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We posted the front-on view of the facelifted 9-5 a few days ago, and thanks to Hagfish7 at Saab Central (don’t you just love usernames?) we now have news of these.
Here they are – and not too shabby either, if you ask me:
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If anyone’s interested, my thoughts on spyphotos and people’s reactions are here.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Garris
// Aug 30, 2005 at 12:51 am
Hi everyone. I’m a Saab admirer here, if not a “fan,” and never owned one, so this is an “outsider’s” perspective…
I have to say I guardedly (until I see it) like it. I’ve thought they’ve squeezed blood out of the rock of their current styling theme for a while. Being able to so easily (and effectively) graft their corporate front onto the 9-2 is evidence of how formula the theme has become, and the 9-3, while nice, is bordering on bland. Saab also doesn’t have a very distinctive rear design right now.
Michael Mauer, the until recent head designer there (now at Porsche), I read disliked the 9-3’s design, most of which was done before he arrived, and he thought things needed shaking up. I think this does it. It has a frosty, Scandinavian, IKEA-ish feel about it which is somewhat the opposite of the tortured, baroque themes of the other European makes of late (especially Mercedes, which I haven’t liked). I like this front motif even better squared off on the 9-6x spyshot.
With Mauer gone, though, who knows what will happen. This could be a short lived Saab theme.
2 TuuSaR
// Aug 30, 2005 at 2:03 am
I sure hope its going to be short lived.
3 Pavel
// Aug 30, 2005 at 2:25 am
What a nightmare. To my mind, every single minor change they’ve made was a bad move. Especially the headlights, the unsaabiest design I can think of. Real disaster.
However, these are MINOR changes, and minor changes cannot that completely spoil an overall great car, can they?
4 Pavel
// Aug 30, 2005 at 2:27 am
And most of all I dislike this new hood. The old one had very simple clear design…
5 Pinovski
// Aug 30, 2005 at 2:56 am
It’s looks OK for me. At least for now, but the tail light is very much like Toyota Altis which I hope Saab could realise about this and change it in the real model. Otherwise, Saab’s value must be in trouble for definitely sure.
6 Dan
// Aug 30, 2005 at 4:37 am
The rear portion of the sportwagon reminds me of the Mercedes Benz E class wagon.
7 Rob
// Oct 12, 2005 at 6:32 pm
When will Saab put a dual symmetrical exhaust system in? That’s the one thing I reckon could make a Saab 9-3/9-5 look any better, a dual symmetrical exhaust like that on the Audi TT Quattro (or any of the quattro models).