Saab, An Obituary: 1949-2011

Friends, we are here to celebrate Saab, not to mourn it. What other company made a habit out of using other company's engines with such success. DKW, Ford, Triumph and of course General Motors all had their engines used in Saabs. 

Full disclosure, my first car was a 1987 Saab 900. I paid $1,000 for it. It had a dark silver exterior and burgundy velour interior that stank from the cigars that the previous owner smoked. Its 2.0 liter, 116 horsepower naturally aspirated engine propelled me once to just over 80mph while going downhill. 

It did not have any mechanical faults at all, except for two. The automatic transmission would not shift into reverse until the car was completely up to temperature, which while sitting could be about 15 minutes. This meant that you had to plan how you were going to leave a place well in advance unless you wanted to wait for the car to warm up. The other problem is when after about eight months the transmission completely stopped shifting at all and left me stranded on a very hot summer day at my job about 20 miles from home. Oh, the wonderful memories I have of that car. 

I know that I am being glib, but I really did love my Saab while I had it, and I would happily buy another as long as it had a manual transmission and hopefully a turbo. 

If you did not see the news today, Saab has been denied protection against its creditors by the Swedish courts. That is basically the final nail in the coffin for the 62-year-old brand. It will likely have to declare bankruptcy and be picked apart for the €150 million that it owes suppliers and the month in backwages that it owes to its workers. The name Saab might survive by being sold to Chinese investors, but the cars produced with that name will never really be Saabs anymore. 

If the US has the Model T, Germany has the Beetle, Britain has the Mini and France has the 2CV, then Sweden has the Saab 92 and its derivatives as the car that brought affordable, yet stylish, motoring to the masses. The original Saab, or Ursaab as enthusiasts refer to it, was designed in 1945 by 16 engineers whose only previous experience had been designing airplanes. Only two of them even had drivers licenses. The small car had a .30 drag coefficient – equal to a 996-chassis Porsche Carrera. It used a two-cylinder, two stroke engine making 18hp. 

In 1949 the production 92 had a more upright front end and used a 764cc two-cylinder, two stroke engine to make 25hp. In 1955, it was revised with new styling and a more powerful engine but with the same basic chassis and called the Saab 93. 

The Saab 93 began the company's success as a rally car. Using a 748cc three-cylinder, two stroke engine making 33hp, Saab one the Finnish and Swedish rallys in 1957. 

The 93 was also the first car that Saab exported, mostly to the US. Those salesman must have had balls of steel. Down the street was the Chevy and Ford dealers, but these guys had to sell a car where drivers had to mix the gas and oil together to keep it running. Famous author Kurt Vonnegut owned a Saab dealership in the 60s and wrote a brief essay about his experience trying to sell them. 

By 1960, the car was again ready for an update, this time being called the Saab 96. Again, engine power was increased and the design was refined. The 96 was also the first Saab to be available with a four stroke engine. For 1967 the 96 could be specced with (and later was only available with) a 1.5 liter, V4 engine sourced from Ford that was also used in the Ford Capri and Taunus.  

The 96 was available from 1960 until 1980 and over half a million were sold. 

Saab had always toyed with sporty models. There were versions of the 93 and 96 to celebrate rally wins with more powerful engines. However, by the mid-60s Saab decided to build a true sports car. The Sonnett II debuted in 1966 with both the two-stroke and V4 engines. Only six of the original Sonnett were produced in the late-50s, and the Sonnett II name was meant to pay tribute to this very limited car.  The Sonnett II led to the Sonnett III in 1970, which had a totally different exterior, but still used the Ford V4 engine. 

By 1965, it was clear the Saab needed a new model. The 96 had been based on an 11-year-old chassis and had reached its limits of development. If Saab wanted to survive, it would need a new bread-and-butter car. The car that would come from this new development would influence Saab design for the next 34 years. 

The Saab 99 was introduced in 1968 with a totally new design and totally new engine for Saab. The 1.7 liter engine was mounted mounted at an angle to sit lower in the car. The engine had been purchased from Triumph and was basically half of the V8 found in the Triumph Stag. The original 1.7 liter engine in the Saab 99 made 86hp.

Saab must have seen something good about that Triumph engine because it used a derivative of it until 2002. It was developed into the B-series and first used in the 99 in 1972. It was also turbocharged in 1978 making the 99 one of the first practically available cars to do so. 

By 1978 the 99 evolved into the 900, which used a further development of the Triumph engine called the H-series. In fact, H-series engines would be used in Saabs worldwide until the second generation 9-3 in 2003. The 900 is possibly the most remembered Saab. It came with as much as 175hp with the hottest turbo engines. The car offered quirky styling but fantastic visibility with decent performance. The 900 was made until 1993 with over 900,000 produced. 

Saab had its turning point in 1989. It was split from the company that makes airplanes and its merger with large truck maker Scania and sold to General Motors. While at the beginning this seemed like a good thing, by the end Saab was just a badge to be put on Subaru Imprezas and Chevrolet Trailblazers. 

The first few years of GM ownership were not so bad. The 900 got a huge update moving to a modified Opel Vectra chassis but keeping the H-series motor. Sure the car lost some of its special features like front-hinged hood, but it was still a Saab. This is a company that survived all along by modifying what was lying around, so an Opel chassis is not diluting the brand. 

In 2000, GM bought the rest of the available shares of Saab and became its total owner. This is about the time Saab began the downfall that we see at its nadir today. In 2004, Saab debuted the 9-2x, a modified Subaru Impreza Wagon and in 2005 came the 9-7x that was based on the Chevrolet Trailblazer. Both cars were textbook examples of badge engineering and neither lasted more than three years. 

The 9-3 did get another upgrade in 2003 that was still based on the same platform as the Opel Vectra, but it was also the end of the H-series engines, and in their favor came GM's Ecotec engines. 

Saab's glacial slide toward the grave began in 2008 when GM started shopping for buyers. A variety of Chinese companies looked interested, then fellow Swedes at Koenigsegg became a dark horse, then Spyker eventually bought them. But Spyker is no GM and despite the best of intentions, it does not look like Spyker had enough money to keep Saab alive. That pretty much gets us to today when Swedish courts decided that Saab does not deserve bankruptcy protection. 

What does this mean for the Swedish auto industry? Saab is dead, and Volvo has been bought by Chinese auto maker Geely. I am concerned about the future for Volvo. While it has been doing a good job of keeping its models updated to contemporary standards, we have not seen any future models from then since the second generation S60 that went on sale last year. It showed the Universe Concept this year that the Shanghai Motor Show that could be the basis for a future S80, but that is about it. It is beginning to look like a world where Swedish cars do not exist is on the horizon. 

Sweden, thank you for giving us weird cars to look at. Not always great, sometimes not even good, but you gave us generations of cars to look at and cock our collective heads. If this is your end, then so be it. At least you gave it your best effort.