It’s pretty much as clear as it can possibly be that China’s BAIC will cart off the used tooling of the 9-5 and 9-3 models, and possibly others to Beijing, and then that’s the end of Trollhättan and Saab, Reuters reports.
Other assets of the brand, including its headquarters will be liquidated, more than 3,000 Saab jobs in Sweden will go bye-bye. The Saab car brand will be retired.
BAIC will use the used machinery to build cars sold under their own brand.
GM is still talking to other suitors for Saab. But after ages of hand-wringing, GM now wants a deal to be closed by end of December, which in the world of deals is tomorrow morning. Says Reuters: “Although the Swedish government could still intervene to tip the balance, those tough conditions and the fast timetable make it more likely that a partial sale of Saab to BAIC will be the only viable option for GM.”
BAIC would still be interested in buying Saab as a whole, but GM doesn’t seem to want to sell the brand and future technology off to China.
On Friday, BAIC obtained a $2.93 billion line of credit from the Bank of China.
So GM will be holding the Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saab, and likely Saturn and Hummer brand names in their “intellectual property” vault. For what purpose? For a limited edition Chevy with the ignition switch on the center console?
The IP associated with Pontiac supposedly belongs to Motors Liquidation, not new GM.
What about the Oldsmobile intellectual property? I’m assuming the Saturn closure is too new to have been covered under Motors Liquidation. And Hummer is still operating, making that a no-go. Not that any of it matters, as the past couple of years have proven that the car market is overcrowded with brand names in the US, but I’d still be interested to know.
Purpose may be to prevent errosion of Buick’s Chinese market share (by flooding the market with CAABs…) and if you think of it this way, perhaps the new 51% holder of SGM has voted (with its pocketbook, and now majority strength) for this option.
well Saab, it was great having you around, you will be missed
I’m not going to indulge in any puns. This is too sad. RIP.
If your not going to keep Saab (and the cars you just finished designing) as a going concern for yourself, there’s no point selling the whole thing to a competitor to use your own technology against you.
Maybe a Buick grill will go over better on the front of a 9-4x than it did on a Vue!
For another take/discussion on the Reuters story:
http://www.saabsunited.com/2009/12/reuters-baic-carving-saab-up-su-wrong.html
Hmmm, the folks over at Saabsunited seem to have their heads in the sand whilst indulging in an awful lot of wishful thinking. Fanboys are often like that.
Despite the snide generalization, it’s hardly unanimous over there. A lot o folks (including me) think it’s pretty much over.
Sad? What’s sad is that Volvo, a company that made amazingly bulletproof cars, sold the car division to Ford to focus on trucks.
Saab is just a quirky company that made some interesting cars 40 years ago, just like tens of other post war European auto companies that people don’t remember because GM didn’t keep them on life support. The ’80s cars were overrated, but at least had longitudinal engines and early adopter turbos. Every thing since the ’80s has been awful.
The best car to ever wear a Saab badge, by a wide margin, is the 9-2x Aero. Whose VIN starts with J. That’s not a joke, the only Saab badged car I would even consider buying is the Subaru Saab 9-2x.
The 9-2x is also the most authentic Saab made in recent history, with a longitudinal engine and two banks of two cylynders like the longitudinal V4s in old Saabs.
After the 9-2x the second best Saab made in the last 20 years was made in Ohio.
RIP, along with much less deserving of death companies/brands like NSU and DKW. Audi is now everything Saab ever was, except better, including, and this is really pathetic, more reliable.
And the only thing that fell off my Saabaru was the Saab badge. Go figure! Good Japanese products are allergic to American crap!
How often do we see companies sell off one business unit to “concentrate” on another because the favored-for-now business unit seems to be an easier way to make money? Volvo’s focus on commercial vehicles has left them in a world of hurt. The global commercial vehicle market is also highly competitive and is even more subject to business cycle swings than are autos.
Have a look at Volvo Group’s latest investor report to see just how well things are going there:
http://www.volvogroup.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/VGHQ/Volvo%20Group/Investors/Financial%20reports/09Q3%20pressconference.pdf
I hope you’re kidding about the second-best Saab being made in Ohio. The TrollBlazer was and is a bad joke of badge-engineering. The 9-3 was at least competitive with FWD Audis and Lexuses back in the early part of the decade. Would you seriously consider the GMT360 platform competitive with the Mercedes MLs and BMW X5s it was priced against?
If I had to tow and wanted a well equipped SUV to tow with I would consider a used 9-7x. I would not consider towing with an X5, etc (and the 9-7x was never priced against the X5 and M-class, especially with rebates and discounts). Plus the 9-7x offers durability and cheap Chevy dealer repairs that the German SUVs don’t. The 9-7x does some things worse and some things better. A 9-3 or 9-5 does nothing better than an Audi or Acura.
But the 9-7x is more of a stretch. The 9-2x is not. It is by far the best car Saab has ever sold. Not a great (Subaru) legacy for the brand.
The 9-2x is a fine vehicle if satisfied with being one of the living dead, and satisfied with what limited staples are offered in the cattle feedlot that is the modern car industry.
To say that some generic brand engineered can actually compare to the Saab 96 and 99 is just sad.
I say this as someone who actually likes the Impreza compared to its competitors and would consider owning one as a tolerable appliance…just show a little respect to Erik Carlsson and other men of his kind, and don’t say its the best SAAB, because it isn’t.
Volvo sold the thier car operations because they were not profitable and they could not afford to develop new models and technology, while they had a profitable truck division (also one of the largest in the world). So thier choice was to dilute thier profitable business to support an unprofitable one or to sell it and use that capital on the profitable one. Heavy trucks are a cycl. business, you save money in the good years for the bad ones.
Hindsight 20/20 – Volvo is still what it was when they sold it, a marginal player with a limited customer base, not considered luxury and not considered mainstream and Volvo is still the worlds largest truck company. And you can’t say that ford didn’t try, thier support of the PAG nearly killed ford it self.
Well, actually, Saab did the same. Before GM bought Saab and created Saab Automobile, the company was merged with the truck maker Scania, as Saab-Scania. Both Volvo and Saab let their profitable truck business hold the car making business under their arms for 20-30 years straight. Saab would never had made any money without Scania, likewise for Volvo and their trucks. And both makers finally relented to the decision to drop the unproftables business and concentrate on the profitable ones. Volvo Trucks is still making tons of money, the Wallenberg still has interest in Scania, together with Man/VW.
re: B10er:
The Subaru conversion wasn’t generic brand engineering. That would be the rebadging of transverse engine Opels as the 9-3 and 9-5. The Subaru actually has a longitudinal engine and two banks of two cylinders (like the 96). It was just developed and made incredibly well, unlike any Saab.
Saabs does not deserve the reputation is has, many other small European manufacturers were making better cars.
Really, some FWD car with a two stroke engine or Ford engine? That’s anything to be proud of? Sticking the worst possible engine in the worst possible layout?
Saabs were appliances, just crappy ones. And why is the Impreza an appliance? It doesn’t drive like one, particularly the previous generation. Because it’s Japanese, not European?
It’s a shame that people don’t know about Sir Alec Issigonis, who basically designed the modern car. Or Tatra, which provided the engineering that VW and Porsche were formed upon. Or Citroen’s FWD pioneering (Saab doesn’t even come close to being a pioneer of that technology). Or thousands of other people and hundreds of brands that deserve more recognition than Saab.
Give a little respect to the engineers at Subaru, they made a better Saab than any Swede ever did.
You know those longitudinal V4s in old Saabs were actually Ford engines, right?
Slushbox,
Dude, the 9-2X was an Impreza was a Saab badge and some minor cosmetic changes. It was made in Japan on the same line as the Impreza. It is a textbook poster boy for badge engineering, and you are saying its not…becuase the engine layout is by chance similar to a 40+ year old Saab??? Wow…
What is an appliance in the automotive colloquial sense? A mechanical device used to serve a purpose, mass produced, and devoid of character, flair, interest or charm. It may be extremely functional, reliable, safe, and practical.
A Corolla is a good example, and there is nothing wroing with the car. The Impreza is nothing more than a quicker awd Corolla – everything that makes the Impreza somewhat different, are simply carry-overs from when Subarus were fairly unique, namely the Boxer engine and awd layout. Without these, the Impreza is nothing more than a plastic-y generic bubble, though a bubble no doubt safer and more functional than any classic SAAB.
How is a SAAB 96 a generic appliance?
Could it ever have worked for SAAB? I say there was only ever one way. Back in the late 80’s when Toyota/Lexus, Honda/Acura, Nissian/Infinity, Mazda/Amati were in the planning stages, if only Fuji Heavy Industry had bought SAAB and made it the luxury division of Subaru.
SAAB as the luxury divison of Subaru would have made total sense. IMHO
SAAB — SOB.
Don’t you mean: “SAAB – sob.”?
Saab could have been a success story at least twice under GM’s “stewardship”:
* First, when they were initially acquired. The French and Italians were beating a hasty retreat and the Germans, Mercedes aside, didn’t have the ironclad reputation they do now. Saab could have been another BMW.
* Second, when hybrid gas/electric power came of age. The demographics of your average Saab buyer (relatively well-off, highly educated, amenable to new or alternative products, left-of-center and environmentally concerned) lined up perfectly with the people who were coughing up premium dollars for Priuses. So what does GM do for it’s first hybrid? A full-size BoF truck. Think about that demographic for a moment.
At least for did right by Volvo, even if they did pilfer the brand’s technology and virtues. Hell, at least Ford learned something from Volvo; all GM did with Saab was wipe out the whole point of the brand.
There is really no way that GM could have ever positioned Saab against BMW. People buy BMW for RWD (knowingly or not). Even Honda and VW can barely move FWD based luxury cars. And that is what Saab has ended up as, an also ran to Audi and Acura. As for hybrids, the Prius is a money losing halo car that lifts the entire Toyota brand. Making money losing hybrid Saabs would do nothing for the GM brand.
Ford has hardly done right by the Volvo brand, it’s begging random Chinese companies to buy it. But Ford was smart to buy Volvo for its platforms and technology, which are the basis of Ford’s current lineup. When GM bought Saab it was already a dead company with worthless platforms and technology that were useless to GM. Another dumb GM decision, but nobody could have made anything of Saab.
The German ironclad reputation was made in the 1970s and 1980s (Audi excluded), and has been on the decline since, with BMWs being the best of the lot, and even they have lost their way over the past decade…
Saab could have been a success story at least twice under GM’s “stewardship”:
GM couldn’t even be a success story under GMs stewardship. Oh well…where will we get our daily dose of torque steer w/o SAAB?
Oh well…where will we get our daily dose of torque steer w/o SAAB?
Mini? That or Acura.
RWD isn’t essential. Audi has done well with FWD/AWD. It’s all in one’s positioning.
The biggest mistake an independent automaker can make is to try competing directly against the big boys.
SAAB lost its independence because it stopped being different in meaningful ways. By the late 1980s what was the point of SAAB? A turbo and a floor ignition switch do not a successful brand make.
When GM took over it was too steeped in American-style brand engineering to realize that SAAB was dead unless it quickly entered new market niches that tied into its Nordic heritage, e.g., an AWD sports wagon.
People buy BMW for RWD (knowingly or not).
Not true. People lease or buy BMWs because of status and fashion statements. Very few of the BMW owners/leasors of new BMWs I know buy them because of the “fanboy” factor.
I don’t think everyone buys BMW for RWD. In fact, my guess is that probably something close to 40% of BMW drivers are in it for the status rather than the ultimate driving machine, and those people certainly could have gone for Saab just as easily as for BMW had GM positioned Saab correctly. Saab was additionally a fun-to-drive car, albeit with very different dynamics from BMW, and there are probably a number of driving enthusiasts who would have gone for Saab had GM maintained its personality. Additionally, in those cases, pricing it a few Gs below BMW would have helped. Saab drivers I knew thought the car had a lot of value, and keeping that up would have helped.
Only 40%? I’d make it more like 80%
I’d make it 90%. That’s why I said knowingly or not. BMW’s are prestigious because of the 10% who do know. Those automotive “tastemakers” (car mags and now blogs, the guy in the office that is an enthusiast, etc.) create the prestige. The status comes from, and depends on, the fact that it is the ultimate driving machine, even if many buyers don’t care about driving.
FWD cars are much cheaper to make than RWD cars. If BMW and Mercedes could keep their prestige and price points but switch to FWD they would, it would make them a ton of profit. But they know they can’t. Even if 90% of the buyers don’t know the cars are RWD.
Infiniti used to be also ran, but now it’s biting at BMW’s heels with a solid RWD lineup. Acura and Audi have always struggled.
The best GM could have ever done is position Saab against Audi and Acura, which it did. But why would anyone buy an overpriced FWD car from GM when he or she can buy an overpriced FWD car from Honda?
no_slushbox; Why do you say RWD are more expensive to make than FWD?
My understanding is that FWD is all about packaging, and provides a safer (i.e. less fun) driving setup in poor weather.
BTW Merc does make several FWD cars – they just not sold in the US (yet)
colin42 +1
Here in my city, the most often seen MBs are FWD B200’s.
So GM will be holding the Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saab, and likely Saturn and Hummer brand names in their “intellectual property” vault. For what purpose? For a limited edition Chevy with the ignition switch on the center console?
Dan
U so Brilliant, no wonder GM is going down the tube so fast. They need man like u to run the show.
I see my sarcasm is only matched by yours.
Everybody is so gullible. Swedish media is gullible, the Swedish people are gullible.
Apparently, Saab has been carved up in five different holding companies: Powertrain, Parts, Property, Tools and Invetments. That, and the sales of the old factory line to China “Shall not be seen as Saab is preparing to sell out and liquidate”, says Eric Geers at Saab.
Sounds like MG Rover in it’s twilight years
All: Your tears are 20 years too late. SAAB died when GM took charge.
Only now are the remains being disposed of.
Anybody remember the variable displacement (IIRC, the head moved relative to the block, or something equally unusual) SAAB engine from the early 90’s? I remember them presenting it, and it was supposed to be the next best thing, and then it did a “Judge Crater”. I always assumed it had a key technical flaw, like not being engineered in GM, so it got buried, but as I read the SAAB wind-down story, I do wonder again, “Where have you gone Joe Dimaggio?”…
So GM will be holding the Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Saab, and likely Saturn and Hummer brand names in their “intellectual property” vault.
Add Isuzu too. They bled them to death as well. Ron Zarella and Rick Wagoneer (and a shit load of other bland, faceless, GM managerial lifers), how do you sleep? Comfortably, I’m sure, with your golden parachutes.
I love my 9-3. Yes, it has a donated chassis, but it is still ‘Saab’ with all its quirks. The fact that it received the top rating in crash tests was just the icing on the cake from a very simple, beautiful design and decent reliability.
The 9-2x was an interesting exercise (and much prettier Impreza) that was a steal during the ’05 Employee Sale. Too bad I needed more room or I’d have one. IMO the Saab-Subaru hookup was very logical.
The 9-7x was an abortion. I can’t think of anyone in that market (X5, XC90, etc) who ever needed to pull a trailer.
Sigh. GM is such a fuck-up.
Would the Swedes have ever considered getting together? Saab and Volvo? I wonder if it was ever discussed.
Yes, it was discussed. Former Volvo CEO P.G. Gyllenhammar proposed a marriage between Saab and Volvo in the late 70’s. I think the idea was nixed by the Wallenberg people at Saab, by some reason or another. Also, at the time, Saab and Volvo had such different business models, nobody took the question really seriously. RWD conservative Volvo against FWD progressive Saab. Nobody thought at that time that Volvo would ever make a FWD transverse-engined car, though the 850 was only ten-fifteen years away. Even their small car offerings was RWD until 1988.
Saab has always been a quirky niche market brand in the U.S. both before and after GM ownership and IMO offered nothing to justify its pricing. The people that will miss Saab are such a small minority of car buyers it truly doesn’t make any difference. In fact, were it not for GM’s life support Saab most likely would have been history a while ago.
There is really no way that GM could have ever positioned Saab against BMW. People buy BMW for RWD (knowingly or not). Even Honda and VW can barely move FWD based luxury cars.
Now, yes, but not back then. Acura was a credible BMW competitor, excluding the 7-Series, back when the lineup consisted of the Legend, Vigor and Integra. You could make the same case for Saab’s 900 (especially the SPG) and certainly the 9000. BMW—again, excluding the 7—wasn’t quite the luxury marque that it is today; it’s lower-end cars were just funky, sporty little Euromobiles.
Back in the early 1990s I use to drive a SAAB 9000 on a regular basis. A couple of years ago I took a quick trip in a new 9-3. It was a test drive. We really had no intention of buying it, but I’m a bit of a Swedephile and wanted to see what had been happening at SAAB . What had been happening was not much. Tradition is a great thing, but not when it comes to engineering.
Now think about what would happen if you compared an early 1990s high end Nissan to today’s Altima?
SAAB and Volvo are in trouble because the sort of performance and comfort they offer can now be had in a well optioned Mazda or Nissan at a significantly lower price point.
The near luxury market both SAAB and Volvo play in is being relentlessly squeezed from below. GM and Ford really did not have many good options once this became apparent. Investing what was required to keep a performance edge over super-mass-market products such as the Mazda3 and Nissan Altima would have meant massive price increases. Unfortunately, neither SAAB or Volvo really has the snob appeal needed to compete at the high end so the investments required would have been pouring good money after bad.
Sad, but that is how capitalism is supposed to work. When a product can no longer be produced at a price people are willing to pay, you stop making it and move on.
What had been happening was not much. Tradition is a great thing, but not when it comes to engineering.
If you want to be depressed, sit in a 1993 900 and the current (ha!) 9-5. You’ll see quite a lot of the same switchgear and secondary controls.
Some of what they did didn’t need to be updated (eg, the seats, the ergonomics before the first 9-3). Some of it was ahead of it’s time (aerodynamics, the mileage/power balance in the latter B205/235). Quite a lot was left to languish and or replaced by GM.
The current 9-3 sports sedan was really the beginning of the end: GM wanted Saab to be BMW and targeted the 9-3SS appropriately** at the E46 3-Series. GM noted that BMW buyers (in North America, because Europe doesn’t really exist) don’t need a hatchback or wagon. Unaccountably, GM failed to note that, by the time of the E46, BMW buyers wanted decent interior materials, rear- or all-wheel drive and the perfect suspension and steering system, all of which the 9-3SS didn’t have. What GM gave us was a half-baked 3-Series competitor*** that completely alienated Saab’s existing clientele.
Nicely done, there, guys: not many companies can screw up that comprehensively.
Everything else was just dogpiling at that point: Between the too-long-on-the-vine 9-5 (a twelve year old car on a sixteen year old platform is expected to compete with the Audi A6, let alone the Acura TL, VW Passat or Volvo V70? Umm, no), the loss of leasing (no one was going to buy or finance a car with as shaky a foundation), the lack of a competitive crossover (A TrailBlazer? Are you kidding?), the waffling with Subaru on the 9-2 and 9-4/9-6/9-X/Whatever, and the complete fumbling of the hybrid opportunity.
All of it started with the brand-management clusterf_ck that was the 9-3SS.
** GM has this delusion that what management says is reality. Saab is a BMW competitor. Pontiac is a BMW competitor. Buick is a Lexus competitor. Someone needs to tell them that, just because marketing has decided that Buick is now hip and young and vibrant it doesn’t mean that the public, outside the RenCen echo chamber, believes the same.
*** it wasn’t a bad car, but it wasn’t a E46 beater. Perversely, Lexus’ first IS300 was a better E46 than the 2001 E46 330i was, and you could get a hatchback, too.
I am more interested in the fate of the white Charger behind it.
Saab (during my driving lifetime) has always been a total waste of a brand. This is coming from someone who is currently taking care of a 9-5 and is a big fan of a forced induction. Simply put, there is not a meaningful difference between their product and VW’s, and VW ended up being the company that does it better. Hell, VW even managed to keep producing the product that defined Saab before the GM mismanagement, the turbo hatchback. I’ve never understood how the Saab faithful could ignore that (along with Subaru’s superior poor weather capabilities and Volvo’s nicer interiors).
Saab owners on the other hand are (in my experience) much more likely to drive manual transmissions and own their particular cars for a reason. I wonder who the remaining few will end up with.
Here, we’ve gone back and forth between VWs and Saabs for years. Each brings their own set of likes and “issues”. When it came to pure fun-ness, VWs like the GTi were a great way to go. However, we had hassles with the VW dealership experience more than we were willing to put up with, something we’ve never had (either buying or servicing) from Saab dealers. And yes, Virginia–the Saabs have been more reliable than the Vdubs, though not cheaper to service.
I don’t expect that Saab servicing will go extinct for many years yet, but the more extensive VW dealership network (that I hope is better than it used to be, based on coworkers’ recent history) might swing us back their way in the future, though spouse still has to be convinced. I still have a soft spot for a new gen GTi.
As for anything GM in our future, not a chance.
I have to agree that SAAB has had become pointless. They were originally Subaru before Subaru – the winter-weather country-road car.
In the 80’s SAAB made a decision to try to become Audi – the winter sports-car of preference for discerning drivers. That might have worked for them if they’d pushed it harder. The BMW of the North. Nanuck’s sled of preference. What Santa drives on his day(s) off. They had a great rally background after all.
I think where it went wrong was with the success of the convertible. They suddenly throught they WERE BMW instead of a snowy-weather-substitute. Once they left their niche, they were in trouble, and then when GM bought them, they lost all identity – something that happened to all brands assimilated into the GM borg.
Sad, really, but it’s time to put ol’ SAAB down, as you would do with your suffering pet cat. It’s bad enough to sell parts of a deceased cat to the chinese, but to have sold SAAB to them alive would have been too horrifying to contemplate.
As a current owner of a 9-2x Aero, and a former employee of a Saab dealership, I would have to agree that the 9-2x is probably the “best” Saab from recent years. The 9-7x was a travesty, and a good example of GM’s heavy-handedness with a “niche” brand.
The 9-3SS that replaced the NG900 and the 1999-2002 9-3 was fraught with all sort of issues with it’s introduction. The B235 engine had all sorts of engine sludge problems, no matter how well you took care of it. Have a turbo Saab (excluding the 9-2x)? Then you have replaced a $400 DI Cassette, without a doubt, probably several times.
The 9000 was the last “real” Saab that wasn’t GM-ified. Sure, there was parts sharing, but it wasn’t the flexi-flyer Opel platform that the 94+ 900/9-3 had.
The 9-5 was (and is) an excellent attempt at a large car, especially in wagon format. I pined over a 2001 Brilliant Red 9-5 Aero Wagon with the optional BBS RK 3-piece wheels when that showed up on the lot.
Saab will be missed.
The 9000 was the last “real” Saab that wasn’t GM-ified. Sure, there was parts sharing, but it wasn’t the flexi-flyer Opel platform that the 94+ 900/9-3 had.
Technically, they shared that one with FIAT. I’d say the OG900 was the last “pure” Saab.
I just want to know where their seats are going. Best seats I have ever sat in.
If this is indeed true, it is a sad day. The automotive landscape will be a little duller, more generic. SAAB may have been a niche brand, but they were innovative, and they made some truly wonderful cars (to those that think otherwise – you have no idea what you’re talking about).
My current 9000 2.3t 5 speed, with 122K on the clock, is still fun as hell to drive, a bulldog in the winter, returns 32 mpg on the highway, with a large car interior and a massive trunk. And a door-closing “thunk” that would make a C-Class weep. If SAAB continued to make cars with these attributes, it would be alive and thriving today.
GM, you suck.
If SAAB continued to make cars with these attributes, it would be alive and thriving today.
All due respect, Saab DID make cars with the same attributes they didGyears ago. The problem is that 20 years ago, the choices for high-perfomance sport sedans were limited – unless you wanted an Alfa that would blow up in your driveway, you could have a BMW 3-series, a BMW 3-series in a different color, or a Saab. I think a lot of people that bought Saabs put up with their well-known quirks – ergonomic weirdness and peaky, over-boosted four cylinder engines, mainly – because they didn’t want a BMW. But then the market changed, and you didn’t have to put up with Saab weirdness to get a sports sedan – you could buy an Audi, Infiniti, Lexus, and Acura that all put up comparable performance numbers without Saab weirdness.
The rest was inevitable.
You can blame GM for their demise all you want, but the fact is that they really did “keep the brand real,” aside from that stupid SUV. Saabs today are just like Saabs were 20 years ago – unrepentantly weird, peaky, and overboosted. And nobody bought them.
If anything, it was GM’s faith in Saab’s concept that killed the brand. The rest of the luxury car market moved on. Saab didn’t.
I like this. You can always find people at TTAC who say the brand failed because it was too weird, and those who say it failed because GM didn’t keep it weird enough.
Luckily, armchairs are cheap and readily available for all of us.
I was speaking to an acquaintance at a party at the weekend and he told me that his Saab 9-5 had broken down beyond economic repair and he had replaced it… with a Chrysler 300. I literally had to bite my tongue.
My vote for best Saab would be the Saab-Lancia 600. It was the car that taught Fiat to be sensible about things like rust-proofing etc. The Lancia Delta is still a desirable car today. It was just a pity that Fiat got more out of the deal than Saab did.
the 70’s 99’s and 80’s 900’s were some of the best built cars of their day, much like the Volvo 240 series, not far below Mercedes in quality. And you could bring a refrigerator home in the hatchback of one, while getting 30+mpg on the highway. They don’t make cars like that anymore, but someone should.
.
Boo Hoo
Pass the Kool Aid
Well, we didn’t see this much sentiment over Saturn a few months ago, did we? Weren’t we supposed to?
Other assets of the brand, including its headquarters will be liquidated, more than 3,000 Saab jobs in Sweden will go bye-bye.
Well, I guess the good news is that in Sweden, these workers will get unemployment for like 10 years, so they won’t have to sell their collections of vintage ABBA vinyl…
Meh, good riddance, no wants to see anything suffer for that long. GM turn SAAD into also ran.
Like someone mentioned earlier, you can’t position a quirky Subaru-type of brand against big boy like BMW. I used to laugh at those SAAB television ads that had that Paul Oakenfold song as a soundtrack. Those SAADs were as much of a sports sedan as a V6 Altima with summer performance tires and had as much in common with jets as Tom Cruise. Not to mention they helped you put your mechanic’s kids through school with their bi-monthly repairs.
At the end of the day SAABs were overpriced, didn’t have the cache (Audi, BMW, Merc), didn’t have the street cred (BMW/Infiniti) and didn’t have the build quality & reliability cred (Lexus/Acura). What was the point?
@ Freed Mike
I agree that the market changed and SAAB failed to keep up. But that’s precisely the point and precisely why GM is to blame for letting SAAB die an ignominious death. You can defend GM all you want, but the laundry list of transgressions is long and ugly.
The 9-7x was a cynical abortion, contrary in every way to the essence of the brand. The 9-2x was a good car, but again, a cyncial badge swap with an entry level Subaru. The 9-5, while a fundamentally good car, was way, way too old – 5 years ago. And the 9-3SS, also (eventually) a decent car, but a SAAB? Cramped interior, no hatchback, no character, overpriced. These are the product decisions that GM made, and they were the wrong ones.
I never thought of SAAB as a BMW competitor. If anything, it was the anti-BMW (and I love BMWs too). This is where GM missed the boat, badly.
My original point stands: If SAAB made cars today with the combined attributes that once made the brand unique – fuel economy + speed + safety + spacious interior + hatchback utility + granitic build quality – they wouldn’t be able to build them fast enough. Make ’em quirky, make ’em in Sweden, price ’em lower and aim for Subaru.
“You can defend GM all you want, but the laundry list of transgressions is long and ugly. ”
PartsUnknown: do you remember how in the latter 90s through more recent years GM kept cycling through no-name managers to run Saab for what–two, three years at the outside, then moved them into other GM corporate positions? Lack of stable management/vision for the subsidiary didn’t help much either.
[come to think of it, didn’t that happen throughout GM?:-]
” The 9-5, while a fundamentally good car, was way, way too old – 5 years ago. ”
And there was a next gen 9-5 that would have been ready ca. 2005, but GM killed it and specced a restyle of the old one instead.
bill h.
Agreed. I have watched the revolving door at SAAB for years. No one at GM knew what to do with it. There was no cohesion, just rudderless product planning and marketing. It’s almost comical; GM couldn’t figure out its own mainstream domestic brands, how the hell was it going to manage a niche Swedish automaker?
I’ve owned 5 Saab’s over the past 30 years (out of the exactly 100 cars I’ve owned), and I personally absolutely loved every one of them. IMHO, Saab is another example of the GM anti-Midas touch – whatever GM touches seems to turn to crap.
Of course, every car company is a business, and must be profitable. No matter how cool and neat and desirable a car is to hard-core gear-heads like me and the rest of us here on TTAC, it has to be a money-maker. Despite that, I think Saab is a great example of the difference between a small successful company and a big failure.
The Saabs I loved (1970’s-1990’s) were unique. They offered things that no other car did. For those that remember the original Saab 99, or 900, or even the 9-3 of the 1990’s, they were an amazing combination of fun to drive, practical, luxurious, and reasonably priced. The old ads from the 1970’s were absolutely true: you really could fold the back seat down and carry furniture in it. I did it many times.
Take the 9-3 Viggen (1999-2002), maybe the last Saab with vestiges of the old, true Saab in it (and my favorite). It was a (reasonably) high performance car that was an absolutely blast to drive. Yet, it was also (relatively) luxurious and comfortable enough to do an all-day drive and arrive feeling comfortable. It looked unique, there was nothing else quite like it on the road. Plus, it had that great hatchback design. What other sporty, fun to drive, fairly fast, reasonably economical (I regularly got 32 mpg in highway driving) can you carry furniture in? It was a car you could both have fun on the twisties, and then fold down the back seat and carry a table, big screen TV, chairs, etc. No other car could, or can, do that.
Saabs used to have character. They had personality. Yeah, they were “quirky” with the overplayed ignition switch on the floor, etc., but they had soul. They were just plain interesting, but also fun, comfortable, practical, economical, and reliable (until GM filled them with second-rate bits from the Malibu).
Saab was never going to be a major player. But, they had their niche, and it worked well enough for them for the better part of 40 years. They appealed to the well-educated, liberal, quirky, somewhat sophisticated buyer (the stereotypical “Vermont college professor”). And you know what? There was absolutely nothing wrong with that. That was the kind of buyer who wanted a car like Saab, and they bought enough of them to make the company a successful small business (for a car company).
Until GM came along and tried to make it into a big car company. GM, with their infamous arrogance, delusion, complete lack of grasp of reality, and being totally out of touch with so many market segments (other than maybe trucks and Corvettes). They just didn’t understand Saab’s demographic, and tried to make it into something it wasn’t. With abominations like the Malibu-ized 9-3, the monstrosity 9-7 Blazer, and the pathetic Saabaru 9-2 Imprezza (which was a good car, just not a Saab).
They destroyed the uniqueness of the brand. They completely gutted why Saab buyers (like me) bought Saabs. They turned it into yet another bland, undistinguished, low-quality GM division pawning second-rate junk.
And the Saab buyers went away.
So instead of letting Saab continue as a (reasonably) successful small car company, GM butchered it and tried to turn it into a bigger company – which failed. And with the loss of Saab is also lost the precious gem of a car that no one else has made since.
The world will go on. But, the 100,000 or so people who used to buy Saabs, who loved them and appreciated them for their unique and irreplaceable personality, will always miss them. Sometimes in business, wanting to be BIG and be all things to all buyers is the wrong formula. I think it is better to be successful and small to a core group of fervently loyal buyers, than to dilute your personality and just be another ho-hum failure.
Goodbye Saab, I’ll miss you.
Just chiming in with my two cents here. I have been driving classic Saabs now for probably ten years. I worked in a private Saab repair facility. I thouroughly enjoy these attributes of my ’88 900 turbo:
1: visibility that is second to none.
2: handles very well in the snow; holds the road well in the good weather as well.
3: the engine makes plenty of power and still makes 33 miles to the gallon on average, not just on the highway. Mind you the car is almost 22 years old and still managing excellent power AND fuel economy with 200k miles on it. Try and make me believe that they didn’t know what they were doing when they designed these engines…
4: fold down the rear seat and you have what borders on a truck.
5: all of the electronic devices and modules still work flawlessly. I also worked on VWs for a while. Will one of their window regulators make it 22 years? The answer is unequivocally NO!
I am not a politically oriented person; politics either piss me off or bore me to death. I get a kick out of people who get so passionately biased against something. I have worked in the automotive industry for 15 years and have had the opportunities to drive all kinds of makes and models of vehicles. My Saab has a PERSONALITY that I have not found in any other vehicle. I will not deny having THOROUGHLY enjoyed driving a 2006 Carrera S, I would love to have one! I, however, can honestly say that the personality that I like so much about the classic Saab was absent. To me, the Saab is a solid feeling vehicle.
I will concede a couple of the Saabs weaknesses… the 5 speed transmission was a weak point. It really can’t handle much abuse. The ride quality is not all that great, either. Do either one of these things make me dislike the car or it’s personality? Absolutely not.
I can say that I disliked what GM did to the brand. They definitely killed any and all personality or individuality.
I will conclude.. like what you like. Every car brand has it’s segment that it is meant to satisfy. Pre-GM Saabs did that very well as far as I am concerned.
Whatever to the comment of identity being wrapped up in a car. Yes, I identify with the Saab because I love it’s attributes. Is my identity wrapped up in it? NO. Will I ever change the mind of any Saab hater? NO. However; do not deny that the Saab had things that it was intended to do well and indeed it did.
Saab buyers reminiscing about their cars from the ’80s are just like muscle car buyers reminiscing about their cars from the ’60s.
The car was often their first car, and a first car is going to be great in a person’s mind even if it comparatively sucked.
And just like muscle car buyers Saab buyers have to defend their cars to the death because they’ve wrapped up their identity in the car. An attack on the car is an attack on the person.
Saab failed because it made crappy uncompetitive cars, plain and simple. The (independent) company never developed an AWD system. Saab never brought its quality up to German levels, much less Japanese levels, and Saab was an embarrassment next to Volvo’s legendary durability.
Like people have said above, Subaru is what Saab could have been if Saab had the talent to make reliable cars and had the engineering skill to develop a competitive AWD system to make up for the failings of FWD.
Saab should consider it an honor that it got to sell one Subaru, a Saab made correctly, before it was put out of its misery.
GM didn’t kill Saab (and I’m no fan of GM). In the late ’80s there was no future for overpriced, poorly built FWD cars. The Japanese were making affordable, reliable FWD cars. And the Hondas handled well.
I am an educated liberal, but I’ve never needed to drive a poorly made FWD car to prove it.
When people wrap up their identities in their cars their judgment of their cars becomes blurred.
Saab is dead, Saab owners aren’t. Subaru has a full lineup of amazing cars that they can now move onto. Alternatively, better RWD manual transmission cars are being made now than have ever been made in history, with ESD and snow tires to make it through winter. Or you can buy a Prius. Making any of those choices will, if you have an open mind, show you how comparatively bad the Saab really was. There is a wonderful automotive world out there beyond the rose colored glasses.
You’re flat wrong. You’ve never owned one, so you have zero credibility. Talk/bitch about something about which you have a modicum of knowledge. In fact, your characterization of the cars is incorrect on so many levels I won’t even bother to call them out individually. I don’t have that kind of time.
I have owned five SAABs, but I have also owned two Toyotas, a Honda, a Nissan, a Porsche, three Land Rovers, a BMW, a Ford, a Mazda and three Volkswagens. The BMW 528i and Porsche 911 were my favorites, but the SAABs were excellent cars and stacked up very well with all the others I have owned. And, in fact, as I have stated before, they have many superior characteristics. Find a nice 9-5 Aero for yourself and get back to me. There’s a whole wondeful automotive world out there.
I love cars, but my identity is not wrapped up in them. I have a wonderful family for that.
Have fun driving your Camry.
I would have let this go but I can’t let the accusation that I drive a Camry stand.
Currently I have an NA Miata daily driver. Historically I’ve had a 240SX, 318i sedan (fun when it worked, but horrible European reliability), MR2 Spyder and G35 sedan, all manual.
Camrys are what people have to rent when their Saabs are in the shop.
Re: Owning a Saab: I’ve never poked myself in the eye with a fork either, some things I don’t need to personally experience.
So you’ve owned mostly secretary-type cars (Miata, 240, MR2, 318)?
At least get the insults right. Miatas are for homos, 240SXes and MR2s are for Asians with yellow hair, and the 318i was for people who couldn’t afford a real BMW.
Or maybe I just like thrashing lightweight sports cars that direct their power to the correct wheels and don’t break down all the time (except for the BMW, fool me once. . .).
But beware glass houses in your transverse engine fwd Opel (it costs more to make a longitudinal engine FWD car, but a longitudinal engine provides better FWD handling, and the real Saab at least had the decency to stick to that design, like Subaru and Audi, except the A3, do to this day). You have one of the compromised cars that the Saab loyalists complain about GM ruining the brand with.