My turn in the XWD

Posted by swade on June 14th, 2007 7 Comments Printer-Friendly

I posted the Kenneth Backland video in the XWD first as that was a much more interesting drive to watch. But I had a crack in the car as well and had a ball doing so.

A couple of notes:

First - I have very little in terms of a reference point for driving this car. I’m not going to lie to you and say “yeah, I could feel the power shift to the rear wheels at this point, blah blah, blah”. Others may be able to do that and if they do, then pay attention.

What I can tell you is that this car was an absolute blast to drive. As noted in the video, it felt positively glued to the road. The in-car camera doesn’t give you the sense of speed, but I can assure you that whilst I wasn’t testing any limits (either the car’s or my own - I was driving a LHD manual for the first time ever), I was trying to get a good feel for how this car would handle in some fun stuff - and it really handled well.

This car really does deserve to do great things. There’s a lot of work gone into it and a lot of Swedish hopes riding with it.

Second - these were pre-production cars that Saab lifted from their chassis testing fleet for the occasion. They’re not the finished product and there’s no finished product yet. These were brought out to give the journos a quick taste - and they tasted willingly.

Enjoy watching a mere mortal in the XWD. More video to come soon.

Here’s hoping YouTube get this one up before Christmas.

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Comments

Jeff said:

It would have been funny if you rear-ended that red Combi at the end :p

So how many of those cones did you hit?

-June 14th, 2007 at 12:47 pm
zippy said:

Lucky bugger! But then again anyone so devoted to a ’cause ‘as you very obviously deserves to have a little fun, especially when you share it with all of us!

zippy

-June 14th, 2007 at 1:15 pm
fred@dzlsabe.com said:

Nonono…a thousand times..

SaabSweden sticks to their Bofors for longer than anyone…and I presume get this dumass system shoved down their(and our)throats…while the best system, ie the electric rear-drive in the concept convertible remains what?? under development? Fthat

Whats worse than one ring & pinion??? TWO!! On dry roads over 99% of the time. Its like carrying a 300LB fatman around for the life of the car to help push ya out of yer snowy driveway? Buy a snowplow. BTW theyre burning up real good in the comps cars by the time they get 100K.

-June 14th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
Konsta said:

Damn,
I envy you so much right now It seemed like a surefooted drive. Journos at swedish AMS wrote that people laugh out loud in the car because it is so much fun.

-June 14th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
riku1100s said:

Fred, do you expect those electric motors on the rear axle weigh nothing ? What about the extra battery and generator capacity needed ?

While I agree with you that very, very few people really need an all-wheel-driven vehicle, I have believed for a long time that Saab desperately needs the 4wd in order to use more powerful engines and compete with its premium rivals.

Based on what I’ve seen so far, the xwd looks very promising and even seems to be a lot of fun. It will never be economical nor ecological but neither is any other 4wd car.

-June 15th, 2007 at 12:06 am
SaabKen said:

THANK YOU, Swade. With the video I feel like I was there for the ride (albeit in the backseat, haha).

Marvelous !

-June 15th, 2007 at 4:27 am
fred said:

Riku-

I expect that reardrive unit w/battery to weigh maybe 60-80kgs? Not bad to eliminate 2 expensive ring&pinions wasting ~7% a piece and a space-wasting, vibrating center driveshaft. A big plus for the RDU would be 30-40km electric only range. Then hooked up to the allready great ESP and ReAxs would blow doors off.

-June 15th, 2007 at 1:21 pm