” is not dealing with reality.
A $14K Corolla is a better built vehicle…BAR NONE. What does that make the Corolla?….
If Saab leaves this country it will be missed, but hopefully we will always remember the best car Saab ever sold, the 9-2x Aero.
Hey, that was the prettiest Impreza YOU ever saw! Actually during the ’05 GM Employee sale I looked closely at one – there were a number of interior improvements over the Subie as well. Alas, I had a tough time fitting in the car and having to utilize the back seat.
I’m ready to slap the shit out of GM and Saab. While Ford owning Volvo wasn’t a grand slam, they did a number of things to greatly improve their reliability and extend their offerings with good products. I love my 9-3 Aero, but it is so finicky. Two months ago I got new tires, and the tire pressure alert would constantly go off whenever you start the car, and about every 10 minutes after. Calling the dealer (one of two left in Houston, the 4th largest US city), a tech told me I’d have to get the GenII flashed. $140.00. Not covered by the manufacturer.
So today I took the looooong drive to the ‘nearest’ dealer (I live in Northwest Houston, the dealers are in North North Houston, or South South Houston)….and…the light never once went on. Thank God it was a beautiful day here to pop the top and enjoy the sunshine on my long drive.
The rise of near-luxury/luxury reliables like Acura, Infinity and Lexus has crowded out the weaker Euro links – Alfa, Puegeot, now Saab and possibly Volvo. I guess time marches on….
i’d still love a late 90’s 9-5 Aero, the prefacelift one.
so nice
“…Honorius, sent letters to the communities of Britain, bidding them defend themselves.”
Honorian rescript 410 AD..
Apparently, according to some comments in Sweden, Saab’s holding company owned the brand … maybe GM realized they had nothing to sell?
What GM did to Saab is criminal. Brand destruction to the nth degree.
And now? There are too many car brands in Europe, and Alfa is becoming what Saab could have been.
Can I have my Sonnett IV now?
I hope GM does this with all their losing brands. Give them a chance to save themselves.
Just bury Saab, please. It’s been dead for years and the rotting corpse is stinking up the place. There is a reason that GM can’t find buyers for it. Stop spending good money after bad.
I’m no Saab fan at all, but seems that this presents an opportunity for Saab to reinvent itself in its own brand rather than as GM’s appendage.
In fact if GM did this to all their brands not only would it be easier to pare the undesirable ones but it would return to the pre-MBA era where each brand operated as its own company under the GM Corporate umbrella. More unique vehicles could definitely be more attractive to consumers, plus GM has gotten used to being in enough control to force the brands to play nice and cooperate to minimize costs which could be more fruitful than jamming a badged version of every corporate platform under development down each brand’s throat just to prevent product starvation.
So, GM is going to take unprofitable SAAB and set them up with their own dedicated engineering, management, finance, marketing, and manufacturing teams and all the costs associated with them and ? then profit!
New? Nine? Five? These words do not make sense.
Maybe Ikea will buy them. It would be a revolution, the Flatpack Car!
All a smokescreen.
They’re giving Saab their own budget and management structure in order to see if they can right themselves — all while making the brand more “separate” in order to entice a future buyer?
Do you have any conceivable idea how much money, really, is necessary to run any car company in today’s hyper-competitive environment?
And do you honestly believe GM is giving Saab anywhere near enough to re-invent itself and thrive, let alone survive?
If Saab is to be considered an “independent” with strings, do you know how inconsequential they are in the automotive world order?
The reality is Saab is too small. Too far behind. Too broken. Too inundated with GM-think and GM-product to ever come close to pulling out of their born-from-Jets death spiral.
This is all Public Relations nonsense — a run-up to GM’s next trip to the government “loan” department.
“Look what we did! We shopped, er, studied Saab and we came up with a PLAN. All better now. Can we have our money?”
This should cause smirks and outright guffaws in government or industry boardroom anywhere in the world were it not so…
necessary.
It was this or shut ‘er down. And GM can’t afford that at the moment (see Oldsmobile, history of; then state franchise laws) so it’s a new Name the Stall Game at Saab for GM.
But make no mistake, even if GM cut Saab completely clean…tossed ’em out free and clear, Saab is too small, too weak, too dependent to pull up.
From a GM point of view, Saab has failed to perform.
From a Saab point of view, Saab was supposed to be something like GM’s bad bank in Europe.
A lot of Saab R&D was used on other GM projects – just take XWD, which is now being integrated into quite a few GM models all over the world.
What’s going to happen now is that Saab will work on their own account. They will pay for GM technology and will make GM pay for theirs.
So let’s see what Saab can do, if they’re on their own!
no_slushbox,
The best car Saab ever built was not, in fact, a Suburu Impreza with what GM called “capturing the essence of Saab” and what others called a Suburu with a Saab nameplate. Most Saab owners will tell you that the best car Saab ever built was the 900, which unfortunately began to acquire a high factory defect rate after GM bought into the company. The redesigned Opel/900 that became the 9-3 was a pretty awful car, as was everything after that. When GM purchased the rest of Saab they fired all the Saab people and let them reapply for their old jobs, unlike Ford’s purchase of Volvo, wherein Volvo was simply handed a Ford parts book and money to design good cars.
I currently have three Saabs: a 99, a 900 and a 9000. The 99 has somewhere on the order of 320,000 miles, the 900 has 328,000, and the 9000 has 200,000. None of them have been rebuilt, or required anything beyond oil and tire changes and new steering racks every 100,000 miles. They’re incredibly easy to service (Saab at one time circulated its engineers through the factory service center), incredibly reliable and they’re fun to drive.
I’d love to have a car that’s newer than my 1987 9000, because despite the quality of the driveline the plastic parts do eventually fall off. But I can’t find another car that carries as much, is as well-built and easy to service, and is as fun to drive as my old non-GM Saabs.
I’ll cross my fingers for this new effort. Maybe there are still some Saab engineers left.