I know Saabs aren’t the only cars with enough personality to make themselves part of the family, but there’s few others that do it so well.
I guess it’s one of the advantages of being so ‘different’, especially in the case of the Saab 900.
We’ve owned a number of different cars since my wife and I started seeing each other. All of them were/are better than my old 1986 5-door Saab 900 Turbo with an auto transmission. It was a slow as a wet week and in the end it died a slow death.
Yet that’s the one car my wife and 17 year old stepson remember with the greatest fondness.
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I’m writing all this after reading this story from the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
The Saab was weird looking, but fast and we loved it the way you love a favorite old sweat shirt or the dog you had as a kid….
….The odometer broke two or three years ago around 140,000 miles so we don’t really know how many miles it had on it in the end. But it didn’t matter: It had become a member of our family, and we learned not just to tolerate its quirks but to admire them.
It’s pretty much every Saab loyalist’s story, isn’t it?
A great read – despite the use of the ‘Q’ word – and highly recommended for anyone who’s loved and lost a Saab.
Hey after talking my father, my brother-in-law’s father, and my best friend all into a Saab, I’ve finally stepped on board myself and am learning to admire the oddedies of my ‘new’ 1993 9000 CDE. It’s in good shape, but needs a little love, so I’ve been bringing it up to snuff one thing at a time. First I made it’s ACC work right, then it’s dome lights. It showed it’s affection back by busting a pulley and taking out the serpentine belt. So I handed it over to my trusty Saab mechanic and it came back running better than ever..err..better than it’d ever run for me before.
Still needs some more tings tweaked and tuned, but I think it’s got a lot of life left in it. Just needs a name.
What is it with Saabs and fuel pumps?
I just spent a week in a Hyundai hire car. It worked well enough around urban Melbourne (Australia) in the heavy traffic etc, but as soon as I hit the toll ways around town it started making me nervous upwards of 90kph.
I arrived back in Perth late last night, ‘thoughtfully’ the other half had nothing to drink in the fridge, so I grabbed some coins and since her car – a bog standard 1989 900i felt more reassuring. I’m not comparing a Hyundai to a Saab but in a way it stands to reason. Both are of a similar cabin size, the Korean has had 2 decades to build a car that admittedly feels well enough bolted together. On the C900 we have to wind our own windows and so-on, but it just felt – after 206,000kms – more strong, stable and confidence inducing. Anyway by 200k most Koreans and Japanese models are at the wrecking yard.
My car is a 9000 and as we enter a new financial year over here the household debate is on for an approved used on a lease. Right now it’s 9-5 vs 528i.
But if GM could get Saab to screw together a modern C900 with all the safety gear…one can only wish!
What a shame those guys didn’t have a decent mechanic. Or perhaps they didn’t visit one at all. Either way, it’d still be running I’m sure.
Cool story but I prefer my Saabs to be running and cared-for.