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One of the great revelations of this week’s meeting with Steve Shannon and Jan-Willem Vester was their commitment to “strengthen” the Saab marketing message. According to Mr. Shannon, the upcoming marketing campaign will still play on the Saab aircraft heritage, but will be focused on Saab’s history with turbocharging. They are also planning to include messages that will, in their opinions, attract the smarter, younger auto enthusiast.
My speculation is that Saab will feature the turbocharger as both “green” and “go”. Performance that makes sense. It is already happening with the BioPower everywhere and the turbo diesel in Europe. The remainder of the message isn’t so clear, but I believe that you’ve already seen the first wave of appeals to the urban sophisticates with Anthony Lo so prominently displayed during the last year or so. Again, it’s my guess, but artful design and European heritage will play a large part.
To get us talking about that turbocharging history, Saab USA provided these cars for us to flog on Tuesday:
19761978 Saab 99 Turbo (the first Saab turbocharged car available in the US)
1987 Saab 9000 Turbo from “the Long Run” at Talladega
1993 Saab 900 SPG
1996 Saab 900 Turbo from the Talladega Challenge
1997 Saab 900 Turbo from the Pikes Peak Hillclimb driven by Simo Lampinen
I drove them all but the 9000. Given more time, I would have driven it, too. Pictures below!
Eat your heart out, Swade. I must say that I learned a valuable lesson with the 99: power steering is a good thing, a very good thing.
Check out the period-correct plates! For those of you outside the US or too young to remember (ahem), 1976 was the year of our country’s bicentennial so the nationalistic red, white and blue motif was ubiquitous. Michigan was obviously no exception. (It even has the 1978 registration sticker!!)
More pictures on Flickr at some point.
7 responses so far ↓
1 Swade
// May 22, 2008 at 3:46 pm
That 99T is very special. I love the decals on the side.
I have to query the dates, though. The 99T was a 1978 model year car only in the US, replaced by the 900T the next year.
2 ctm
// May 22, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Ah, the good old muscle steer in the 99. A special kind of feeling.
3 MarkS
// May 22, 2008 at 9:26 pm
It’s almost painful to see that beautiful SPG! Saab needs a car like that again……..a work of art!! God I miss my 900’s….
4 Tompa
// May 22, 2008 at 10:13 pm
I sold my Opel Astra the other day and have now bought an -02 9-3 2,0T Coupe 185hp.. But looking at that Talladega 9000 makes my mouth water.. I´d like a 9000 turbo hatch in silver with the burgondy red interior please! God the 9000 is one great car. So well built and before it´s time… Look at other cars from 1984.. BMW E28 5-series, Audi 100CC, Mercedes E190, Volvo 740 etc etc. Saab is one heck of a company!
5 eggsngrits
// May 22, 2008 at 11:11 pm
Swade: Correct you are. I was late, I was in the Detroit airport, the plate was 1976 and I was focused on that, the dog ate my homework, etc.
Alex/Tompa: Saab has a great history, and we will see that used in the advertising upcoming. More on that later.
6 Dan
// May 23, 2008 at 12:33 am
Another error…the last 900SPG would be model year 1991. There was a commemerative edition 900 in 1993, but that was in black only.
7 Yipcanjo
// May 23, 2008 at 4:52 am
Geez! That 99 Turbo is truly awesome to look at. I love it…