Eggs – Audi do make some sweet cars. Friend of mine has an A4 1.8T Quattro and its a beauty. A license-shredder for sure.

Swade – agree that a fairly simple start to the Hirsch campaign would be awareness with current 95 owners. Its not that complicated. As far as rev-heads go – guilty as charged your honour. As you know, I drive a lot ( 160km round trip to work daily) and do as much at high speed as possible. This is all relative to those of you with access to an Autobahn – bastards. Friends have various speedy sets of wheels, from the Audi above to BMW645 and Subaru 3.0 Bilsteins etc. Despite this, the unique qualities of a turboed swedish four are what drew me to Saab in the first place. So, while I acknowledge that your average HSV nut is not really going to look sideways at a 95 – unless its passing them – I reckon here are enough revheads who would be more than curious about the numbers that a Hirsched 95 puts out, if they knew about it.

The lack of cashola or other resources is a big aspect of this no doubt. If I draw some VERY loose threads together about Saab here I could say:

Average annual sales: 1000+ units
Average selling price: $65000
Turnover: $65m
Assuming 50% gross profit, Cost of Goods : $32.5m
Sales & Marketing expenses could be in the region of $25m + (would love to see what they comprise of as they are mostly carried by dealers, not the parent I guess)
EBIT of $7.5m (10%+ )?

Are SaabAus in the GM Aus annual report? Anyone seen one?

Joe -I’ll keep the resume up to date, get my best suit drycleaned and wait for the call. Appreciate the compliment but as I’m sure you know, its one thing to postulate on a blog, its another to run a business. There probably are some Hirsch freaks at Saab-Aus who just can’t get the system to go their way; Neil Whitehead may be one. All the same, just be ready if someone calls for a reference.

Wonder how many upgrades that software in Melbourne has done?

And I agree with you — Saab could be farther along with some better decisions. I’m simply heaping another reason for Audi’s success onto the fire of thought — they’ve made some great cars.

Hi,

It is theoretically possible to order Hirsch products over Saab Australia. Homologation and warranty issues are in order. The contact person there is:

Neil Whitehead
neil.whitehead@gm.com
Tel +61 (0) 3 9257 0961

However, the transportation time and costs for any hardware parts would be substantial, so they are not actively pushing our products.

Mr. Whitehead does however have two Hirsch Performance IPRO programming tools registered in his name, which means that they should theoretically be able to perform software-only upgrades.

Cheers,

Erik

You’re right on the money. Marketing $$ are likely dictated from the US, and as Saab’s around a 1,000 unit seller here in Oz, there aint going to be a big pot to draw from. But as you say, it’s about having the flagship present for effect more than for pure profit.

My point earlier was that amongst the $100K crowd, CCs do count for a fair bit, and that’s where the 9-5 is going to fall over (possibly along with the aged chassis design).

You and I know that a 9-5 is a great FWD car, but your average well-heeled yobbo wouldn’t have a clue about that.

I really do think that it’s worthwhile pushing Hirsch a lot more through dealerships in the eastern mainland states, esp Sydney.

Here’s hoping that Saab Aust can see the sense in it. I personally know of 2 or 3 Saab owners just here in Tassie that I reckon would possibly consider it.

Eggs – No critics of Audi in the chair I’m sitting in. The grinding of my teeth is over the models that GM’s cost-cutting killed off. Models that were innovative and could have had Saab leaps ahead of where they are now.

Audi did it with a solid line that resulted in the TT, a halo car, and they capitalised from there. Saab could have had a similar path but for a few mistakes and the cost-cutting that resulted.

Whenever I see Audi’s success I think “There but for the goofiness of ????? goes Saab.”