Slashdot Mirror
A Requiem For Saab
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that auto enthusiasts across the country are dismayed by the news that General Motors is planning to shut down Saab, the Swedish carmaker it bought two decades ago, after a deal to sell it fell apart. Even with its modest and steadily declining sales, Saab, an acronym for Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget, or Swedish Airplane Company, long stood out as a powerful brand in spite of itself. 'It wasn't designed to be a fashion statement,' says Ron Pinelli, president of Autodata, which tracks industry statistics. 'It was designed to provide transportation under miserable weather conditions.' Many Saab owners consider the brand's glory days to be the 1980s, when Americans began buying cars again after a recession and energy crisis. 'The cars were communicative,' says Pinelli. 'They didn't try to numb the experience like cars do today.' The cars had odd touches and appealed to those who appreciate the unconventional. Swedish engineers assumed drivers would be wearing gloves, so they designed big buttons for the dashboard. Though the cars were compact, with long hoods and short rear ends, there was plenty of headroom inside. Now Saab, a brand that once had one of the clearest identities in the industry, seems headed for extinction just as automakers are searching for more distinctive designs to help set them apart. 'It's a shame that Saab is a victim,' adds Pinelli."
Saab Story.
*rimshot*
'It wasn't designed to be a fashion statement,' says Ron Pinelli, president of Autodata, which tracks industry statistics. 'It was designed to provide transportation under miserable weather conditions.'
Is that why they built a bunch of intensely front-heavy FWD vehicles with atrocious understeer?
Many Saab owners consider the brand's glory days to be the 1980s, when Americans began buying cars again after a recession and energy crisis. 'The cars were communicative,' says Pinelli. 'They didn't try to numb the experience like cars do today.'
They also had reverse-mounted engines (well, in the 900) which do little to nothing to improve driving but which make them more difficult to maintain, and expensive parts. You need special parts just to do a brake pad replacement in a Saab 900. Fuck you Saab, you deserve to be dead.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
1. Who owned SAAB before?
2. If it is such a good brand, why don't those previous owners buy it back?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
Really? Does this belong on /.? Where is all the fanfare for Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Plymouth & Saturn? Companies come and go. New ones will come along and replace them.
I've got an idea... how about everybody who liked Saabs go out and order a Fisker Karma or the Tesla Model S!
Bill
It's my Sig and you can't have it. Mine! All Mine!
It's GPL! If you like it that much, just fork it and the community will... wait, oh, I see. Sorry, never mind.
You can attach boosters to anything. It just costs more. -
Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 07, @12:26PM
It was GM themselves that turned down the offer from Spyker - seemingly a company that is in financial difficulty doesnt need the money. The timing of the decision speaks volumes as well.
the latest news is that there is another bid as of today from Spyker, so the nail isnt quite in the coffin just yet.
http://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article6321526.ab
GM has woefully mismanaged SAAB, played accounting games and not used the company in the way it should.
SAAB has come up with fantastic technology over the years especially around safety, I think the engineers there have alot to offer in the future for environmental cars.
Just as in the US they tried to get the government to bail them out using taxpayer's money, arguing it would save jobs, but the government rightly refused saying it was up to the companies themselves to sort out their finances.
Just goes to show. Even Sweden will let the free market actually do its job. Kinda ironic seeing how the neocons of other governments like to describe us.
Oh and while we're on the topic of governments acting sensibly, our presently rigth-wing government has lowered taxes AND cut carbon emissions. They basically reduced income tax and started taxing fossil fuels instead with the overall effect being a net reduction in tax revenue. So much for global warming just being a scam to tax us...
I've never driven a Saab and have no opinion on how they fared in this way.
But what is it with Americans preferring numb cars that totally insulate them from what the car is doing? They all seem to like very mushy suspensions where the car tips around corners, and automatic transmissions. Then, because they drive very tippy cars with very high centre of gravity, they're deathly afraid of corners, and they nearly stop every time there's the slightest bend in the road.
It seems the automotive equivalent of removing all the taste from one's food. Sure, it'll still keep you alive, but you go through your life eating bland and boring food.
I lose any interest in the brand the moment an American company buys it, because I know that the quality of the "American version" isn't going to hold a candle to the Swedish version. Once the Americans get their grubby little hands on it and start to try to integrate it into their manufacturing and supply chain and QC practices, the car's gonna just be another Chevy.
If I wanted a Chevy, I'd buy a chevy.
I'm finally getting ready to replace my '84 with 300k miles on it. When I do, I'm buying used, and I'm buying the "last Swedish year." I'm not touching any GM Saabs or Ford Volvos.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
and Saturn suck? (Saturn to a lesser degree at first, but eventually it was of course ruined by Detroit.)
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
"Is that why they built a bunch of intensely front-heavy FWD vehicles with atrocious understeer?"
"They also had reverse-mounted engines"
They stopped making these cars in the mid 80's.
Neither of those criticisms applies to the cars that they make today.
You forgot one thing: Car makers have spent the last 100 years not inventing anything new... and strong-arming everyone who was trying to invent something new out of the market.
The eternal struggle of good vs. evil begins within one's self.
From the linked article, Saab had a highlight of sales at 48,000 and change in 1986, when they were a post-recession yuppie fad. They were always bad cars, and articles like this one reminiscing about the "glory days" of Saab are a bit myopic. They rusted out in key places, like where the control arms for the front suspension bolts to the body. They're a nightmare to work on, with the engine spun backwards in the engine bay. The "tight steering" meant nothing when coupled with a body that flexed terribly, especially on the convertible models. Big buttons for people wearing gloves? That's the best contribution the author can come up with in his requiem? The fact is that people don't want to spend huge money on mediocre cars. Saab was purchased to be placed in GM's lineup as a luxury foreign brand, much like Volvo's purchase by Ford. The new cars were built on better platforms than the ones Saab could engineer, with all the quirkiness still intact for buyers with too much money and not enough common sense. That GM can't give the company away, and can't make money selling weird cars is proof of this. The year GM purchased Saab they killed off Oldsmobile. Saab was selling ~40,000 cars per year, Olds was selling 250,000 cars per year. They killed a brand that made them far more money in order to have a more upscale image, only to find out what people really imagined the cars to be. They made a Saab out of a Blazer, they made a Saab out of a Subaru, and I'm sure if some marketing doofus thought it was a good idea they would have done the same with a Daewoo as well. Saab had some interesting ideas over the years, but they were cars that were constantly broken and difficult to work on. I've spent many years as an auto tech and diagnostician fixing these things. I'll always have many fond memories of working on Saabs. They've brought me so much laughter over the years.
SAAB was once quirky and bizarre, the choice of folks who needed some particular features. Then people started buying it, not for the suitability for cold weather or whatever, but precisely because it was quirky. Then the customers even stopped caring about the quirkiness and started buying them for the nameplate. Sure, there were a few folks who needed some strange features, but for the most part, people only cared about the name. GM, though not having the brightest business acumen, sought to capitalize. Instead of quirkiness they sold the brand on its name. Alas, in circles of people who cared about these things, GM and exclusivity are mutually - ahh - exclusive. The cars stopped selling.
There's a right way and a wrong way to capitalize on quirkiness, I think. Apple used to sell their products as the choice of the minority. Their "Think Different" campaign was not so much about suitability but about the mere fact of being different than the masses. That campaign might not have worked a few years later when nationalism and homogenized thinking was seen as patriotic, but it was perfect for the times.
So here was GM peddling SAAB as the choice of the oddball right during the time when it was gauche to be different. Then when that failed they started talking about SAAB's roots in a foreign military when US patriotism was near a peak. I suppose if they had survived, GM would have marketed it as the choice of banking executives. "Look! SAAB is the number one choice among failed banking executives!"
by GM they made beautiful and wonderful cars. After GM got their dirty gready little mints on the maker Saab cars started looking more like most american cars: UGLY!
of fighter jets will the swedish air force have to buy now? Don't tell me they have to get the JSF ?
Can Gripens be had cheap?
Back before they developed the yuppie image and the high prices, they were just a nice solid car that was unstoppable in bad weather. Certainly they were more expensive than the typical car, but not so much so that they were unaffordable.
But GM really destroyed them by pushing them into a market that they were designed for.
We New Englanders still need a nice winter car, and Saab is not there for that purpose any more because they are just too darned expensive now. I only have one because I bought it used, there's no way I'm going to pay $40K for a car.
Saab was a modest company making a modest profit on a modest sales. GM came along and doubled their production and raised the prices. In the process they made the company much more fragile because now they had to maintain sales levels to pay down the expenses of expanding.
Really the story is not all that different from the typical failed high-tech company: crash and burn while attempting to grow out of the initial successful market. The projected sales increases don't happen. This failure pattern happens over and over again so many times, you'd think managers would learn.
A lesson to be learned and yet another reason for Europeans to be annoyed at Americans.
Nonetheless, you need not cry for Saab. It will live again. According to a news report just issued by the "Wall Street Journal", Spyker has made another offer to buy Saab. This time, we have the real deal.
My mother's father was the second Saab dealer in North America.
My father and I worked on every Saab in the southern half of our state from the '60s until 1980. My dad was known for converting '65-up models from the 3-cylinder engines to the later V4's, and he also did special effects for the one Bond film in which 007 drove a Saab. Saab offered to build a dealership for my father, but he was ready to retire... so they sold the franchise to a real loser, and stopped selling us parts.
The Saab 96 was so far ahead of its time that nobody has yet caught up to it. It was the stiffest, strongest & safest 2000-lb. car ever built.
I'm currently on my third Saab. A couple decades ago, I scattered my old Chevy Citation along a guardrail during a snowstorm (one of the few guardrails in these Colorado mountains). I decided to get a safe winter vehicle, and found a used '83 Saab. Quirky, yes; cold, yes; but great control with a crash-cage disguised as a passenger compartment. Turbo is great for getting around trucks in the mountains.
My current Saab 93 is much more comfortable to drive, though their great handling means feeling every bump in the road.
The most recent models (I've driven them as loaners when mine is in for service) have moved the dashboard away from the driver by a few centimeters; enough to make reaching many controls annoying to me. I already knew my next car would not be a Saab. Since I haven't driven anything other than Saabs (and my father's Subaru Forester) for all these years, I don't know what I'll get. Hopefully by the time this one costs too much to maintain, nothing current will be sold anymore.
Yes, I know what you mean.
There might possibly be some kind of good business reason to shut down Saab rather than sell it. But it seems to me that there are several startup electric car companies that need a brand to sell cars to "normal people" who just want a more efficient vehicle that's "just a car". Companies that also need factories and workers to build lots of cars when they scale up. Saab has both. It seems that the next generation of car tech is taking just slightly too long to recycle what the dying old generation needs to cast off.
--
make install -not war
That's a very narrow definition of new. What would it take for you to declare their product new, a flying car?
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
"My point was that it was NEVER great."
What does "great" mean? They were not high performance in the manner of Porsche. They were not high reliability like a Japanese car. They were not luxurious like a Rolls. That's not the point.
But they were "great" at their original design goal as stated: a good car in bad weather.
... all the car industry will shutdown as today is known.
They take brands past their prime and run them into the ground
(damn, a computer analogy for a car story. A first for Slashdot?)
If your children ever found out how lame you are, they'd murder you in your sleep
This just in from CNN -Tiger's ex-wife Elin Nordegren is consulting with a high-powered Hollywood divorce attorney to work on a bailout for the beleaguered Swedish company.
Movie at eleven
Remember the 9-2X? It was a re-badged Subaru Impreza. Even by SAAB standards it was a flop. You can't keep a niche brand going with re-brands!
Saturn went out pretty much the same way, and that's why I traded my Saturn SL2 for a Subaru Impreza, rather than a Saturn ION. The Subaru has lots of unique things about it. Saturns became typical, boring, unreliable American cars.
Way to kill all the interesting brands, but keep Buick on life support.
Saab of all the auto companies out there should have stayed small and survived & could have done so. They had concepts that suited their market and kept advancing. My guess is someone will buy the brand name, model rights and maybe a facility or two and try to keep it alive by sharing more components with other auto component parts and auto makers. You can buy engine and drive train parts, instead of making them, thus keeping up with the big guys. But the profitability of small volume mfgr as a business is REALLY TOUGH. In the late 1990s I recall auto analysts saying there was twice as much auto production capacity as their were buyers. Something has to give and now the closures are starting. The train wreck has been a long time coming. The overall interference by the governmental entities that push large auto companies in their design, fuels, safety, unions and other choices has resulted in the mess today where it should have been GM that was sold off for parts, except for the politics. In the late 1990s I recall auto analysts saying there was twice as much auto production capacity as their were buyers. Something has to give and now the closures are starting. Rather than our government improving the business conditions so our US auto companies could continue to compete on the global markets, it is easily seen that the state and federal governments hindered auto companies in so many ways. That includes pressure to roll over to union demands. I really don't give GM a chance of surviving long term, because of the innefficiencies in place. The U.S. did NOT get to be a great country by having Presidents & Congress, inexperienced in business, telling companies what they have to do, resulting in inefficient business conditions for the companies within their borders, who then can't compete in the global market that the politicians themselves push as desirable for export conditions and hopefully increased employment. It is just sick. It is a tax on us all to support these "to big to fail" companies merely because senators, congressmen and the President want votes.
Let me guess Liquidate your company, liquidate your company GM - Here's one -- nine pence. Saab - DEAD PERSON: I'm not bankrupt! Bankrupcy court - What? GM - Nothing -- here's your nine pence. Saab - I'm not Bankrupt! BC - Here -- he says he's not bankrupt! GM - Yes, he is. Saab - I'm not! (And so on, I hear Saab feels fine)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
Strongly concur, I refuse to work on these POS. The owners also tend to be pieces of work. Kudos to GM for doing us all a favor by buying the brand and putting it down. No offense to the workers in Trollheim. Peace?
All your database are belong to U.S.
There was always the rivalry going on between the saab two stroke guys and the VW beetle guys over which car had the best traction in the snow. So we had the great drive off until you can't get any further contest (we had a tractor to get the cars unstuck). We got the good blizzard needed, can't recall exactly but around knee deep. Lined up the VW and the 900 next to each other on the old country gravel road and off they went.
The air cooled rear engine VW kept going around one hundred yards further, albeit with not much in the way of practical steering, it rode up on the pan as it mushed the snow underneath, changing the angle, pushing the rear wheels down even harder. At least that is how we all analyzed what happened watching this "race".
Lawn, saber toothed badgers, etc, just my recollection of the real world results with snow traction and two popular alternative cars then for all of us woods hippies.
As to winter *heat* in the cabin, well, the saab won there of course. As to overall rough road combined mud, snow etc get from point A to B day to day practicality, the VeeDubbs took it for the rural hipsters, the saabs more for the townie boys who came out to visit.
What trounced both of them was an old Model A Ford one of the guys had that still cranked and ran. I thought that was funny. They used to use that thing to drag logs out of the woods. It was the closest thing to a combined sedan/truck/tractor in functionality I have ever seen.
Gloves? As a discriminating consumer I prefer to purchase vehicles that have working heaters.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Any more news on the new offer Spyker just made for the Saab assets? Not guaranteed to be dead yet.
Is a decent car analogy.
This is probably my last chance to tell my Saab story in public.
In 1973 I was living in Sweden. Just before returning to the USA I bought a new Saab Combi Coupe. That is the hatchback model that later became the famous Saab 900. 73 was the first model year and they were not marketing them to the USA yet. I had mine shipped to the USA when it was only 2 weeks old. My oh my. Remember the adage about not buying version 1.0 of anything? I should have remembered that.
On the very first day of driving the manual shift lever jumped out of 2nd gear, hit me in the wrist and cracked a bone.
Back in the USA, my clutch failed. I took it to the Saab dealer for a free warranty replacement. The new one failed; and the next and the next... That car went through 7 clutches in one year. Once, the new clutch failed only 6 miles from the dealer. It wasn't me. I have long experience with manual transmissions and I don't ride the clutch.
About a year and a day from new (with a 12 month warranty) I drove through a puddle. The car stopped instantly. The engine refused to turn. Upon taking the engine apart, we found water in the pistons and all the connecting rods bent like pretzels. It turns out that the air intake was low to the ground with a 90 degree elbow. Mine was mounted with the elbow facing forward, like a water scoop if one ever hit a puddle. There was a factory bulletin to rotate that elbow 180 degrees, but my dealer just shrugged. After 7 visits to the dealer he didn't feel responsible for doing the work or for informing me about the bulletins.
Still more. Upon further inspection we found that there were no retaining rings on the piston king pins. The pins had been wearing grooves in the side of the engine block. If I hadn't driven into the puddle, the block would have exploded soon; probably while I was speeding down the interstate.
The Saab regional office refused to talk to me or even listen to my story. I sold that Saab, 13 months old for 10% of my purchase price leaving me with nothing to do but Saab saab saab.
Compare an american pizza with an italian one. A real hamburger with anything from any american restaurant. American beer? Coffee? We got Starbucks in holland now and frankly, their coffee sucks. I can get better from an espresso machine. Ben&Jerry icecream? For the price, not nearly as good as you would think.
That is not to say everything american is bad, it is just that when you have to appeal to 360 million people, you end up becoming distinctly average. The US HAS got local restaurants, even chains of them, that provide something different, something with a taste that dares not to appeal to everyone. To be unique, but they will always be local affairs that don't make it out of their local area, let alone across the ocean.
The big american cars you know are aimed at the general US population. They require a car NOT for local travel but for long distance travel (or at least, they think they do). The world is filled with car-buyers who buy a car for the situation they might one day be in that they seen in the movies and not the one they need every single day of their real lives. Every american dreams of driving along a long highway into the sunset. For that you need a 3-ton car with soft suspension. And you want plenty of room on an 12 hour ride. Oh sure, it is hell on the short daily trips, but one day you might drive away from it all and you will be glad for it then.
What amuses me most is the episodes of myth-busters where they test fuel-efficiency myths in 3 ton gas guzzlers. That is because no american can drive anything less then a v8. Because you need those extra horsepowers if you ever need to accelarate fast for some idiotic safety reason (that you would accelerate faster in a lighter car with a better power to weight ratio is something no american can understand).
There is a reason every famous car comes from europe. The same reason Michelin guide is french. Americans do big and succesful, europeans do financial failure but do it beautifully.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Unlike you, I don't want to push all of the Americans into the sea, but I have to admit I haven't had much with American cars. In addition to Japanese cars, though, consider Korean ones. I love my 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe, it's just as good a car and it was at a noticeably better price than its rivals. And it has a feature that I never realized I'd appreciate so much -- a tight turning radius.
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
More than likely a horse analogy (when you think about it), but I have no firm proof.
If anyone has solid evidence of the etiology of the phrase, please do share.
Liquidate your company, liquidate your company
GM - Here's one -- nine pence.
Saab - I'm not bankrupt!
Bankrupcy court - What?
GM - Nothing -- here's your nine pence.
Saab - I'm not Bankrupt!
BC - Here -- he says he's not bankrupt!
GM - Yes, he is.
Saab - I'm not! (And so on, I hear Saab feels fine)
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
As detailed by the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8423363.stm
I love the design of the 900, sure it's a bit fugly, but man did it handle well and had an ergonomics that no other car had. I was ready to buy one and GM bought SAAB, so that was a deal breaker for me. Shortly after the GM acquisition, they started looking like weird beretta's rather than the amazingly quirky and great cars they used to be. The substitution of a Delco radio said it all, the saab had turned to crap. And I say that as an american engineer, lest you think I'm some sort of butthurt swedish person.
Sheldon
So incompetent that they can't even manage to spin off brands that there are potential buyers for? Think about it - they blew selling Saturn and Saab, and they haven't managed to sell Opel - if it weren't for the involvement of the German government, I suspect they'd be shutting Opel down as well. Hummer? Well, we'll see. I suspect the deal with the Chinese company that wants Hummer will fall through in the end as well. Last spring, they claimed they had 16 potential buyers for Saturn and 3 for Saab.
So, either they were greedy as hell and were asking well above the value of these brands for the sale, or they were never interested in selling a unit off to a potential competitor and the entire story of selling the units was done to make it sound like they'd be raising cash through these spin-offs and would be able to pay the government back sooner.
I owned a Saab 900 for 20 years, and honestly it was a great car, if a bit quirky. For every weird design feature that didn't work (e.g., the famous ignition key on the floor between the seats, the gear-drive water pump on top of the engine in my model), there were others that did work (the huge hatchback, the alternator also on top of the engine).
Two of my favorite Saab stories:
Someone once described the design of the Saab 900 as "it's as if you described a 4-wheeled Earth vehicle to a bunch of Martian engineers, and they tried to replicate it from your description".
I don't know if it's true or not, but there was a news story that a bank robber tried to carjack a woman's Saab 900 as she was getting into it outside the bank, but couldn't figure out where the ignition key went in and was forced to abandon it.
A good friend bought a new SAAB in 1989. Over the next year, it spent more time in the dealer's shop than on the road. My friend had to sue the company under lemon laws of our state to get his money back. The company tried to fight it rather than settle over what was clearly a lemon vehicle.
Then he bought an Acura.
This is a single story when thousands of vehicles are certainly performing as intended with happy owners. It could have just been this particular SAAB dealer that wanted to fight too. I don't know the details.
I've had issues with a Ford - nowhere near the same level, just a deep clunk with every shift that couldn't be fixed after taking a new vehicle to the dealer 5+ times.
Saabs were different, expensive, and European, and that was the only reason Americans bought them.
GM bought the company on the premise it could switch out the custom parts for commodity parts from the GM parts bin and reduce cost and make more money.
Of course, that meant the existing customers were disillusioned and figured if they wanted o save money, other brands did it better, or if they wanted to be ostentatious, other brands also did that better.
It's like HP or any other quirky brand. They have a niche in the market and loyal customers *because of* the quirks, and when the quirks go away, so do the quirky loyal customers. That puts them in the thick of the commodity market, competing on price and quality just like everyone else.
If they had stayed quirky, they would have kept their loyal market share. GM already had numerous brands competing (and losing) on quality and price, so buying Saab the company was the beginning of the end for Saab. Besides, it also marked them as no longer quite as European as they used to be, lowering their snob appeal.
Infuriate left and right
Although I've liked some of their cars because they got the "feel" right, I still think a lot of the decisions they've made are wrong or seriously half-assed and not well thought out. I guess I'll focus on car brands, but there were even some engineering greats like even when they had the ability to do proper fuel injection they built engines with a real WTF piece of work called an electronic carbuerator. (And yes, ask a mechanic to pop the hood on an older '80s car... And you'll literally hear "WTF!!" when he sees it. Older mechanical carbs or similar period throttle body injectors are a hell of a lot more reliable and easier to work with.)
Anyhow, I think GM kind of lost it with SAABs when they started making Saabarus. It just lost something particular about the distinctiveness when that happened. Not that Subaru SAABs were bad cars, but I think the quirks from the past are what distinguished the brand and they lost touch with their core audience.
Now going back to other brands. Oldsmobile went bye-bye first. And looking at things, this was understandable. It's because the new Saturn division was a freaking clone of Oldsmobile. So once Saturn moved away from only having small cars, they didn't need two Oldsmobiles and got rid of the original division.
But one thing that seems pathetic is the GM history with Pontiac. (Frankly, I'm gonna rant.) Ever since the 1970's, it seems the ongoing joke (or maybe not, 'cuz it's not that funny to some car enthusiasts) is that whenever they finally got something just right - that's when they chucked it. Oh we finally solved the problem with the short-block 4 on the Fiero and some issues with it's molded composites, nope - can't make them anymore! Hey we the Firebird just right, oh we're not gonna make those anymore. Oh we made these Grand Ams too damn popular with the last redesign and decent ergonomics, f' it! We don't want to sell those to you anymore. Let's replace it with a car with chunkola design and huge blind-spot A-pillars, and make it the size and weight of the Gran Prix but with less power in the base model. So what happens once they finally throw out most of the bullshit cars (SUVs and Minivans that didn't belong there in the first place) and started making an entire linup that appeared to live up to the "Driving Excitement" mantra with decent handling and engines? Oh, can't have that! No sporty looking cars that are actually fun. Let's just stop making Pontiacs altogether!
And Hummer is going bye-bye because its a drain on the average fleet fuel economy, and because they don't sell as well when fuel prices go up.
Strangely enough though, they're still keeping Buick around. Not that they're bad cars, but rather they're pretty much another Cadillac. (Although historically, sometimes their build quality was actually better than Cadillac at times - which seems odd for being a "lower tier" division.) I guess it's because the Chinese (thank the strange preference of Chairman Mao) and old fogeys like them.
But seriously, they kept Buick where Cadillac could cover the same audience with a few lower priced models. But Pontiac is still different enough from Chevy and caters to a different audience (Pontiac cars are supposed to be "sporty" as where most Chevy is "bread n' butter") and they got rid of Pontiac. Sure there's the Chevy's SS models, but sometimes the interior layout and aesthetics (if not bean-countered to death like the recent G5) were better thought out on the Pontiac side. They're going to have to work hard at making some really slick Chevys if they're going to try to win back any Pontiac fans they gave the finger to. Of course the Japanese and Koreans will probably appreciate the thoughtful management decision. (Hint, if you want to appeal to a former Pontiac person - have tight ratio steering with some road feel, handling takes precedence over cushiness, and firm non-mush pedals. And yes that firmness goes for the gas too, it's actually more comfy to stay at legal speeds that way when not using cruise control since you can rest your foot on the pedal instead of holding it up. Hear that Toyota?)
GM owns it (which was dumb in the first place), so let the Swiss buy it back from GM.
My first Saab 96 was a '69 model, with about 100K miles on it, and I drove it like a stolen car. I took it off-roading every chance I got... sometimes, I would be the only car out at the end of a Jeep trail, with the truckers trying to figure out how I got there.
I beat that poor thing unmercifully for about two years until one of the tie rod ends got sloppy. I replaced it, set the toe with a long piece of string, and drove to a shop to get the wheels aligned... but they were aligned perfectly after all that abuse, so the guy only charged me ten bucks.
Ah yes.... because car makers have some inexplicable oath of fealty to the status quo that prevents them from marketing (say) a car with the fabled 100mpg carburetor and driving their competitors out of business overnight.
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I for one hope that SAAB can move into some caring hands that will allow the company to thrive and innovate as it did in the earlier half of it's life. The death of Saab I think started once GM had it's dirty incompetent hands on it. The demise was signalled after the 900, when they started to become just another Eurobox built on the same chassis as every other boring old Eurobox, shared floor plan shared engines...etc. I once owned a 1974 SAAB 96, it was the most quirky car I ever owned, column shift, freewheel built in to the transmission, a Ford V4 engine. No transmission tunnel, a boot you could sleep inside, all finished in Sh1t Brown, but I loved it, until it caught fire due to my own stupid tuning attempts. The 99 Turbo and the 99 EMS were ground breaking cars in their day, and for a while unbeatable on the rally circuit. I hope Spyker can resucitate the brand, before someone else has to bring the badge back from the dead. Solo
"If it's lost, it'll turn up. Things always do" "I love it when a plan comes together"
SAAB was once a great car for its time. From the first SAAB 92 up until the middle 900 series they was pretty excellent compared to many other cars. The heating in a SAAB was very good and suitable for northern climate, not to mention the nice handling in heavy snow.
I dont know what went wrong really but a big shift in the target audience of the cars was made. Later cars was very expensive, bland and gaz guzzlers.
The Chinese are getting up to speed making cars so i guess it was just a matter of time before European and American cars started to disappear. The worst that could happen is if the Chinese somehow manage to make fuel efficient cars much cheaper than other countries. Up until now there has been easy to keep trade barriers up in the name of the enviroment.
HTTP/1.1 400
I just bought "Kill Your TV" and "Visualize Whirled Peas" bumper stickers. To what vehicle will I attach them now?
My first car being a Saab, I loved it. A mid '90s Saab 9.5 with the bigger 3.0 litre V6. The performance was better than my Taurus SHO and definetly better than my Buick LeSabre or Cadillac DeVille. Great gas milage. Super Charged. Vented leather seats. Oh, and in Ohio here, it performed better in the snow than most SUVs. Beautiful car. Oh, and one wonderful thing about Saabs are that some models allow cast blocks, less wear and deals better with temperature changes, just heavier..
that has the three cylinder 2 stroke, oil in the gas tank, no starter solenoid, no oil pump, always on electrical system, suicide doors, it would win that competition hands down. I had one (quick, you have been playing in a club, drinking all night, and are really sloshed, but you have to get gas on the way home. So you pull into a gas station at 3:00AM with US$4.00 in your pocket- back when gas was $1.80 a gallon. Now, how much oil do you put into the gas tank?). My SAAB just slid on top of the snow, like a sled, and the front wheels and skinny tires steered just great. I miss that car- the grey goose, we named it.
Republican leadership = Idiocracy
Yes, I love my Winton. If only there were some way to start it without turning that tiresome crank.
Xavier Rabourdin for president 2012
BBC is reporting a new offer by Spyker.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8423363.stm
Silly NYT, don't they know to check Netcraft?
They take brands past their prime and run them into the ground
That description fits the New York Mets as well.
To say that "Saabs were, mechanically at least, generic eurocars," clearly reveals that you have never had your hands on one and, therefore, have no idea what you're talking about.
How does fitting Triumph and Ford engines constitute badge engineering? If that were true, then the Ford Taurus SHO is really a Yamaha because it's got a Yamaha engine, a Rolls Royce Silver Spirit is really a BMW because it's got a BMW engine, and a Ferrari Dino is actually a Fiat because, well, you know. Incidentally, the Triumph engines were turds: Saab began to use their own only a few years into the 99's production.
Meanwhile, Type 4 cars were not badge engineered; they shared a platform, which is completely different. No one looks at an Alfa 164 and concludes it's a Saab 9000 with an Alfa badge. The interiors, exteriors, powertrains, suspension specifications, etc. are all fundamentally different among Type 4 cars even if they have common dimensions. (Yes, some components are interchangeable across marques, e.g., windshields.)
Saab (pre-GM) learned their lesson with the Lancia, selling it for only three years, only in Sweden and Norway, never in great numbers, and never in the US, Saab's largest market (of over two dozen).
The 9000 was quite a nice design, roomy inside and not overly large outside. The 16 valve turbocharged 4 cylinder engine had some neat features - the central spark-plug allowed for a higher compression ratio and APC allowed operation on varying grades of gasolene.
And by the way, the Ford V-4's were used in the Sonetts, AFAIK, SAAB never had a car called the Sonata.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
I'm surprised a China-based co hasn't purchased it. China has the cash (thanks to lopsided trading) and the will to get into the car biz.
Table-ized A.I.
they made it more reliable. I talked to a Saab mechanic and he told me to be very happy I had a 2001 93. GM improved many things in the Saab to make it more reliable. I have no reason to doubt him. He gave me specifics that have long since slipped my mind, but GM failed Saab in marketing, not platform.
2 stroke, 3 cylinders, 3 barrel carburetor. 4 speed on the column. Dual diagonal braking, unibody construction, aircraft seat/shoulder belts. The 2-strokes were sadly, badly, filthy.
Parts on the car were half-metric, half-English. Many of the electronics were by Lucas, Prince of Darkness.
Over time, rebuilt two transmissions, several clutches, several sets of brakes, replaced some body panels. Eventually worked on the engine some, also once swapped front brakes, drum for disk.
My brother totalled two of them, one with the able assistance of a speeding drunk from the rear, the other as a solo effort, rolling the car and denting every body panel. Both times, nobody was hurt.
Bought two Saab 95s (station wagons, one V-4, the other 3-cylinder), one for $100, the other for $50, combined them to make one car, drove it from one side of the country to the other.
The old Saabs were damn fun cars, even though they had itty-bitty engines (820-850cc) producing barely 50hp. In terms of "bang for the buck", they were a total win. The only car I've ever had all 4 wheels off the ground, was a Saab.
Sweden = Swedish :-)
...but not dead yet. There is news today that Spyker has changed their offer.
http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/20/autos/saab_gm_spyker_offer/index.htm
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
I drive a 1990 900se. Of course i've spent a bunch of money keeping this up this year(recently new exhaust/tires/shocks and voltage regulator) still less than the Mini Clubman I'd buy if I HAD to buy a new car. But i like it. I like it a lot. for a 20 year old car I've had folks stop me and say it's a beauty. And it glows atfer a simple car wash(someone stole the 20 year old Apple sticker I had taped to the window at the car wash though!) -
This car replaced a 1996 escort that was a decrepit p.o.s. I will agree the best thing about it is the heat and and that once you've cleared the snow off the top you can open the sunroof and let the cool air in.
the 1990 Saab has a classic look ("the seinfeld") that is wicked pissah as they say here in new england. That's what counts isn't it?
Stupidest auto slogan ever. I thought it was a joke ad the first time I saw it, but no...that's their tag line.
Subaru is trying to outdo them now with "Love...it's what makes a Subaru, a Subaru."
*shudder*
Your brain is not a computer.
Collapsible steering column is something special in the 1980s? Sorry.. Invented by mercades in 1959 and standard in the "big 3" by 1968/69.
Saab EFI? Again.. nothing special. It was a Bosch Jetronic system.. found in many VW's, MB's, Fords, BMW's, Volvo's of the time..
composite headlights? Even the Mustang had them by '88. The only reason sealed beam stuck around so long in the USA was because of the dumb ass DOT.
So what great advances did SAAB come up with? Oh ya.. the key in the console and big buttons... you got me there :P
I have to return some videotapes...
I always thought it deeply peculiar that Gardner's Bond drove a Saab 900 Turbo in the 1980s. Saab also did a tie-in promotion. Surely Gardner could have given the poor bastard a Jaguar, though. Or something sporty like a Mazda.
The problem is Saab was owned by GM. One of three American automobile companies in the United States who have all raised stupidity to an artform. They didn't need to be bailed out because the economy tanked last year... they needed to be bailed out, because they are arrogant, smug, self important twits who think they don't need to respond to things like the government, the economy, the price of oil, the environment, or the needs, wants, and demands of their customers. When the price of oil crested, they continue to try to RAM ROD monster SUVs and Trucks down the collective throats of Americans, while Toyota sold hybrids like they were going out of style. The best thing any of these clowns could come up with was to make Giant, Rediculous SUVs with hybrid power plants... Oooooo now they get 26 MPG instead of 7... and the Prius is happily chugging along at 60 MPG...
Until Corporate leaders in this country understand they are here to serve, not be served... we will continue to suffer the kinds of ridiculous failure we are seeing today.
The disappearance of Saab reflects an industry that has lost it's way, and a society that has become pavlovian in the way it responds to what the fashion makers tell us we should like. Inside such a culture, intelligent, distinctive, eclectic, and off-beat style have little place, and sadly no market.
This is what happens with a business becomes a business unit under an american company or that fact any multinational
Well, ya got me, maybe I am not remembering the model number correctly, although I do remember it was a three cylinder two stroke, and I remember the different exhaust sound. Wasn't my machine so I just don't recall the model number probably. (I think olden days, hippie and commune as keywords might have something to do with my recollection 0_o) ;)
gas was around 35-45 cents a gallon or so, something like that at the time. I personally was in between rides then, some friends had burnt up my old $100 flathead six volt '55 ford meat wagon (panel truck) trying to jump it with a 12 volt.
The snow plow race results were as I stated though, the beetle kept on going, well past what any of us thought would happen. Neither one made it all that far, the saab maybe 75 yards and the VW another 100 yards past that, and only because the road was straight right there. The snow was fairly deep and the saab built up a huge amount at the front/over the bumper and eventually couldn't crunch through it, whereas the vw rode up over the snow in the front and just kept going with the rear wheels with not much steering available at all, the front wheels weren't even touching the ground much.
The only saab I ever liked styling wise was the sonnet, but I never owned one, just used to see them tooling around.
I've only owned a handful/maybe a dozen or so sedans, I am mostly a truck and four wheel drive guy, although I have quite fond memories of my vw bus, which was another real practical vehicle, which I think of as a crossover/truck/sedan that got good, or at least pretty fair mileage, and had pretty good stock offroad capabilities with the addition of some adapters and larger real wheels/tires.
I *liked* working on the air cooled, simple, easy, no exotic tools needed other than two wrenches to make things easier, a swivel 17 for the 2 o'clock motor to transaxle bolt and a curved C shaped 13 for the pict 34 carbs. Dang..this is decades ago, so I'll add "IIRC".
The only easier to work on vehicle I ever owned was a 69 rear engine fiat spider 850, dang that was a cool little car, 50 mpg and ran like a sewing machine after I did a slick little mini hotrod rebuild. Their big flaw was cheap ass sheetmetal that rusted easily, which destroyed the body, which made the car instant junk. Too bad there..
You could pull the engine without even using a jack if you felt like it! You could grab it in the back, heft it up, and kick some wood under the pan, then unbolt it, along with the rear bumper and tin, and push the car away from the engine. They used these cheap ingenious flex joints at the drive wheels that were just stout rubber with some bolts through it. I never had to but it certainly looked like if you ever wore one out, say someplace you couldn't get parts and just *had* to fix it, you could just cut up some old tires and drill some holes and make a little stack of rubber plates the correct or close enough thickness that way and get going again. Had toggle switches for all the electrical with a fuse at each switch so it was real easy to see what was what, stuff like that to make it cheap and simple.
particularly when the resell value goes through the floor after 4 years, I can buy a SAAB convertible 2002 model for next to nothing with leather interior (about AU$4k in good nick). Only thing worse would be Alfa's, an associate recently sold his Alfa two (2) years after it was purchased with very low mileage that cost over AU$80k new for a measly $35k, thats AU$22k per year depreciation, bugger that.
I disagree. Car makers have invented lots of stuff over the course of the development of the internal combustion engine.
Erhm... well, it's not that it can't be done, but car makers would never be able to maintain the technological lead long enough to recuperate the huge initial investment. Such a technological arms race wouldn't benefit any of the involved companies. Car makers have invented plenty of things the last 100 years. They just haven't come up with a truly novel concept of the auto mobile.
A lot of GMs good small platform engineering comes out of Opal. They decided it was foolish to give that operation to a competitor.
As for Saturn and Saab. GM has to weigh the short term cash the get against the creation of a long term competitor. The Saturn sale would have provided a dealer network for Chinese companies.
Ford was smart at least in the mid term. They sold their biggest sources of red ink to a possible future competitor. It will take years for Tata to recover from their mistake.
There is no doubt that SAAB of the 90s could not exist on its own. It was too small to be able to compete effectively with companies like BMW, Volvo, or the Japanese. However, back then it was not completely hopeless. The one who really drove this brand into the ground was GM. They simply starved the company of R&D funding, or engines, or genuine platforms, and engaged instead of stupid, blatant brand engineering, thus alienating hardcore Saab fans without attracting any new customers.
Consider this, in the whole 10 years or so under GM management, the only truly new Saab was the current 9-3. The old 9-3 was a continuation of a 1990s Saab 900. But the most outrageous problem with Saab's product lineup is that GM refused to update Saab's flagship product the Saab 9-5 for about 10 years. Instead, they did a slight resking in mid-2000s hoping that this would be enough. But that was not enough. Saab 9-5 was not competitive even in year 2000. Instead of bring real new product, GM management decided to rebadge the the Subaru Impreza and sell it as a Saab 9-2. Then also reskinned a Chevy Trail Blazer and tried to sell it as Saab 9-7 instead of trying to fund the development of Saab's own CUV concept car which existed as a paper drawing since early years of this decade. Frankly, if you look at Saab's decline under GM, it's not different from what we were seeing happening to Ford, Mercury, Chevy, and Pontiac. That is the "American" was of doing car business. Buying multiple brands, rebadging 15 year old designs and trying to sell them under 5 different brand names, etc. This is why GM ended up going bankrupt this year.
As you spin the motor faster, the physical time available to fill the cylinder and light it off gets shorter and shorter.
And at high loads, you need larger amounts of fuel as well. So at high engine speeds and high power outputs, you need to cram in a whole lot of fuel and air and you don't have much time to do it.
Not a problem with a gas motor, because the ignition event is a spark and all the fuel/air mixing is done upstream of the cylinder.
For a diesel though, ignition is through air compression and the ignition event is triggered by the injection of fuel into the superheated combustion chamber.
Because the mixture fires as soon as you start the injection event, high motor speeds require VERY fast injection times. This translates into very high injection pressures.
Until recently, there were practical limits on how high this injection pressure could be - which in turn limited max engine RPM to around 3500 RPM.
Big trucks can get around this by running multi-gear transmissions. If you have 18+ gears, it doesn't matter if your rev range is 2000 RPM. It may take 3 shifts to cross an intersection, but that's not a big deal. Plus you can fine-tune road speed to the efficiency peak in the rev range and save fuel.
But in an automotive environment, you get somewhere between 4 and 6 transmission gears. Depending on the torque curve of the engine and the number and spacing of the gears, something is going to have to give somewhere, and a low-power, inexpensive car is going to use narrowly-spaced gears and less of them. I had an '88 Jetta naturally aspirated diesel (4 cyl, 4 speed) that had a top speed of 110 km/h in a dead fall.
If you turbocharge and spend more money, you can spread the gear ratios out and have more of them, and that helps a lot. My 2002 Dodge Cummins turbo-diesel (500 ft/lbs of torque) has 6 speeds, and tops out at about 125 km/h. It would be even faster, but I specified a low rear gear for towing purposes.
But here's the thing - that motor was a $10,000 option. That truck was $70k brand new, where the gassers were much cheaper.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
The fact that after 341 replys I found no matches for "saabists" or "homos" or "cheapshots" tells its grim tale. From a Finnish perspective, totally objective! SAAB cost more than Datsuns and other japs in the early 80s in Finland. They were bought by homos with attitude problems, who could not afford a BMW or a Mercedes-Benz. So they assholed their merry way around our highways, feeling superior, driving their gay swedish abominations. Owning a SAAB mean "I HAVE MONEY" or "LOOK HONEY; I DRIVE LIKE A DRUNKEN GAY TURKEY", usually both. Fuck you, SAAB, and good riddance. SAAB did one interesting post-war jet fighter, the Tunnan (wikipedia for it). SAAB dying is an end of an era - twilight of a socialdemocratic nation.
'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
Fuck American car companies. I feel for Saab, but I love seeing GM circle the drain. Lets just hope our dumb-shit government doesn't bail them out next time.
The only money making division of GM is the USA and China. The entire company turn red because of all the money funneled to Europe to support their "operations", fully covered health care and 30-hour work week. Not just GM, but many American companies as well.
Unfortunately, this will not change due to the white man. Only a fundamental change of U.S. government will solve the problem they faced.
New Economic Perspectives
I drive a 120,000mile Saab 9-5 late 01 MY02 Aero Estate Auto (Manual's were too rare thus expensive). It has 250BHP from a 2.3litre petrol engine. I love it. It is the best car I have had. I have treated it rough because I bought cheap second hand.
Nobody has mentioned the iconic cup holder...simple, elegant, functional...
Nobody mentioned the dimming of the cockpit for night driving...
How about the auto leveling suspension?
How about the most comfortable seats of ANY car.
I long and hope for Saab's return...
Karem
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/in+lieu
GM would like to sell the company, BUT... it wants to limit the technology transfer to the new owners AND it does not want the new company to compete against GM's other brands.
This is why the Saturn deal with Penske fell through, and why GM and Magna International eventually did not come to an agreement over Opel/Vauxhall.
GM wanted to sell Saturn and Saab, cash the checks, then turn around and destroy the companies so it could sell more Chevrolets and Buicks. Koeniggsegg and Penske figured this out in time, I am not sure of Spyker really understands what is going on.
Who cares about saab? Pontiac had a much cooler heritage and actually still sold a shitton of cars. Although the Pontiac brand is nothing like what it used to be.
A better product does not equal a better profit. People need to understand that Capitialism is at the sole mercy of the consumer and like all consumers, someone's fancy 1 day can be completely different the next. It's not all about supply and demand, sure that model worked 500 years ago, but it's a double edge sword.
Explain please why disney used a german car and spielberg a british car then?
Where is the Jaguar E-type? Where is the american Mini-cooper? And I could go on and on. US cars just don't compete.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
maybe in the bizarro universe...or in reverse;-)
I used to rallye SAAB 900's. Great cars, despite their weird shapes. Had one with over 250k on the original turbo.
Not bad for cars with an old triumph derivative motor.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
You would encounter the same problem if Ford had re-badged the Mazda RX-8 as a "Mustang".
How about if they had rebadged a Ford as a Jaguar? Oh wait...
[UID-HeinzIntel]
Excuse me???
I'm 6'2" with size 11 feet, and I can comfortably sit inside my 1979 Triumph Spitfire roadster (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triumph_Spitfire). Cars don't come much smaller than this...!
How many of you 6'2" tall, size 11-12 feet guys can we fit into a VW Bug? I think I've seen it done at the circus.
[UID-HeinzIntel]
...james bond has never driven a saab in any of the films nor have any other supporting characters - in fact, short of some obscure background traffic cameo which i've yet to identify, the *only* appearance of a saab in the body of 007 canon were a handful of early-nineties novels...
That 900 Turbo was badass, particularly in Icebreaker. :)
It was a few years back, maybe he remembers it wrong and his dad did special effects for the car in the book.
[UID-HeinzIntel]
I always thought it deeply peculiar that Gardner's Bond drove a Saab 900 Turbo in the 1980s. Saab also did a tie-in promotion. Surely Gardner could have given the poor bastard a Jaguar, though. Or something sporty like a Mazda.
That would have worked out real well in Icebreaker... Did you think the VP70 or the ASP 9mm was too utilitarian? Should Gardner have given Bond a pimp gun?
[UID-HeinzIntel]
The seatbelt was patented in the US in 1885. Mercedes started in 1886.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
http://www.edmunds.com/saab/97x/review.html
This is just the conclusion
Always thought one of these would be slick
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen_Schwimmwagen
too bad no one ever made kit car knock offs for those
Long time ago I thought about trying to do a mod to my
VW bus to make it amphibious, by having two crank down pontoons on the roof, driving, they look like you are carrying two canoes, then down at the boat ramp you could just crank them down and lock them in place. Turn the thing into a sort of trimaran once it went into the water in other words. Never got past the sketching stage though.
is this a twist on the austria/ australia joke?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's not the handling it's the whole package. The 900/93 is an awesome everything car with huge cargo area, decent mileage and the feel of a luxury sports car. What else offers that?
Syntax error: loose != lose, affect != effect, then!=than
SAAB still makes planes. Notably the recent Gripen (spelling), pretty sure that was the one, the swedish AF adopted in the past few years, along with many other countries looking at it for a cheap multirole fighter. Was the SSAB car division split off, or did GM aquire teh entire corporation? SAAB has a long history in the aero world of quality, im curious if thats dying too with this decision.