As you may remember, I was very impressed with Doug Majka’s 1973 99 EMS seen on the State of Nine 2007 SOC bulletin board. Indeed, this car is perfect. Not a speck. Better than new because Doug has shined up parts that probably never had a shine before.

Swade promised a little more about this 99, and here it is. Striaght from Doug himself (Thanks, Doug!!)

Surprise! It actually started out as another car….

Who knew? The car was originally another car. In Doug’s words:

The history of this restoration began around 1987 when I purchased a 74EMS from a friend of mine. Between 1988 and 1991, another friend of mine and I opened a shop together, specializing in Saab and Volvo repairs, full mechanical repairs as well as body and paint. Being a shop owner, the opportunities to buy parts cars were a plenty, and at one point, we had a dozen 99’s to scavenge parts from. I of course used this to my advantage by using the best parts on hand to make my 74EMS as nice as could be. It was actually a 2nd place concours winner at the 1990 Saab Owners Convention in Sturbridge, MA. I drove the car daily until around 1994, when it went up on blocks in my garage, and never came back out in one piece. I had started to repair the rusted body yet again, as Ohio winters took it’s toll on the underside and wheel wells, but I lost interest for five years, using the top of the car to store all kinds of junk.

Zoom forward to the fall of 2001: I was determined to get this car going again, as I remember the countless hours zooming around the city at a spirited pace, but the rust issues would still need to be addressed. I had resisted the urge to get internet service for years, saying I had no need for it. Boy was I wrong! I found a place called West of Sweden on the net, and one day called up “Chip” Lamb to order some CV boots for the 74. We got to talking about my rusty EMS, and he told me to look at classifieds2000.com. There was a ’73 99E listed for sale in Weston, WV, and if the body was in decent shape, he suggested I “make” that car my EMS. I called the owner up, he emailed me some pictures and told me he wanted $800 for it, and four days later I was trailering it home.

Read about the restoration after the break.

The restoration begins…

The 73 sat in the driveway for a few months because the 74EMS was still up on blocks in my one car garage. I was chatting Saabs on saabnet.com chat with a few friends of mine, and they goaded me into finally doing something with the cars. Another motivational point was that the 2002 Saab Owners Convention was going to be held in Cincinnati, OH in August, just a few hours drive away. I registered the 73 for the event, even before I had started working on it. Talk about pressure to get the car done. January 2002 I removed the engine and trans from the 74, and within a week, had the rest of the car gutted to a shell, and the parts stored in my basement. I bought a sawzall and a pack of metal cutting blades, and within a few short hours, the 74 was in manageable pieces. I saved all of the body panels, and the rest went off to the scrap yard.

The 73 is finally in the garage! Since it was still winter time, I decided to hold off on any body work until spring had arrived. This gave me time to strip the car to a shell, and spend my other time painting, detailing, and polishing the engine and related parts. I still didn’t feel the pressure to make it to SOC, but that time would soon come.

Spring/summer is here, and SOC is 4 months away. There are only a few small rust holes to weld repair, but the rest of the body is dinged and dented everywhere. I really do hate body filler work, but there is nobody else to help, so I trudge on. Inside the trunk is surface rusted because of a bad trunk seal, and the engine bay is badly pitted. Geez, it looks like every square inch of the car needs painted. I’m chatting one evening with my Saab buddies, discussing paint options, when one of them suggests the 1999 Viggen color of lightning blue. I see pictures of Jeff Proposki’s C-900, and decide that that’s the color for me. The original Carolina blue just did nothing for me.

My daily regimen becomes focused on just one thing, making it to SOC on August 3rd. I go to work for 8 hours, and between 4 and 9, I’m in the garage doing bodywork, then I chat for a few hours before going to bed. The weekends are also spent in the garage, sometimes as much as 12 hours a day. I even find myself paying the neighbor kid to mow my lawn, as the hour it takes is valuable garage time.

SOC is about two months away, and the first paint goes on the car. I decide to paint the engine bay, inside the trunk, and the door jambs separately, then back mask everything off to paint the outside. That paintwork, and the other finishing details of the rest of the body, chew up almost the whole month of June. I used a touch-up gun to cut in those areas, but decide there is no way I can paint the rest of the car with that gun. So, I contact an ex-employee of mine from the bodyshop, who has 30 years of painting experience, and begged him to paint the car for me. I only have just over a month to get this car back together, and don’t feel like wasting $600 of paint and clear. He agrees (for a small fee), and June 28th is the day it happens.

One month before SOC and the car is finally all one color. Now the task at hand is to get all the parts back on it, paint and detail any of the used parts, do any troubleshooting, and fine tune things as needed. I’m moving along at a decent pace, and get the car running two weeks before the show. Big problem arises when driving the car over 5mph, as the engine (and whole car) shakes violently from side to side. Hmmm!

I never did find out what the problem was until after SOC, so I trailered the car to the show, had a great time, and took home 3rd in the concours event, even though it is far from concours condition based on OEM specs.

After getting it back home from SOC, the original transmission was installed, and the shaking problem went away. It turned out the 74 transmission I used was too wide at the drivers, and the axles were bottoming out in the cups. I never did figure out why that transmission worked in the 74 for as long as I owned it, but wouldn’t work in the 73, since 73’s and 74’s are identical chassis wise.

More has been done to the car since its debut at SOC02. With the help of the internet (eBay), NOS parts availability at shows, and a network of 99 enthusiasts I became friends with, I have been able to swap nicer parts with ones that were just so-so. This process is still ongoing, as with any car that you want to look its best.

Doug, again, WOW!

All of Doug’s pictures may be found here.