The slow pace here is due to me being absolutely glued to the Bravia whilst the Olympics get underway. I love sport. All Aussies love sport. You could sell tickets to watch two flies crawl up a wall here in Australia. So the Olympics always get a lot of air time at out place.
Last night was the opening ceremony, which wasn’t anywhere near as good as Sydney’s back in 2000 (noooooooo, I’m not biased at all). One point of interest in the opening ceremony is the uniforms the teams bring out for the games. The Aussies had a shocker this year with blue tracksuits meant to look like the ocean, instead of our traditional green and gold. Not good.
The Yanks looked OK (except for the silly white berets), as did the English. The Swedes weren’t a favourite, I’m afraid, though the Finns and the Dutch both looked very classy. The Hungarian blokes were well dressed, though the women’s shirts made the ladies look like they’d stood next to a shooting victim.
Australia finished either fourth or fifth in the medal tally back in Athens. Not bad for a little country. I hope your country does well, unless it’s competing against mine! 
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Are you wondering what a day the Nurburgring might be like? What sights you might see?
This folder at Flickr’s a pretty good indication, I think. There’s a lot of exotic metal there, including this red Viggen doing it’s ring-thing.
A great collection, that. I’d love to do a ring trip. One day.
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There’s a Saab 9-7x thread over VW Vortex. A guy’s considering a purchase and wanted some opinions. My main question is: why are there seemingly so many Saab fans over at VW Vortex? I’m always seeing stuff come up about Saab there via my RSS feed.
They’re getting so much Saab interest, actually, that someone from there emailed me to tell me they’re spinning off a new Saab forum. I’m a Saab Central guy, myself, but if you want to check this new one out, it’s at Turbonines
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I got my 900 out today after having it packed away in the garage for a few weeks.
Once again it blew me away with the incredible ease with which it does just about everything. It needs a new clutch, however, so it looks like I’m going to have to spend a little cash later in the year.
Despite how much I love it, I’m thinking that I might offload it next year. Why? Well, it’s my honorary tribute to Saabs past, but I think I’d prefer something even more iconic – a 900 convertible.
It’s not related to 900 convertibles, but Consumer Reports have a few thoughts on buying convertibles on their website. If you’re considering one, you might find it worth a look.
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Yet another freaking Turbo X road test report.
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CNBC in the United States recently aired a documentary called “Saving GM”. I had a few people email me about it but of course, I can’t see it here. Hopefully it might come online at some point in the near future.
Bob Lutz has written about it on the Fastlane website, and I note that it’s due for another screening on Sunday, August 10, at 10pm EDT.
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If you like a laugh, please note that Sniff Petrol’s belated August entries are now up.
Not for viewing with the kiddies around, though.
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Swade,
Your point about Saab fans at VW is echoed -or rather -pre-empted by my lines in the Saab Psychosis article – I found lots of ex Saab owners driving VWs down at the gliding club.
It seems the Saab people went to VW due poor Saab reliability- but as I said, it was perceived VW reliability rather than actual- as they had had their VW problems too.
Olympics- yes, well, why is everyeon prepared to forgive the fact that its all taking place in an orwellian cloud of constant pollution. I seem to be alone in seeing it a s breach of contract with the olympic authorities- which it is by the way.
Not that, that, stops the swimming girlies being worth watching. Oh and the rowing would be good without the smog.
And the word medal is being used as a verb by the British media- ” Are we going to medal”
Frankly, I doubt it.
I found the environmental bit of the opening ceremony to be a good laugh. I think if they’d taken that part out and slotted in a production about Tienemin Square then we might have found it all a bit more believable.
Oh well. Hopefully the sport will be good. I just was the cycling road race. After six hours racing there were six riders who finished within around a second or two. Heatrbreaking.
I only watched the opening of the Olympics for about an hour. I was on the backup TV crew list to go to Beijing, but nobody dropped out so I didn’t go. I’m somewhat miffed!
Saab and VW have long had a similar customer base in North America.
They are the only two brands that offer front wheel drive European cars, and they get serviced by the same independent mechanics because they share failure modes (i.e.: they use the same Bosch parts).
Swade – heartbreaking for the riders who missed out on the medals, but count yourself lucky you weren’t watching it on Indian State TV.
Before they even showed the action they told us all who had won the race, and then these two presenters who clearly didn’t know one end of a bike from the other came on screen. They spent a few minutes looking at the wrong camera and telling each other how amazing it was that at the end of six hours’ racing the result came down to a few bike lengths.
By this point I was yelling at them to just show the ****** race, and shortly afterwards they did just that, joining the action with about five k’s to go. Of course it did spoil it slightly to know what was going to happen, but even so I wanted to see them sprint it out. For five minutes or so your man Rogers was closing the gap on the front three, and they were all starting to size each other up for the sprint – three k’s to go, Rogers is getting closer, two k’s, and here comes Cancellara out of nowhere, there’s the kite, one k to go…
And then the screen goes blank for a couple of seconds, and then there are our two friends back on screen, looking slightly nervous. “Well Rajesh,” says one, “we’ll be back to see the closing stages of that later today, but isn’t it amazing that after six and a half hours the finish was so close?”
“Yes,” agrees Rajesh to camera two, “and isn’t it such an exciting sport? Those athletes must be so fit…” and so on, and on, and on, for a good five minutes, when there couldn’t have been more than a minute and a half left of the race to show in the first place.
So I’m sorry Swade, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to watch the Olympics if this is what I’m going to have to put up with. My stress levels just can’t cope with screaming the kind of words at the TV that no Saab driver should ever have to utter.
I just hope someone’s posted it on YouTube…
99GL, I can only imagine…..
I know it won’t help for me to say this, but it was one heck of a finish…..
I was commenting to my wife as we watched the opening ceremony: I couldn’t remember seeing an Indian team enter the arena. I assume there must be one.
‘Saving GM’ was a nice look at how successful GM has become in China, and why they have lost so many customers here in the USA. Comments on the special made by US customers burned by a bad experience with a GM product echo everyone I have ever met who justify their purchase of a Honda or Toyota to me. Bob Lutz spent a lot of time talking about the quality in current GM products saying they are better than import brands. This of course made wonder why GM backed off on its 100,000 mile powertrain warranty on 2009 Saab’s, but whatever.
Phil Lebeau did a nice job with the special, and gave a nice overview of the new Camaro, although he could have spent more time talking about GM’s current product portfolio. Showcasing the failure that was the1982 Cadillac Cimarron in the GM heritage center was downright hilarious, and perhaps echo’s why the ‘good old boys’ network at GM is so adamant at infusing the division with product. Escalade hybrid pricing was just released and starts at $71,685. Quite a premium for going green.
And now, back to the Olympics and the controversy surrounding the “Speedo Laser Suit.” Always something.
Driving the Nürburgring? And by yourself??? You ‘d better take the Nürburgring taxi with Sabine at the wheel. It ‘ll be green hell enough for you, but you will have much more fun. Noone should drive there by himself unless he/she is trained to drive at the limit.
Interesting comments regarding the overlap between Saab and VW customers in the U.S. I bought my 2001 9-5 after almost seven years in a Jetta GLX, and found the cars shared some core attributes. And, unfortunately, they shared horrendous reliability, especially regarding electronics. Even though the Saab’s record might look worse on paper, I think it’s much better for two reasons: (1) since about 55,000 miles, it’s been very reliable; and (2) the overall structure has remained rock solid to 117,000 miles, whereas the VW was truly falling apart by 100,000 miles. In other words, while not very reliable, at least the Saab is durable. So I’d be much more likely to return to Saab than VW. But that new A4 looks mighty tempting…
Go USA, hopefully we don’t get mauled in basketball.
I can’t get into Sniff Petrol. I love British humor in TV and movies, but I just never laugh at it in print. You lose all the humor that comes from the cadences and accents and reactions.
Jeff: We have LeBron and Kobe playing for us. We won’t get mauled. Although I am more excited about women’s beach volleyball with Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor.
Speaking of Volkswagen, our local VW dealer (Medina World Cars) just got a Jetta TDI clean diesel in and have it sitting front and center on the lot. I know a few dealers have them although they had to wait until mid-August for them to be eligible for sale for some reason. It is estimated to get around 44mpg (or 5.3 liters/100 km) on the highway without all that complex hybrid technology that is slowing down Prius production at this point. Which leaves camp GM once again saying: Holy clean diesels Batman…foiled again!
There is an Indian Olympic team – field hockey, a bit of shooting, a couple of weightlifters. They haven’t managed to win more than one medal at any games since 1952. It’s not really important here – India are playing Sri Lanka at cricket at the moment and that’s a much bigger deal.
The US basketball effort is going to be interesting to watch. You’ve got all the ingredients, it’s just whether or not coach K can manage the egos and stop the team from imploding like the last few years. I haven’t looked at the groups, but I hope the Aussies get a shot at playing you. There’s always one Aussie with a chip on their shoulder looking for a fight
I’m watching the Olympic and saw a GM commercial that specifically mentions GMC and Saab. I didn’t see the whole thing, but it’s good to see Saab in there.
Anyone else see it?
My wife and I were discussing the USA Men’s Basketball team and mentioned Dwayne Wade. My 7 year old daughter instantly piped up, “Swade? Swade’s in the Olympics?”
What can I say? You’re famous, mate.
Looks like the US basketball team will be playing China tomorrow (USA time), so we will see how they do.
Stephanie Rice just grabbed a gold for Australia beating our Katie Hoff, and breaking a record – good job. Game on.
Click here to see GM’s commercial titled “Beautiful Blue” they’re running in the U.S. during the Olympics television coverage.
Take note of the onscreen graphic at around the 0:24 mark. No disclaimer for Saab?
At the end of the commercial you see them unplug what appears to be the pre-production version of the Chevy Volt (the latest revision has a slightly different headlight design with a step on the bottom, the front end is more raked, and the corner lights wrap around more) and they show a red Saturn Flextreme (simply the Opel Flextreme with a Saturn logo on the grille).
Andy, tell the kids to keep an eye on me in the sofa-to-fridge sprint. It doesn’t ge tmuch coverage, but I’m going for gold! I used to try and claim Dwyane Wade as a distant cousin, but I think my lack of pigmentation just gave away a little too much.
Tedjs, and didn’t Stephanie look wonderful on the podium? She’s the media darling of the swim team this year. Unfortunately it won’t be game-on where Australia’s concerned. Any chance we had of seriously competing in a medal race went down the toilet when Ian Thorpe figured it was OK to be totally gifted and dominant and throw that gift away in your mid-20s. What a waste.
I’m pleased to see Phelps has taken his ability seriously. I hope he gets all eight medals he’s after (unless he has some serious Aussie competition, in which case I hope he comes an honorable second).
You can find the guy who drives the red viggen and many other German, Swiss and Austrian Saab-Enthusiats under http://www.motor-talk.de/forum/saab-b79.html
Agreed Swade, Stephanie looked brilliant in all of her photos. In addition to being a great athlete she is a natural for the camera.
They showed LeBron this morning on the news guaranteeing a win for the USA basketball team, so this should be an exciting game. Kind of neat for me as he is our hometown favorite. I had floor seats for a game once, and he put on one heck of a show.
You guys and your guarantees…..
Just watched them against China in the opener and they looked good, though someone better Fedex them a 3-point shot before they meet a European team that can shoot from long range. D-Wade was awesome. Doing the family proud
The Aussies looked like they sent a rec league team over. Terrible.
I saw the Aussie/Croatia game in parts as well. What was the story with Bogut? MIA? Injured?