Up until now, the only printed history of the Viggen I’d seen was at Abbott Racing. It’s a great read and I’d say it’s still the best history of the Viggen out there, but it is from an Abbott perspective to some degree.

Today I came across some of the original press material for the Viggen via a media site that I’ve recently joined. This Australian release tells a little of the Viggen’s development story, as well as giving some details of the build story.

Great stuff for the Viggen enthusiast and there’s a bunch more to come.

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How the new Saab 9-3 Viggen was created

The new Saab 9-3 Viggen was conceived to denote a special performance brand within the Saab 9-3 range. Appropriately, a specialist team working within Saab Automobile created the Viggen model.

Led by Australian Peter Leonard, the team was known as Special Vehicle Operations – and the Saab 9-3 Viggen was during the development known as the ‘SVO car’ initially, before naming of the performance brand – with its historic aviation connections to Saab’s past – was finalised.

The SVO car was first shown as two concept cars, a Coupe and a Convertible, at the Geneva Motor Show in 1996, but it was not until a year later that the project gained board approval, following a complete review of the Saab range and line-up. So, in many ways, the SVO car has been a long time appearing. In reality, though, the SVO team has created the Saab 9-3 Viggen within a surprisingly short time. From concept approval to production ready took less than 30 months.

“Although the SVO project was always intended to be fast tracked,” explains SVO team leader, Peter Leonard, “we haven’t cut any corners in terms of the validation and verification work. We’ve followed all Saab guidelines in terms of durability and component testing that reflects 100,000 miles – or 161,000kms – usage. This is the equivalent of 10 years’ ownership by the average driver.”

From the outset, it was intended that engineering and manufacturing would be outsourced, although tightly monitored by a small team of Saab engineers working on the SVO project.

The new car has been designed and developed jointly with the TWR Group in England, following appraisal of eight different engineering organisations. Key to the choice of TWR was the company’s expertise in performance cars, and not just in terms of its track racing record.

Production

Because of the limited production volumes envisaged for the Saab 9-3 Viggen – only some 2500 cars per year – there wasn’t enough flexibility on the Trollhättan production lines to accommodate the Viggen’s specialist build requirements. So Saab turned to the Valmet Automotive plant in Finland – where the Saab 9-3 Convertible is built alongside Porsche’s Boxster model.

“The low volume production would cause too much disturbance at Saab, so we went to Valmet, who were a known quantity to us because of the relationship we have with them as they already build the Convertible model for us,” explains Peter Leonard. “It’s only a relatively small leap going from the Convertible to building the Coupe and Sedan.

“Valmet has a solid understanding of our quality criteria. Their production quality audits on initial pre-series cars were right on target. We feel very encouraged by the results achieved,” continues Peter.

The body-in-white is transported from Trollhättan to Valmet for final build in specially dehumidified containers. Each container carries six bodies-in-white in specially prepared racks. Thirty bodies-in-white are transported at any one time to Valmet. The engines, meanwhile, are sent from the Södertälje engine plant – and the gearboxes from the Göteborg transmission factory – separately to Valmet.

Prototype evaluation

A total of 80,000 kms was spent validating prototype versions of the Viggen before Saab was satisfied the car met its sports-tourer criteria. Each test was held over a total of 8000 kms, with all three model types. These tests took place in Europe (six) – including high altitude Alpine tests for both brakes and engine management issues – as well as two sets of summer tests in America to evaluate hot climate performance, and two winter tests in Sweden for cold climate evaluation.

After each test, the next phase of work would then be discussed with the TWR team, as Peter Leonard explains: “We would look at product property targets in a whole lot of different areas. We would then rate the car and determine whether further action was required, after discussion with the TWR staff, and agree on the next course of action to reach those targets.”

Full noise, vibration and harshness tests were also carried out, as well as on-road testing of various wing settings and the implications involved on the car’s stability if items like the wing were removed completely.

Final car evaluation was carried out at Idiada, Spain, along with a variety of benchmarked vehicles, as well as a Saab 9-3 2.0 Turbo 147 kW for product comparison. “If you match the Saab 9-3 Viggen and the Saab 9-3 2.0 Turbo 147 kW on the test track, the difference between the two is not all that obvious,” reckons Peter Leonard. “But take both cars to those Spanish roads – featuring a huge diversity of surfaces, lots of secondary roads with mountain climbs and long descents – and there would then be a big difference in the elapsed time at the destination point. That’s what makes the difference with this new performance Saab. It’s all that mid-range torque – it gives you fabulous driveability.”

Key points

- Saab 9-3 Viggen performance derivative created, developed and overseen by small SVO team within Saab Automobile
- Developed jointly with the TWR Group; Valmet Automotive charged with build of all three bodystyles
- 80,000 km spent on product evaluation
- Saab 9-3 Viggen prototypes hot weather tested in America, cold weather tested in Sweden. Altitude and performance testing undertaken in Europe
- Initial SVO concept cars shown at Geneva Motor Show in 1996; green light for project given in 1997

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