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."
'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.'"
Government is a scam to tax us... Sure...they sorta provide useful services, but anymore the percentage of their doings, taxings, and spendings as it relates to those things like police, fire departments, roads, is such a tiny fraction of the shit they are actually up to it is pathetic.
Also...it is the defense contractors that you have to worry about screaming "but, the jobs!". Government bailing out defense contractors to save jobs is what Eisenhower warned about and the neocon's have taken it as the guidebook for economic planning. Forever Wars are pretty profitable when you are the guy building the weapons.
The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
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.