Thanks to all of you for visiting here so often and my apologies to those of you that got a white screen and an error message in the last few hours….. I’ve had to extend the monthly bandwidth allowance for the site to cope with the traffic. I think I’m going to have to investigate some hosting options.

Anyway, we now have 30gb a month to chew through.

Onwards and upwards!!

Wanna make a buck? Sell stuff to 2182mark on Ebay.

He’s currently bidding A$12.00 for the book Made in Trollhattan at this auction on Ebay.

If he clicked my Amazon link in the left sidebar, he could buy it for US$1.25, which is about $1.70 Aust. It’s not a bad publication actually, more of a coffee table piece than a real reader, but worth having nonetheless.

Ah, there’s one born every minute. At least the seller’s only going to charge actual cost for postage, unlike some of those Ebay sharks out there….

There’s absolutely stuff-all to write about today from a purely Saab perspective. Maybe I’m getting bloggers-block?

These are the thoughts on my mind for this morning:

1. If this story is representative of all Delphi and GM employees that may be going out on strike in the coming months then I’m pretty well staggered. If you can’t be bothered clicking on the link, the story is about a Delphi employee, a high-school dropout that’s been working there for around 30 years and now earns about $90,000 US dollars a year.

Let me say that again – US$90,000 a year working in an assembly plant.

Sitting in a beige leather recliner in the family room of his modest home, Michael Balls knows he has had it pretty good since he dropped out of Saginaw High School in the mid-1970s. He now makes $31.35 an hour, plus overtime.

Without a diploma, he got a job at the plant when he was 19, then took two years of classes to become a skilled tradesman. He graduated from high school in 1988.

During good years, with 10 to 12 hours of overtime per week, Balls earns about $90,000 at the plant, which makes front-wheel-drive steering columns and other products.

“I thought I was set for life,” he says.

Now, at 48, he’s not quite old enough to retire and fearful that Delphi will cut his wages if he stays on. He’s especially worried that Delphi won’t be able to meet its pension obligations.

“There definitely ain’t a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,” Balls says.

Buddy, you’ve been raiding the pot of gold for 30 years.

I’m a professionally qualified worker in a public financial arena and I earn a decent five-figure sum in Aussie dollars. This guy’s earning six-figures in Aussie dollars for playing with a big Meccano set.

Forgive me if my sympathometer is sitting low on the register. The quicker these labour contracts get sorted out and ditched, the better. “Balls to the wall!” I say…….(couldn’t resist)

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2. Out of the assembly plants and into the office…..

There’s been nothing but the sounds of crickets chirping, tumbleweeds rolling and dead air in my post box since sending away the “Tell GM About It” comments. They were sent to Jay Spenchian, Bob Lutz, Carl-Peter Forster and Jan-Ake Jonsson. So far – no response.

Hopefully that’s due to them all being heads down, bum up and working harder than a one-legged man in a butt-kicking competition. A little advice – Saab needs the following:

AWD in the 9-3 and/or 9-5 range
An entry model (9-2) that kicks everybody’s backside
A small SUV along the 9-3x lines
A dedicated, well-salaried blogger (Hey, I’ll do it for less than one of your Meccano-boys)

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On a personal note, the Viggen finally got it’s local registration today. Due to the previous write-off status, it had to have a bunch of inspections for structural integrity, identity etc. All these have now been completed and I’ve finally got some local tags sitting on my desk, waiting to be attached to the car.

How dumb is this? I’d love to get personalised tags for the car, but the state charges you $100 PER ANNUM for the privelege!! No wonder you hardly ever see them around here.

As far as I know, Tasmania’s the only state in Australia that has this annual fee. I think there could be some activism coming in the near future….

Various papers around the globe are reporting that Saab are the arm holding GM Europe back from turning a profit in 2005. All of a sudden it seems that the light’s switched on, and Saab’s the bad guy!

If you’re running a team race and one of your runners is an emaciated bag-o-bones (albeit one with a brilliant mind), then what the heck do you expect? Saab’s future model range was canned earlier in the decade and the little Swede has been hand-to-mouth ever since. The advance orders of the 9-3 SportCombi should be evidence enough that Saab can create demand with it’s own products. If there’s been a lack of interest in the marque in the last few years it’s due to an overly long model cycle and inadequate market resources to get the interest stirred up again.

Read this you vulturous, puerile, pontificating pundits: The cars are fantastic! Every car that Saab builds is a fantastic car to drive. Safe, comfortable and a rewarding daily drive, with more than a hint of excitement if you want it.

Thankfully, with the SportCombi and the new 9-5 starting to make the rounds accompanied by some better marketing, there’s some real opportunity for the future.

In Europe, you can also add an expanded model range over the next few years, taking the available range from 2 current models, to a lineup of 5 different models in the future. Added to the current 9-3 and 9-5 range will be the following: First, the 9-7x, which is being delivered to various European dealerships as we speak. Next will be the 9-4x in X years (insert your own number depending on who you read) and then the smaller, new 9-2. Both of these last two models will also make it to North America too.

All this gives hope for Saab. They’ve cut costs as directed, they’ve certainly got the design impetus to carry good models through to the future. All they need now are properly directed resources, backup and marketing to get the job done.

GM’s continued survival wouldn’t hurt either, though you’ve got to worry when you see a GM engineering entrance test successfuly completed thus:

Only kidding folks……