Now that the Detroit experience is a recent memory (or one to be recounted again in future posts, at least) it’s time to resume entries in the Saab Pride of Ownership competition. Things will be drawing to a close fairly soon, so the copious amount of prizes will shortly be dispatched from both here in Hobart, and from Elkparts in the UK.

Today’s entry is from Carlos.

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I’m from the south-east coast of Spain, more specifically from Alicante, although I have been living the last 8 years in Madrid due to my job.

I bought my first Saab, a 9-3 cabrio 1.8t (150 hp), 3 years ago, and I’m very happy and proud of my car.

What I love about it: it’s safe (for more and more people this point is essential), it’s spacious for a cabrio and very comfortable, the design with scandinavian style (aeronautical heritage and elegant style without ‘noise’), the engine (low pressure turbo, with a lot of torque at low rpm and low consumption), its robust strength, and its environmental conscience, etc., etc.

I like it also because it’s a different car with its own personality.

I’ve enclosed three pictures. All of them have been taken at the beach, near Alicante, in winter. For your information, in the last long weekend we had in Spain in the middle of December we were up to 28º Celsius……incredible! You are all invited to enjoy the sun and beach in the south-east of Spain in winter.

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I’m worried about the future of this brand. I’d like to be able to buy Saabs in the future and this depends on good management of this brand. From my point of view, Saab has to improve mainly in some points:

- Product politic/strategy. Nowadays the product life cycle in the car industry in order to be competitive is about 7 years. This point is very important.

- Marketing. In Spain, Saab has begun to launch advertisements on TV and magazines around 2 or 3 years ago and from my point of view they don’t explain what Saab is exactly and can confuse consumers (they focus only in the aeronautical heritage and show the cars in an aggressive manner).

The car magazines don’t usually test Saabs (It’s like Saab people is angry with the media and vice versa). In fact, I have been reading car magazines for a long time now and I didn’t know anything about Saab until I bought one and I looked for information in foreign media and on the internet.

For example, all the people in Spain know Volvos are very safe, but almost no-one knows the same about Saab, and this point is one of the main strengths of this brand.

- Customer service. I can say I´m happy with the product but, at least in Spain, the customer service is quite bad. I could tell you some personal stories about it.

My best wishes for everyone and Saab for the new year.

Carlos