Comments

• david said:
  

  Did you catch the GM global sales summary?

  (or, from AFP)

  Quote: Saab sales, meanwhile, fell 22 per cent globally

  Not a big surprise although I didn’t think the sales decline would be that large.

  -July 25th, 2008 at 11:39 am
• aeronaut said:
  

  those 9-6’s for me rank up there as the best looking SAAB’s. if they want inspiration for a retro concept smqall SAAB they should base it on the 9-6. it would be Mini beater for sure.

  -July 25th, 2008 at 11:45 am
• Markac said:
  

  That poetry sounds more like a limmerick Swade, but then I’m half Irish.

  aeronaut: that’s 96 not 9-6. The 9-6 was (thankfully) a Saab that didn’t happen.

  Sadly,the sales decline won’t get much better with even less advertising budget!

  -July 25th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
• Swade said:
  

  Markac…….hence the text
  

  um, sonnets? Well, no. They deferred to the more familiar limerick form

  I’m about 1/3 Irish. Maybe we’re cousins!

  -July 25th, 2008 at 12:47 pm
• turbin said:
  

  There are only two kinds of people in the world, The Irish
  And those who wish they were.

  -July 25th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
• Markac said:
  

  I felt even more Irish when I wrote that! I should have read a bit closer.

  My father was Irish actually and my mother was English. I was born in London.

  -July 25th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
• zippy said:
  

  Here’s some news that those who have seen me posting here long enough will appreciate. I have my eye on a 2004 Saab 9-5 2.3T w/auto ARC that I am going to take a look at on Saturday. Ill let you know what happens!

  -July 25th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
• Swade said:
  

  Zippy, I know you’ve been tossing this sort of thing for a while now, so best of luck with the drive. I hope it creates the right impression.

  -July 25th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
• Jeff said:
  

  Fecking Irish.

  …I’m kidding, I’m like an eighth Irish. And an eighth German, a quarter Italian, a quarter Scottish, and a quarter Soviet.

  In other words, American.

  -July 25th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
• Jeff said:
  

  Oh, this is what I came up with at Jalopnik:

  I think that I shall never drive
  A car as misunderstood as the 9-5.

  Or maybe

  MYYYYYYY 900 HAS A FIRST NAME
  AND IT’S S-A-A-B!
  MY 900 HAS A SECOND NAME
  IT’S T-U-R-B-O!
  OH I LOVE TO DRIVE IT EVERY DAY,
  AND IF YOU ASK ME WHY I’LL SAY:
  BECAUSE TROLLHATTAN HAS A WAY
  WITH V-V-R-R-U-S-A!

  I had to fudge the last word, but I think it works.

  -July 25th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
• 2-don said:
  

  You and me both Jeff!

  -July 25th, 2008 at 3:21 pm
• ctm said:
  

  I just read the entries you posted back in February 2005. Fun!
  40,000 comments equals about 32 comments every day.

  BTW, I’m 100% Scanian…

  -July 25th, 2008 at 6:02 pm
• Robin Capper said:
  

  Jerry Flint got one thing right. Spending billions to get out of Fiat was a brilliant move by GM, for Fiat!

  -July 25th, 2008 at 6:09 pm
• swade (Author) said:
  

  ctm, it’s also 8.5 comments per post (4,711 posts and now there’s 40,105 comments), which is pretty good seeing the number of posts with no comments (e.g. press releases)

  -July 25th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
• ctm said:
  

  swade, I was thinking about that number of posts. Wasn’t sure if you had mentioned it before. It’s an amazing number!

  -July 25th, 2008 at 6:34 pm
• Tompa said:
  

  CTM… Scanian? That´s like Half danish.. ha ha ha!
  Skåne (Scania).. A great place to build Saab Sonetts and one or two 99´s and 900´s.
  I know there are a few of you non swedes that travel here once in a wile.. Please don´t miss the historical Saab places in Scania. I bet CTM can fill you in with more on that. Probably also lots to be found on Wikipedia on the subject.

  Swade.. Has there been a Saab productionsite history written on TS? Trollhattan, Scania, Finland… There are some realy interesting anecdotes and facts in Saabs history.

  Why the ? didn´t the 9-X BHC interior feature in that GM movieclip? That was the 9-4X interior.

  Cheers from Tom.. The 100% Swede named after a singer from Wales.. Hmm

  -July 25th, 2008 at 7:28 pm
• ctm said:
  

  Lot’s of wish we were 100% Danish…

  And if we didn’t became Swedish 1658 (350 years ago this year!), that old wagon factory in Södertälje would probably not have merged with that small wagon factory Scania.

  -July 25th, 2008 at 8:20 pm
• Tompa said:
  

  For those of you that don´t know the story behind the production of the Sonett II and III..
  The cars were made in a facility that used to make railway carts (ASJ). It was bought by Saab because the building had traks upon wich the carts were assembled thus making it ideal also for making cars the Henry Ford way.. The problem for Saab was that the supportbeams for the roof was in the way of production and therefor some genius decided to hack away at them. This ofcourse resulted in that the whole structure began to shift.. :-O
  Somebody at Saab then went over to a neighbouring cementfactory and asked if they could put up the supportbeams against their building.. Production could continue..
  This is what I´ve heard, but maybe it´s a myth in bits.

  /Tom

  -July 25th, 2008 at 9:55 pm
• Bernard said:
  

  Ford has tried the “World Car” concept a few times already, and it hasn’t worked. North American driving conditions are just not suitable for most European cars: the winters are colder, the summers are warmer, the distances are longer, and the roads are much much worse.

  This led to cars like the Contour (European Mondeo), which had a terrible reputation for reliability because its suspension would fall apart after going over a few potholes (something you can’t avoid anywhere north of Texas). Nobody in the Midwest wants to spend thousands on control arms just so they can save hundreds on gas.

  Here in Canada, BMW’s and Mercedes’s dissappear after the first snowfall and reappear around Easter. That includes SUV’s like the X5 and GL.
  That may be fine for the people who can afford it, but it just won’t work with Ford’s middle class target market.

  -July 25th, 2008 at 10:23 pm
• No.9 said:
  

  1. If you ask me humanity is divided into the following. Those who sail and those who don’t. Can’t be bothered with the ethnical stuff

  2. I saw my first Ford Flex yesterday. What a shock! It already looks 20 years old…and it’s an overweight, underpowered gas guzzler, again. Ford can only get better by building some of it’s European cars in NA…and fast. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2009_Ford_Flex_Limited.jpg
  3. Intresting comment about Fiat which I forgot to add on my 9-1 post. When you look at what Fiat did with GM’s 2 billion $, makes you wonder what could have been accomplished had GM stuck it out. But then, perhaps it was just to much of a culture shock for them to work together, although they did form a successful alliance building diesels.

  -July 25th, 2008 at 11:14 pm
• Tompa said:
  

  Bernard.. My european humble thoughts (and many probably with me) is that what you just wrote is something you should get out of your head real quick. Because you don´t seem to live in same world as the rest of us. Why? Continue reading…
  In northern germany and the whole of the nordic countries SALT is used wintertime to keep the roads less icy. Thats a strain on cars, and therefor most european cars are built to last quite a long time though those situations. Old italian and american cars on the other hand dosen´t last long in ex Sweden. Where I live ( 110km north from Stockholm) temperatures wintertime drops to -20 to -30 from late december to march but change oil, filters and put a heater in the car and thats not a problem. Further north -40 or below is common. When it comes to realy hot climates there is sothern Spain, Portugal, Italy, Kroatia, Turkey, Greece etc that right now have temperatures betwen +40 to +50. Their cars seem to survive without any problems. When it comes to distances Swedes, norwegians and Fins would probably tell you to come for a normal days drive in our nations… Although Canada is a large nation and the US to.. You hardly drive from one coast to the other.. And if you live in the northern parts of these countries it´s not uncommon to drive 300km or more to and from work every single day…

  And people with silly expensive cars often put their cars in their garage and take them out when the roads are clear due to the fact that the cars are just that.. silly expensive.

  And the old Mondeo was a disaster I´ll give you that.. But it was a disaster here to. Just like the old Ford Fiesta, Ford Escort etc.

  So please Bernard.. Look over the fence and get facts before you write.

  Cheers from a very Swedish and European Tom

  -July 26th, 2008 at 1:32 am
• Jeff said:
  

  Tompa, we Americans use salt also. The American south and southwest (and Florida) don’t, because they don’t have seasons, but everywhere else, the salt just devours cars. That’s why you see so many older cars in those areas: they don’t have to put up with salt eating away at the undersides.

  -July 26th, 2008 at 2:42 am
• Kroum said:
  

  Tom, one ting that Bernard got spot on is the condition of the roads here. And I am not talking about dirt roads, but major highways - the roads in Toronto are in terrible shape, and our 4-5 month winters just destory any patched pothole. Montreal is worse.

  The U.S. is much the same, except for some of the southern States with favourable climate (e.g. Florida) and/or billions of oil dollars (e.g. Texas). I have been all throughout Europe, and the roads in any given county - western or eastern Europe - are in far better shape.

  -July 26th, 2008 at 2:46 am
• Bernard said:
  

  Tompa,

  I didn’t say that Europe doesn’t have tough winter conditions as well in some parts. The difference is that these conditions are not prevalent in the larger population centers. There are few places in Europe that have large populations, winter temperatures of -30 and summer temperatures of +40 like Chicago (for instance).

  On top of this, Americans have a much different attitude towards maintenance compared to Scandinavians. I think that this has a lot to do with the relatively low price of cars in the US. Spending $4,000 to replace the front suspension on a $20,000 Contour just doesn’t go down well. I imagine that things are different when you are paying three to four times more for a new car.
  Faced with such an invoice, the average American would trade the car in immediately. This leads to low resale values, a bad reputation, and poor sales (which succinctly describes Ford’s non-truck business in the US).

  Come to think of it, I hardly ever see any Contours anymore. I do see a lot of 10 year old Accords, Camrys and Impalas.

  There’s a reason why the successful automakers (Toyota and Honda) sell entirely different models in North America. My point is that Ford should look at their past history of selling European cars in the US, and then look at what the Japanese are doing instead. It should be obvious to them that designing “world cars” can be no more than a stopgap measure, and that they should focus on tailoring their cars to the customers’ needs in the longer term.

  -July 26th, 2008 at 2:52 am
• Ross said:
  

  I was watching that show “Burn Notice” with the Saab promotion and I saw a Saab ad. I don’t know if it’s been discussed here already. The ad was baad. Very baad. It was like talking about performance and beauty and repeated it 3 times. Then they were like repetition is a part of our history. It was a silver 9-3 convert. in the ad.

  -July 26th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
• Jeff said:
  

  We have good roads here in Maryland, but every state around us has terrible roads.

  -July 27th, 2008 at 7:37 am

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