I’ve been at my adult-ed mechanical course tonight. Am loving it. I’m not sure I’ll be able to use it, but I’m loving it all the same.
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There’s been plenty of talk about it, but nothing official yet to say that Hirsch will be pushing the Turbo X up to 300hp.
Finally, there’s some confirmation. It’s not from Hirsch, but from Saab GB who are promoting Hirsch’s 300hp upgrade in an email distributed to Turbo X purchasers.
I’m sure Hirsch will come out with a press release soon.
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CAR Magazine like a good rumour, despite being caught out once or twice being a bit too confident. This week they’ve spied the next Astra at the Nurburgring, which is exciting enough in itself. Of course, the logical extension is to include the Saab 9-1 in the writeup and CAR Magazine do include it.
We’re still waiting or some sort of confirmation on the 9-1, but here’s the Astra in camo on the ‘ring. More photos and plenty of speculation over at CAR – thanks Mark.
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There’s been a couple of sources in the last 24 hours claim that BMW are working on a twin turbo application for 4 cylinder engines. Given what they managed when they did with the six cylinder engine, I think GM have reason to be very afraid.
GM’s turbo showcase should be Saab. INVEST!
Who else would love to see Gordon Ramsay turn his mind to cars and spend a week in the GM offices?
Thanks Magnus
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There are some truly great old Saab photos taken by a guy called Belle’s Daddy at Flickr
Now that the new Astra platform has been seen up and running, it would be great to see a camouflaged 9-1 prototype being spied before the end of the year. Sadly, I don’t think we will?
“Who else would love to see Gordon Ramsay turn his mind to cars and spend a week in the GM offices?”
LOL !
But all you would hear is “F**** this and f*** that”. [wink]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfZbBylLPU0
300hp for the Turbo X.. Yes ofcourse since Hirsch has had the 300hp (430Nm) upgrade for the XWD for some time now on their own website. So no real news there. The qustion that Hirsch are asking themselfs now are how many extra ponys over the 300 they can get out of the engine without risking the quality. Thats what they told me a wile ago. They are also working on the TTiD upgrade.
I’m sure GM sees no reason for a twin turbo set up for the 4 cylinder. They already have it producing 260hp…and there is talk of upping it to 300 for the new Solstice Coupe
The BMW 335i its a beast and has great performance, but it seems the twinturbo tech in this car is quite unreliable and is a big headache for BMW customers and the brand checking what’s going on with that engine.
Regards
Belle’s Daddy is an interesting guy who was involved with Saab in the seventies . He has a great collection of pictures of that time where you can see brand new Saab 99 at his work .His boss sold Saabs at that time.
You should have a look Swade to his pages or jump to my group called Seven’tease cars where I invited him to add all his Saabs vintage clichés .
Sorry I realize that you’ve already seen Belle’s Daddy ‘s albums
Some interesting things in this article (although it´s more or less speculation)…
GM has got two Griffins in their portofolio. (I liked the Vauxall one, it looks fresh and new but Saab badge is more classic-although it could need some facelift like Volvo recently did..)
The Astra is up and running and looks almost finished, which means that production is VERY close. And with that in mind the 9-1 (IF we´ll ever see it-which I hope) would have an open way into manufacture
One more engine concept that Saab is showcasing goes into another GM-product first… SAD SAD SAD if that happens…at least as far as BioPower and hybrid goes….
I seem to be missing out on Saab GB Turbo X emails, even though I ordered back in November.
WRT 4-cyl twin turbo BMWs – they already have a diesel one available in the 123d – similar power/torque and economy/CO2 figures to Saabs 1.9TTiD. Be interesting to see twin-turbo 4-cyl petrols on the market. IMO the Saab 2.0 turbo (210hp) could be improved by lowering the RPM of the turbo threshold which should be possible with a twin-turbo, or maybe a twin-scroll turbo – Mitsubishi seem to use these on some of their 4-cyl engines.
If the results were half as good as the episode of Kitchen Disasters last night, I’d be all for an episode of Ramsey’s Automotive Disasters on GM! There would be tears.