More on the AMS article on the “9-3x”
My thanks to Jimmy J for scanning and sending through a copy of the AMS article that I covered earlier today.
As mentioned earlier, I couldn’t find a copy of it on the Swedish AMS website. It seems that it’s a print-only story at the moment. You Swedes are going to have to go down to the news stand and purchase a copy of the magazine to read the full story. Alternatively, here’s a nice fat link to AMS anyway so you can watch for it to pop up. If you read Swedish, you’ll then be able to read the full text.
Jimmy has passed on a few of the salient points:
* The next 9-3 series is delayed until 2012 (due to switching of platforms)
* Launch of the 9-3x in October – Paris, released early 2009
* TTiD and XWD combination is delayed due to a lack of space (not enough room for the bigger diesel engine and the xwd-systems together). They are working on it, and it will be solved, though.
The new 95 engines:
- 4cyl 190hp
4cyl 220hp
V6 (2,8) 260hp
TiD 160hp
TTiD 190hp
TTiD V6 250hp 550nm
* No BioPower – Even though they run on ethanol, they are too thirsty and therefore not environmental certified.
* Next generation E85 engines will appear 2012.
——
And then there’s these……Auto Motor and Sport’s artistic predictions as to what the 9-3x will look like. As predicted, it’s a raised and dressed up 9-3 SportCombi - and it looks absolutely fantastic!
Click to enlarge.
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I just came back to post this comment in addition to my last one.
How great would it have been if the release of the 9-3x was timed with this year’s Tour De France?
Think about how nice the Mavic and Chipotle vehicles would have looked, all souped up like these photos?
Allright!! Now you´re talking! That looks very good, though those pics looks to be photoshopped from earlier images, but they look good anyway.
That is the SUV I´d like to get. Make it diesel and I´ll order one right away! That´s for sure.
$@#!%, yea!
That’s what I’m talking about. Goodbye, pathfinder and 9-3, hello 9-3x. Your garage is waiting.
V4 engines, really?
Ted, that’s what was on the translation I received, but I can’t see it written in the article, so have amended it to just 4 cylinder. I’ve written to AMS seeking clarification.
New Saab 9-3 in 2012!……so we’re going to go a full 9 years with the basic design before a total rework.Apparently we have learned very little from the 9-5 experience.
Saab won’t survive to 2012 without a new 9-3. So its switching to a different platform why does that push it back so far? The platform is basically done, as we see Cruze pictures everywhere.
the next 9-3 in 2012? that’s disspiriting. if all we’re waiting for is the platform, i hope they’re not planning to use 2008 technology in a 2012 car. and i hope my ‘08, 9-3’s design language can stay reasonably fresh looking that long.
260 bhp for the V6 in the 9-5 seems a bit low, since it is slated to have a 2.8-liter engine, like the 9-3 Aero which outputs 280 bhp in the same configuration. This is supposed to be the “flagship” of the lineup?
Why did they wait so long to “switch platforms” and why was a platform switch necessary in the first place. I have close to ZERO confidence in GM/Saab “leadership”. It seems they can’t make a solid decision and every time they do then change their mind it pushes new models out even further.
Wow, those 9-3X renderings look great!
I think I like it! This will be sold in the states right?
Is the 9-3’s platform change attributed to the transfer in location of production (Russelsheim to Trollhattan)?
So the new 9-5 will have a 2.8 V6 that is “too thirsty and therefore not environmental certified” as a replacement for a turbo 4 that was…
If anyone is wondering what is wrong with GM, there’s your answer right there. It seems like people high-up at the General think that gas will be cheap again any day now, and they want to be a step ahead when that happens.
I’m sick and tired of all this 9-whatever thing. Name the cars with three digits! It’s easier for customers to remember, more catchy! Drop the freaking X! They’re not experiments!
Ok, now that I’ve take it out of my system:
1- I can’t understand why they’re pushing the next generation further to 2012!
2- Saab shouldn’t build crossovers, suv, or whatever you want to call those abominations! They’re not Saab!
Can’t believe that you, guys, who are so purist sometimes get all excited about those disguised, no-heritage new Saabs.
Shame on you!
6 engines seems excessive. Is that normal in Europe? Which ones would cross the Atlantic?
2012…wow. That is a long time from now. I just don’t understand why they don’t focus their energy on their best selling car. As mentioned the 9-3 is going to be 9 years old - 9 damn years !!! I think I’m going to explode.
Yes sir, you can get it as soon as in 2012, built on Astra platform and in any colour, as long as it’s grey…
(sorry, just couldn’t help myself)
On the other hand, that ‘Allroad’ looks promising.
@Adam: The current MY 9-3 comes with TEN different engine choices in the UK. Just hope we get that 1.9 TTiD in the U.S.
TTiD! That would be good! When they say new 9-5, they mean the ones that are out right now or the NEW platform 9-5s that are supposed (rumored) to have a 300+ horsepower engine?
Sure, this is a nice-looking vehicle but is it an improvement on the 9-3SC, the sharpest wagon in today’s market?
I recently traded in my wife’s ’02 Subaru Outback wagon for an ’08 Subaru Legacy (Liberty) wagon. They’re virtually the same vehicle except the Outback is raised and has lower-body cladding. It’s handling is inferior, it’s turning circle wider, and it’s no bigger. And a new Outback is $3,000 (Cdn) more than a Legacy. I was fooled once.
I see the same situation here. The price of the 9-3X will probably be higher and for what? Saab will likely sell a number of them which is great for the bottom line but I won’t get fooled into thinking I need the added “ruggedness” and off-road capability.
Now if only I could get a 9-3SC 2.0T w/ XWD & eLSD in Fusion Blue with 18” ALU 65s.
I had two people independently confirm the 300+ engines for the new 9-5 - both are associated with Saab. One even mentioned a 370 hp engine for the line-topper, which would not be a stretchconsidering the new 5 series will probably output north of 400.
This car will just not sell in North America without an engine well north of 300 hp. High gas prices or not, people in the market for full-sized luxury sedans want their powerful engines, and the competition now offers powerful yet comparatively efficient engines.
That 9-3X rendering is fabulous but the fact the new 9-3 wont be with us until 2012 shows that GM has learned very little from the repeated delays of the new 9-5, as SaabLance previously pointed out.
“This car will just not sell in North America without an engine well north of 300 hp. High gas prices or not, people in the market for full-sized luxury sedans want their powerful engines…”"
I woudn’t be so sure about that… Even Mercedes S-Class is down 23% in the US this year.
I get dissapointed when repeatedly i see Saab afficianados moaning about the long timeline of Saab models. I’ve always considered that to be a strong point of Saab rather than throw some new model out every 5 years and update that halfway through the model run so your 2 and a half year old car looks dated. I suppose that just doesn’t cut it nowadays.
What I´m worried about the coming 9-3x is it´s price. If it really wants to be competitive in its class what could the price be?
I´ll take some examples.
9-3 TiDS SC (150hp) Vector - starts from 38600€
That´s without any additional options. You´ll want to add sunroof, okay that´s 1850€ more.
For this price you can have Subaru Outback 2.0TD (150hp/350Nm boxer) with ALL the options. That´s with extremely good awd included.
I think I´m not far off by claiming that 9-3x will cost close to 60000€, at least with no options added.
So, what I´m really worried about is that the price of 9-3x will be way too high. Higher CO2 values will cause higher price, thus Turbo X for example costs 70000€ which is ridiculous if you ask me.
Competitors for 9-3x (loosely) are: Audi Allroad, Skoda Octavia Scout, Subaru Outback and Volvo XC70. Is Saab going to be as expensive as XC70?
Regarding Mr. Humpages’ remarks of complaints of the long model redesign turnaround.My complaint is not aestheticly based ..it’s based on trying to sell Saab products for a living.Just went through my info/review book and looked at the uniformly positive reviews of the 9-5 ….. I have almost two dozen on file from European and USA pubs.The problem is,the last one is from USA Today dated April 22,2002!!!!! The car is hopelessly behind the curve compared to the cars it gamely competed with in 1998 when it debuted ,eg.Audi A-6,MB E-300,BMW 5 Series. Try taking a customer who leased and loved his ‘99,’02, and in some cases even his ‘05 and regardless of how good his experience has been,TRY and put him in an ‘08.Cars are fun but so is Ice Cream and Beer and I love the homemade Ice cream at Handels in Devon …But I try new flavors.I love Sam Adams Beer…but I try different kinds.Selling someone a new car that looks to them for alL intents and purposes like the last THREE/FOUR cars he’s been driving for 10 years as of this past spring is not salesmanship…ITS ALCHEMY!!
So many N.A. Saabers drool over the prospect of getting the TTiD over here (because of the fuel economy?), but as far as I know GM does not have access to a diesel powerplant which will comply with Tier 2 Bin 5 emissions requirements. The FIAT diesel engine in the TTiD is nowhere close to complying. The V.M. Motori diesel powerplant in the European Cadillac CTS is also nowhere close to complying.
I think diesel (as it relates to GM) is going to remain an option exclusively outside of N.A. for the foreseeable future unless GM has some super-secret small diesel powerplant in a lab somewhere we don’t know about.
What does GM spend their R&D money on, anyway?
They spend it on much needed stuff like this: the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid - SW
TTiD in the 9-5 sounds good.
V6 diesel ? Do they start from scratch or do they share it with oterh GM or not GM-products ?
But why a 9-3X when a 9-4X is on its way ?
A bit too much in-house competition.
wilfried: I think they figure that they can expand the product offerings for VERY little money. The 9-3X is pretty much a “freebie”. They already have the XWD 9-3 Combi, so just lift it a little, add some “ruggedized” bumpers and “voila!” another “model” to offer in dealerships. Don’t kid yourself into thinking they aren’t going to consider this a separate “model” rather than just an options kit for the 9-3.
I’m very concerned for Saab regarding the 9-4X. I think it’s the wrong product being introduced at the wrong time. Would it have sold in 2006? Probably. 2009? We’ll see…
Gripen - the 9-4X won’t sell when it comes out, unless of course it has a 4-banger that churns out 260hp and get 25-30 MPG.
Somehow I don’t see that happening.
Gripen, another reason that a Saab 9-3 TTiD would be prudent at this point in time here in North America is that Volkswagen is rolling out the Jetta TDI sedan and (gulp!) sport wagon next month as a 2009 model. Volkswagen has done some independent testing showing that the model gets 38 mpg in the City and 44 mpg on the highway which is rather impressive.
Honda is stuffing a diesel into the Acura TSX as well for 2009.
I know diesel is a bit more expensive than gasoline, but I bet a lot of people will opt for this option due to the overall torque driven driving experience combined with decent fuel economy. Yea, I know the Prius get’s better mileage (people will compare them to death), and Toyota is strapping solar panels to the roof of the thing, but it goes from 0-60 in 12.5 seconds and looks a little too weird for my taste, and oh did I mention it goes from 0-60 in 12.5 seconds?
Gotta have product, product and more products in this fuel economy driven sales environment.
And while I have to agree with Swade that the Cadillac Escalade hybrid is probably not the best place to stuff your R&D budget, GM is quietly stuffing a rather innovative two-mode hybrid drive train under the hood of the 2009 Saturn VUE of all places.
For all the reasons that Vovlo ( V70 -XC70) Audi (A6 Avant - Allroad) and Subaru ( Liberty/Outback) clearly understand, an all-road version of a good wagon makes too much sense to ignore. It gives customers choice and maximises manufacturing efficiencies. This is a no-brainer to me which would very quickly a simply give Saab some more dimension, not to mention a nice kick to the bottom line.
The same should apply to the 95 too in my opinion. Its not for everyone but it makes too much sense to ignore. I don’t know why it wasn’t done eight years ago.
PT: are you proposing a all-road version of the 9-5? It doesn’t have XWD available. Maybe you are referring to the next-gen 9-5?
The good thing about 9-3X is that, in it’s segment, SAAB is actually coming with this kind of car BEFORE AUDI, BEFORE BMW, BEFORE Volvo (XC70 is much bigger). Yes, the Outback is there (and is probably in the same price range), but it’s still a slightly larger car. For about 10 % extra you buy yourself a certain “image”, for the cost of 2 % extra to SAAB, so it’s good business for SAAB. BUT, it’s probably good business for the buyer as well, due to the fact that the second hand price of the car will stay higher than for a similar, standard 9-3 AWD (at least that’s the case for Volvo XC70). SAABs main problem is attracting new customers to the brand. The 9-3X will probably get positive press reviews and may help win some people over to SAAB. It should have arrived even earlier, but this is a way for SAAB to make the 9-3 still attractive for a couple of years.
Ok, the 9-3X makes sense.
But I still miss 3 saab essentials in that line-up: a decent & elegant coupé (in 9-3 size), a small sportscar (Sonett/9X/…) and the ultimate über-saab (Aero-X).
And if the 9-3 coupé resembles a lower version of the 9-3X prototype/design study, they showed us earlier, that’ s OK. So a 9-3X coupé in the line-up for all you crossover-fans can be included …… .
Perhaps there is one more version coming? The current car is to live until 2012, so perhaps they need one more to keep the interest in the range? Who knows, perhaps a 3 door hatch/coupe?
Progolf - Audi has had their AllRoad version for years now. Saab is WAY late in the game. It should have come out when Paul Hogan was doing the Outback commercials.
I thought the TTiD SAAB was getting somewhere over 40 MPG? If that is the case it’s ok that diesel is more expensive (even though it isn’t). I saw that somewhere?
In the past AMS Sweden has not seemed to be well informed on Saab (if you read the magazine, they have a clear bias towards german cars), and this renering just looks like somebody used Photoshop to merge the top of a 9-3 with bottoms of the old and new XC70. There has been some talk about the possibility of Saab making a “cross country”-like version of the 9-3, so the idea makes sense, but I think this may very well be pure speculation without any other input than this talk. Take a look at the rear of the 2007 XC70 and the front of the 2008 XC70 to see what I mean.
Hopefull the 9-3x gets some unique styling of its own. Since it has taken this long for the product to even be shown, one would only hope that it doesn’t just look like an air lifted SC 9-3. I would like to see the interior freshened up a bit and maybe a drastic change to the rear and front ends that would make this car look totally new to potential buyers.
Wow, I think that 9-3x render looks fabulous. If it looks like that then Saab are onto a winner with it.
I think due to the shorter wheelbase over the likes of the XC70 and Audi A6 Allroad, it looks more like an SUV than a jacked up estate, if those proportions are a good estimate that is.
If it keeps those looks, perhaps the 9-4x’s real competition will be from this rather than the X3 and XC60. In fact, the 9-4X has grown on me immensely, I think it looks a lot classier than both the XC60 and the X3, and certainly more interesting than the upcoming Q5 and GLK. The 9-4x could possibly be the leader in that segment!!
This 9-3x certainly has potential! I’m looking forward to it.
So I’ve just been comparing the XC70 and Allroad, and then checking the 9-3 combi.
What is immediately noticable is the rear overhang. The 9-3 combi overhang is nowhere near as long as either the XC70 or the Allroad, I think this is a HUGE factor in the design of the 9-3x. It’s one reason why it will look more SUV/SAV like.
Also, the cladding on the side, I think it adds a bit more character to the car, the larger grille also fits the increased height of the 9-3x in that render.
9-4X needs to stand out (more than this 9-3X seems to do).
Q5 and GLK are already getting very good critics from the journos (in Germany).