Aussie regular and SportCombi pilot, Turbin, recently won a competition and scored an opportunity to drive the Saab Turbo X at the IDIADA test track in Spain. This is an ultra-sectret test facility used by many different companies, hence there are no photos from the event as cameras were strictly off limits.

One of our mates from England, David R, also attended the event and we may hear from him in the next few days as well. Until then, here’s Turbin’s account of the trip - an unforgettable event.

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As Swade previously reported, my wife and I were recently in Spain to tour Barcelona and ultimately drive the Turbo X. The couple of days in Spain were fantastic and the hotels and restaurants were great, enhanced by the friendliness of the staff. Our group consisted of a mixture of Saab salespeople and employees from several nations, as well as some lucky customers such as ourselves.

The main event, of course, was the Turbo X drive at IDIADA.

IDIADA is a top-secret, world-class proving ground and a black hole for the automotive press. The media isn’t welcome there so it is one track motoring writers will most likely never drive or report on. We have been instructed to say that we saw nothing there but Turbo Xs, which may as well be true. Once we got past security there was a Combi at the welcome lunch to whet our appetite for the rest of the afternoon. The welcome presentation was conducted by Chris, Saab’s events manager, and attended by Jean, Kenneth and Kent from the Saab Performance Driving Team.

The drive event was divided into four segments, to be completed in groups and a final time trial event involving all attendees. The four segments were:

High Speed Driving
Wet Handling
Dry Handling
ABS Braking

High Speed Driving

This was conducted on the high-speed loop, a 7.5km track with 2km straights and banked corners. Waiting in the carpark were 2 lines of 5 or 6 Turbo Xs with Sportcombis at front and back and sedans in the middle. The idea is that the vehicles travel in convoy with the lead combi setting the pace and the other checking the tail. All vehicles were equipped with autos and 19″ wheels, and were set up in stock specification. There would be three full high-speed laps with an extra at each end to get up to speed and slow down. Speed would be limited by the lead car and a safe gap was to be kept with no intentional “rubber banding’, dropping back so you can accelerate to higher speeds. The minimum speed limit was set at 130km/h - how refreshing .

Leaving the carpark I found the engine note to be really nice. Above about 120km/h the engine began to be almost entirely drowned out by wind and tyre noise. At 200km/h there is a lot of wind noise from the mirrors etc. At speeds above this the car remains very stable but the limits of the body-shape become apparent with a squeal developing at the top of the windscreen, presumably due to pressure on the top limit of the sealing.

Also of note was the cornering. When running through the corners at a constant speed the steering would sometimes feel a little floaty. If I put the foot down and powered through it was obvious the XWD was coming into play. At that point the car would really settle and feel extremely stable; clearly the torque transfer to the outside and rear was instrumental in this. Slowing down again the engine note progressively came into play again, a beautiful V6 burble.

Wet Handling

This was an event with no guest driving allowed. We were confined to being passengers.

Local track specialists ran an irrigated wet circuit with ESP on and off to illustrate the performance both with and without the technology in play. The grip was considerable either way, but without the ESP the tyres were eventually seen to be the limiting factor with a lot of squealing. The ride was fairly violent and those that weren’t prepared, or were nervous passengers, found themselves regretting eating too much lunch.

Dry Handling

This was conducted on a purpose-built 2km long tyre and chassis test track. It has a combination of uphill and downhill sections, S-corners, blind corners and a few very short straights. Basically it keeps you busy all the time.

Again there were two convoys that would alternate their 3-lap runs. Also, there were 2 people in each car, each taking a turn as passenger and as driver. As it turned out there was a shortage of participants in my group and I drove twice. I was advised to put the auto in sport-mode and didn’t actually bother with the steering mounted shifts. From prior experience, I knew that the manual shifts tend to lag a bit.

The gearbox did an admirable job of keeping the 2.8T in the sweet spot, though given the engine’s elasticity this is not too hard. It proved to be a ‘lower’ speed drive, maybe 140km/h max. There was plenty of time to appreciate the sounds of the drive-line, mostly in 2nd and 3rd. This was heaps of fun and I was able to progressively increase my trust in the car. Ultimately it was this trust and the only moderately supportive seats (under these circumstances) that were the limiting factors.

I’m no expert at driving lines so was not particularly smooth, either. The lateral forces meant I had to spend a lot of energy trying to brace in order to keep planted through the corners. In any case the XWD was very active and forgiving, and I felt I was still far short of its limits.

I did find a wheel or two stepping into the gravel a few times and I’m sure it was only the XWD that prevented a Swadesque spin-fling across the track. Finishing the runs allowed me to once again appreciate that nice sounding note from the rear-end rhomboids.

ABS Braking

This was fairly straightforward and was performed on a few different surfaces ranging from ceramic tiles (ice) through to asphalt. The combination of TCS/ESP, XWD and slippery surfaces made for interesting take offs after the stops, as the systems would retard power and torque to prevent slippage.

The Time Trial

This was a one-chance only shootout through a motorkhana style witches-hat course. It was hard to see the course properly until you were on it. The run was fairly short but it was great watching and
hearing all the participants run through (especially the more skilled drivers). I wanted to run without the TCS/ESP but the ‘07-on vehicles do not have a one-touch button, and instead you have to run though the menu to disable them. I couldn’t fathom this at short-notice so had to leave them on. The pull power standing starts felt a bit retarded as the systems allowed no slippage, although it would have been minimal with the XWD anyway.

The After Party

Returning to the hotel there was a warm reception with goodies and complimentary spa treatments. After drinks and chats with the Saab Performance Team guys, there were prizes for the best times in the shootout, congratulations to the winners and place getters. After that there was a delicious buffet with Saab hosts at each table and some surprise local entertainment closing what was a fantastically memorable event.

The following day all participants were given certificates signed by Jean, Kenneth and Kent with our shootout times - a great memento and a nice finishing touch.

Thanks to all from Saab, GM, IDIADA and Grassroots for a fun, rich, warm, highly memorable and beautifully located event.

We’ve come back feeling very Snaaby indeed.

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Thanks a bunch, Turbin!!

It must have been an incredible event and I’m sure the memories will stay for a long, long time. Thanks heaps for the writeup.

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This is not from the event, obviously, but the lack of pictures left me wanting some XWD goodness, so here’s a great compilation of XWD clips from Sweden last year, edited and posted to Youtube by a guy called NobleP:

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