It’s goodbye to the US from me. Nice place, but I’m unsure at this point as whether I’d want to live here. If I were to move stateside, mind you, then San Francisco’s got definite potential. Some places just suit some people and everything I saw here was pretty darn nice.
I made a point of photographing all the Saabs I saw as I wandered around both Millbrae, where I was staying, and downtown. Despite my diligent intentions, however, I missed half of them.
Here’s the other half:
That’s right, in a full day of walking around – including carparks at the local shopping strip – I only saw two Saabs. I saw half as many Lotuses and twice as many fire trucks!
There’s obviously some work to be done. If there’s anywhere in the world where you should be able to sell a bunch of Saab 9-3 Convertibles, it’d be San Francisco. That’s just my line of thinking.
——
I didn’t do too much touristy stuff today. Gripen mentioned to me in an email that Macworld, the big Apple convention, was on in SF at the moment. Whilst walking around town I noticed a number of people with Macworld tags around their necks.
By using a sort of Macworld-visual sonar – walking in the direction from which the Macworld tags seemed to be coming from and then doubling back when they stopped coming – I was able to track down the venue.
In case you were wondering, it’s quite possible to just walk in to the Macworld expo whether you’ve registered for it or not. I figured I’d just walk towards the expo doors and wait for one of the door guards to stop me.
None did.
You might be thinking “what the heck’s this got to do with Saab?”
Good question.
A lot of people over the last three years have drawn a similarity between Saabs and Apple products. Their intuitive ease of use, good design and functionality – I can just see the smoke coming from Eggs’ ears now 
Maybe Saab would like to consider sponsoring a rest area at the Macworld convention next year. Acura did it this year, complete with cars on display etc. With that perceived similarity between Macs and Saabs, not to mention that Saabs rate highly at Gaywheels.com research (this is San Francisco, after all), it might be worth a little of SaabUSA’s time to check out the possibilities.
Wouldn’t it be a while lot better if these people were checking out a 9-4x instead of this RDX or whatever Acura call this?
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So it’s goodbye from me. I finally get my business class flight. 14 hours or so to Sydney where I have a 6 hour layover before going on to Hobart. Can’t wait to get home.
——
I’d like to take a moment to thank all the people I’ve been in touch with during this trip. It’s been a great experience. One can read all they want about places and people, but there’s nothing like visiting the places and meeting the people to give you a fuller perspective.
My advice to GM – This is the internet age. Move Saab’s offices out to California and you’ll have much happier and more productive employees.
My personal thanks to:
Jan-Willem Vester, Steve Shannon and John Libbos of Saab USA.
Tony Elder from Saab of Troy for the 9-7x drive.
Gunilla Gustavs, Jan-Ake Jonsson and Eric Geers from Saab Sweden
Anthony Lo and Andrew Dyson from Saab Design
Former Saab USA chief and expert driver, Bob Sinclair
Special thanks to Christer Nilsson of Saab Sweden for the invitation to attend and the team from Saab Australia for organizing the trip.
Extra special thanks to all the Saab nuts I met on the trip – Erica, Michael, Andrew, Guilbert, Walter Wong and Lukasz. Greg Abbott once again provided the stable voice of reason and it was great to hang out for a few days. Sadness at missing out on meeting up with Tedjs, Derek and Andy Rupert.
Extra special thinks with a cherry on top to Eggs for the help with keeping this place ticking over while I’ve been in transit and for sending along a suitable power cord in a time of need.
And extra special thanks with an El Coyote margarita to Gripen for all the assistance in getting around (200-plus mile round trip) on my first day here.
If I’ve left anyone out, please forgive me.
——
And finally, some sleep pods at Macworld. I am without speech.
OMG! Those sleep pods at Macworld look like Pac Man ate those people!
Another thing to point-out about Macs and Saabs: they both have a rabid “cult” following.
I think you’re onto something about moving GM to California. But if you think the state of Michigan has been devastated economically now…
I can’t imagine GM wanting to move to California after all the emissions battles between the two!
Please tell me you picked-up a MacBook Air for me while you were there.
Bon voyage, Swade.
Swade, come for lunch when you land. I might let you drive the Viggen!!!!
Thanks for all the coverage Swade, sorry I wasn’t able to make it down to Detroit this time to meet up with you.
Perhaps it would be a good thing for Saab to move out of Detroit as it is and always will be a terrible city to work in. I am speaking from experience after working in downtown for 3 years….
Not so sure if California would be the best choice though, especially with the extra 3 hour time difference. Minneapolis has one of the largest populations of swedish immigrants so maybe that’s a good choice? The Northeast (Connecticut?) would still be the best imo.
On a side note Swade… You can’t judge the USA by visiting San Francisco, LA and Detroit. I don’t know how many other parts you have seen on other trips but I can assure you there are many other nicer and different parts of this beautiful country.
Thanks for your work Swade!
BTW – lots o’ Saabs in California! Surprised you didn’t see more of them. I live in the area, and they seem pretty common. I think there’s 6-7 dealers in the Bay Area alone
Again, sorry you missed Chicago. But Id agree with your observations. Saab should be able to sell twice as many CVs, esp in the south…Florida even. But the concept/halo thats needed is the allready established diesel(well not here) and a yet to be mentioned “hybrid”. I dont understand why these guys want to beat their heads in the under $25K market(Pontiac,Saturn?), when $25-50K is ripe. Will Saab ever sell 250K cars/year worldwide at/or near MSRP in our lifetime?…Bob?
good job, swade. your coverage was entertaining and informative.
You saw some of the worst parts of the US.. LA and Michigan! hah! SF isn’t too bad.
Swade I’m only a 90 minute drive north of the city (napa valley), you should have come up here to our wine country, its gorgeous. Perhaps next time.. or I should have just driven down to SF.. I would have gotten a kick out of listening to you say the world “no”
I too would like to say thank you to all the bods at Saab around the world for this trip that you have taken. you too Steve.
Yes thanx for this passionnating covering Swade .
This event in Detroit had a political dimension with the republicans all around .
The car industry is a sensible subject in this part of the US . It’s really sad to have the feeling that it was the good old time .
And that now everything is gone and dead …
At least , you say :
“Wouldn’t it be a while lot better if these people were checking out a 9-4x instead of this RDX or whatever Acura call this?”
But for me it’s quiet the same ….Sorry I don’t recognize Saab in that type of vehicle…Even if it’s the future of Saab , 9-4X is a car without any soul .Just a product which looks like all the others .
I know you did enjoy the 9-7 , it was exciting and fun but no more swedish creativity .
I’m feeling a bit bitter and I’m sorry for that .
Even if it’s grant to see Saab sellings rising always more and more .
GM are winning the challenge of making Saab more popular .
But when I see a brand new Saab on the road I know that saluting the driver is useless because he won’t answer me …
So it is .C’est la vie .
Home sweet home for you Steve !And your bed at the end of the road
Jeff
The difference between Saab and Apple is Saab has no Steve Jobs. That´s the point.
Thanks for the great editor-at-large style coverage mate- really enjoyed reading it all. Cannot agree to like the 94x thing- but I guess its better in the flesh – so you tell me Master.
Hope Saab realise just how much profile and thoughtful input you provide and can offer.
Trust you get a proper lie-flat bed seat in Business Class and not some old style reclining seat that some certain so-called top line airlines operate.
Thanks again Swade- a superb production.
(Thinks- last time I was in De -troit it snowed and there was a strike on)
I think that business class travelers are put into those pods!
Great coverage Swade. Let us know how those pods work.
I see the Eggs, wonder where the Grits are ?
Swade,
Great job on covering the 9-4X. I agree with Golfhunter that the car has little soul. American designed and engineered, Mexican built, Asian looks – to me this is not what the Saab brand is all about.
As for Macs and Saabs, what a perfect fit. I’m an avid Mac user and 7 of my friends I’ve gotten into Saabs all happen to be Mac addicts themselves. There is definitely something going on here. Saab’s next interior GUI should be based on Mac OS X – just look at the partnership between Ford and Alfa with Microsoft’s Sync and you can imagine the potential for Saab aligning with Apple (as BMW continues to do so).
GM must have had financial reason to have moved Saab to Michigan from Atlanta, GA (tax incentives, etc.) However, Atlanta is the little San Fran of the South, enjoying warm weather most of the year, southern hospitality, cultural diversity and NO SNOW! I would have quit working for Saab if I had been asked to move to Detroit!
Hey Swade –
We can meet up when I come to Australia one day.
I could use some Holden training.
Glad you were able to make it to the US – I look forward to reading your reports.
Yes, I really want Saab to emulate Apple. I really want Saab’s products to be exactly the same as their competitors’ products, only prettier. I really want Saabisiti to scoff at me for liking anything else. I really want Saab to give zero details about their cars before launch, and then launch buggy, poorly-built crap that doesn’t live up to expectations at all, all while touting each new product as something at will change the world. I really want Saab to not give me any options when I buy one of their cars.
OH WAIT THEY ALREADY DO ALL THAT. Guess y’all got your wish, Saab is exactly like Apple.
Most of that was tongue-in-cheek.
But seriously, I hate Apple’s design ethos, and I don’t think OS is intuitive AT ALL.
Did Apple design iDrive? Really? STAY AWAY, SAAB!!!
Man, I wish SYNC was a GM thing and not a Ford thing. I like SYNC.
Swade, you definitely can’t judge the US by three cities. Detroit, LA, and San Francisco? What about New York, Boston, San Diego, Denver, Phoenix, Austin, Chicago, Atlanta, Baltimore? Orlando, even? Plus all the other places I can’t think of? The US has evvvvvverything.
Speaking of San Diego, I saw an average of 4 Saabs a day there. You were in the wrong part of Cali!
I think that one of the biggest problems with GM is that all of the executives are stuck out in Detroit which is an absolute hell-hole of a city.
How is the company supposed to know whether their luxury products will sell to an upper-middle class buyer base when the only upper middle class people they see around them are fellow big three executives driving american cars out of a sense of loyalty.
They need to know what sells in the mainstream, important parts of the country and that means relocating at least Cadillac and Saab’s headquarters to a top notch city on the cutting edge of buyer trends like NY or LA. I’m sure they’d have a very different view of their “prestige” cars when everyone they see is driving MG, BMW, VAG, or Lexus products and most caddys and lincolns that you see are owned by limo companies the way it is in any northeastern city.
Personally I’d love to see saab US headquartered in Boston, it’s one of saab’s top markets and one of the few places in the country where you see as many saabs as you see volvos or BMW’s. I think it would give the saab US execs a much better idea of what is selling or not selling and how to market their products if they were living in a place where you see at least 2 or 3 2007 9-5′s daily.
I doubt it has even occurred to GM to move. Swade was just making an off-the-cuff remark.
Huge companies like that typically don’t move. Boeing was a special case. I believe they got some incredible tax incentives to move and that’s why they took them.
GM leaving Michigan would make a bad situation for the state drastically worse.
If GM were to move for tax reasons, why not just move to Bermuda, like where the multinational corporation I work for is based out of, despite the fact that they’re widely regarded as an “American” corporation…
Check out the San Diego Saab car club – great bunch of people. Very hospitable and knowledgeable.
Swade- why not get them onto the site- or have you already?
San Francisco is pretty damn nice if you have the money to afford a house out there . . . check out Seattle or even venture into British Columbia and Vancouver to see what I consider to be the best of N. America from a jaw-droppingly beautiful natural scenery perspective.
I agree with Gripen, GM can’t move any parts of itself out of Detroit. Detroiters would be calling for Wagoner’s head on a pike, and they’d probably get it, too.
Mention Saab and Apple in one sentence again and I´ll flip over and die! I have never had a good moment with a Mac com*¤!`´puter… I love Photoshop since I paint alot and love design, but not on a Mac.. That bomb that tells you that the program is beeing shut down still today appears once to often.. Not so on a good Dos.. or to the hardcores CPM as it were (Why does it excist now?) based computer with windows 98 through to Vista installed.
You can´t compare Saab with Mac OS.. The Saab is solid as a rock (The rock of all ages somebody said) whilst Mac OS fails and fails and fails like a Trabant…
Oooh, I´m gooing to be sorry for this.. hehe
The bomb? That was OS 9. OS X has been available since March 2001. Time to wake up?
And don’t compare stability. Since I somewhat work with computer systems in whitin mathematics, engineering and natural sciences, I have experiences of all major platforms (*nix – mainly OS X and Solaris – and Windows) in a large number. The Windows machine don’t even come close to being a stable platform compared to *nix.
“I doubt it has even occurred to GM to move. Swade was just making an off-the-cuff remark.
Huge companies like that typically don’t move. Boeing was a special case. I believe they got some incredible tax incentives to move and that’s why they took them.
GM leaving Michigan would make a bad situation for the state drastically worse.”
That’s the point, Detroit is spiraling down the toilet and GM needs to move it’s management (at least the management of the luxury brands) to a place where the people who actually have the disposable income to buy the cars aren’t all employed by GM. It’s tough for Michigan, but GM’s management needs to move outside the happy little bubble world of the Detroit area where everyone drives American cars to a place where they can see what the consumers in the other 99% of the country actually like and buy.
CTM said: “The bomb? That was OS 9. OS X has been available since March 2001. Time to wake up? And don’t compare stability.”
Yes sa böm
/Tompa
Alex, GM is part of Detroit, and Detroit is part of GM. Calling for them to move the management is like saying that the US capitol should be relocated back to Annapolis or Richmond. Or Mexico City.
For two years now, GM Design has been hitting home run after home run. I don’t think they need to move to design better cars – they just needed the beancounters to unleash their inner car lust.
(Don’t believe me about GM Design? Check out the ultimate GM skeptic, Peter De Lorenzo at Autoextremist.com — a very well respected Detroit critic).
(And if the Mac OS is not intuitive, Windows is light-years worse. Windows is the digital equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition: “Submit! Or You Will Suffer !”)
Hello guys – Saab USA just moved to Detroit in 2006! They had been in beautiful Atlanta, Georgia (a city only 2nd to Boston for Saab sightings!) in a great facility for many years before GM uprooted them and moved them to America’s most dangerous city.
Ford moved it’s Lincoln-Mercury from Dearborn to irvine, CA in the late 90s and made that place the global headquarters for those brands. But in 2002, they moved back again to Dearborn so apparently it wasn’t working out moving part of the company. Volvo is still far away from Dearborn and I think they are in NJ.
Yeah, I’m not saying that GM as a whole should leave detroit, but that GM needs to move Saab, Saturn, and maybe even Cadillac to the east or west coast.
Saab especially needs it’s executives and beancounters to live in a place where saab sightings are a commonplace and where there is actual potential for new sales growth. Hell, even Chicago would be an improvement.
GM may be tied to Detroit, but that doesn’t make headquartering your premium brands in a city that makes East St. Louis look like Greenwich, CT any less stupid.
I can imagine the T-shirt:
“Saab 2008 = Apple 1998″
(with a picture of an Ice Blue ’08 9-3 Aero Combi next to a Bondi Blue original iMac)
While I’m a huge California patriot (I’m sure you noticed) and a 2nd-generation SoCal native, I can’t see GM or Saab moving to California.
While the standard of living is great here and the weather can’t be beaten, the taxes on a company that size would be an incredible weight to bear. In the rare instances where companies have relocated it’s typically because state and local governments offer huge tax incentives for the company to move there, something I just don’t see California offering.
Most major auto manufacturers do have a presence in SoCal, with GM even having a design center in North Hollywood, Ford’s PAG in Irvine, Toyota and Mazda have U.S. headquarters here (and Nissan just recently left), and I just learned the other day that even BMW has an emissions center near Point Mugu (where Swade spotted a poorly disguised BMW X6 the other day on PCH). Even ovloV has a design center here. I think so many car companies have design centers here because one of the premier design schools, the Art Center College of Design is based in Pasadena.
Wulf is right, Swade! Come to New England, we have Saabs everywhere!! (And Volvos, but we don’t have to talk about that…)
Windows is what everyone uses cause that’s what they get and don’t bother looking for something better. Macs attract people that want something unique, something better. Same goes for Saab.
I “switched” 1 year ago to an iMac with OS X and I’m never ever going back to windows. So far my system has frozen once. ONCE. How many times did my various windows systems freeze…?
David.. I´ve got a Hp nx8220 laptop with XP.. It´s soon 2 years and has never frozen
My XP laptop has not frozen since I got it 2 years ago. My Vista desktop froze a lot when I first got it, but I fixed it, and it hasn’t frozen since. The sleep settings were messing with my printer, and that was making it freeze.
Windows computers only freeze if you let them.
Or if you’re running ME. :p
Jeff: I’m a former Windows guy who “switched” a couple years ago on my home computer (I bought a Mac Mini just before they went to the Intel processors. Ugh!) and I still have to use a Dell WinXP laptop for work. I have to admit I haven’t had too many lockup problems on it, but I don’t use it that often either. However, the overall usability is better on the Mac and I’m more comfortable just getting my work done and not piddling with administration of it. That’s just my opinion though.
Only 2 Saabs in a day in San Francisco! I managed to snap one and wasn’t even looking
See:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/robinzblog/2100288209/in/set-72157603414806737/