If you’d like to feel a little Swedish pride amidst all the recent GM-globalisation stuff, then here’s a sentence for you:

Well, for the first time this genuine Saab has all-wheel drive cooked up entirely by Swedes—not Japanese (9-2X) or Americans (9-7x). The team, made up of engineers from Saab and the Swedish all-wheel-drive experts at Haldex, have created some super sophisticated tech inside.

It’s an interesting article. The byline states that it’s been written from Jukkasjarvi (think Ice Hotel) but it doesn’t mention anything about driving the car on ice.

Instead, what you have is an excellent overview of the XWD system and its development, and it appears that the system itself made quite an impression on these tech-heads.

I imagine a driving review from Sweden will be forthcoming soon, but fear not, as PM has already done one driving review of an XWD Saab (All-wheel delight) from the 9-3 launch last year, and it proved that not only do they love the technology, the loved the car too.

Grip was immediate and highly controllable, as well as completely transparent and absent of any buzzing, abrupt changes in attitude or intrusive braking from the stability control system. Nice.

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XWD production vehicles will be rolling off the line in Trollhattan any day now. Deliveries are expected to begin in April.