A Quick Thankyou
I have to buy a card-reader today to get all the photos from yesterday’s great TS Pacific Northwest Meetup off my camera, but I wanted to get something up on the site in the near term: a quick thankyou to all who took the time to turn up. Almost from the moment we crossed the border into the US, I could tell that Washington was more of a Saab state than British Columbia is a Saab province, and that was confirmed when we rocked up to the XXX Root Beer facility in Issaquah.
We’ve been Saab-spotting all through our holiday so far in Vancouver and have seen around 30+ Saabs on the roads here in around two weeks (albeit one of those weeks was in Clilliwack, around 100km east of Vancouver and not really Euro-territory). Our first US Saab-spot happened about 2 kilometers past the border. As we took the beautiful drive along Chukunut drive just out of Bellingham there was a house along the way with 3 or 4 Saabs in the driveway.
I had the feeling we were in for something good.
My best guess would have provided maybe 15 cars for the event yesterday. The Saab nuts in Seattle blew my estimates away.
All up, we had 26 vehicles there and a few more people than that. It was a great turnout with some very interesting cars showing up, cars I’ll be happy to share some pictures and stories of very shortly. Like the best 900SE I’ve ever seen, the 9000 Aero running on nitrous, TeamD’s $250 Saab 900 that recently drove 5000 miles in the Alcan rally, and more Viggens than you can poke a stick at.
The 2.0T Saab 9-3 that we were given access to courtesy of Saab Canada and Dueck Saturn Saab in Richmond, BC, performed flawlessly all day and given that I had to try and keep up with SaabKen’s frogger-like movements in traffic on the way to Issaquah (we were running a little late and it was quite a drive!) it was the perfect car for the job. I really love the 2.0T engine and the 9-3 showed my why - all day.
Another note about the 9-3: I’ve often criticised the interior, especially the dash layout and materials. I don’t hold back from that critique as far as the materials are concerned. If I ever owned a 9-3 I’d be doing all I could to get one of those Hirsch leather dash kits. My opinion of the layout, however, has altered as a result of this trip, and I’ll share more about that later. All I’ll say for now is that being inside this car at night provides for a classic Saab experience.
My thanks to everyone who turned up and made this such a memorable day, but special kudos to Todd, who couldn’t make it on the trip but still turned up at Ikea yesterday morning to say Hi, and to Mag-X, who drove his Saab 99GL all the way up to Issaquah from Oregon to join in the event. A brilliant effort and one that was much appreciated.
My thanks to SaabKen, James and Tim for helping to organise the day as well. It was absolutely fantastic.
For those in Vancouver, we’re hoping to organise a dinner one evening this week, possibly on Wednesday night, so please keep you antennae up for that one.
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There’ll be heaps more to come once I can get my photos off my memory card. I’ll attend to that task today.
Until then, thanks to everyone for a truly memorable day.
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Swade, that was a fantastic event. Hope your drive back to Vancouver was “forced induced” !
Frogger ? ….. good thing I don’t drive a manual, then.
I got back home around 8:45pm, traffic was light, border wait was 5 mins, and apparently Nexus lane was closed by 7pm at the truck crossing. It was a beautiful clear night with the half moon lighting up my way.
On I-5 somewhere near Lynnwood (after getting off I-405) I saw a silver 9-5 merge into traffic about 1/2 mile up (yes, after the meet my Saab-dar was turned full-volume and then some) so I decided to give chase. He must have seen me in his sideview because he slowed down enough so I can catch up and when I “gently” passed him in the left lane, he gave me a big Saab wave and smile !
Back to the meet, a big thanks too to James and Tim for sending the word out to SCS and NWSOC. And the flogging drive was great, that long downhill run on SR-18 and I-90 felt like a roller coaster ride. The overall experience was by far the biggest and best Saab meet I’ve been to other than the Saab Owners Convention 2004 at Crystal Mountain, WA.
It would have been even better had we had our SCWC Canadian compadres join us on the drive and meet. Perhaps next time.
On that note, another quickie meet at IKEA Coquitlam sometime this week followed by dinner at some local pubbie place would be great. I’ll poll SCWC to see which nights are preferred.
Again thanks to everyone for making this event a success. I will (eventually) upload all my pics of the day and mail them out on a CD to James, Tim and Swade.
Happy Saabing,
SaabKen
More Saab sightings of the day:
Forgot to mention that black 9-7X we saw just after leaving Coquitlam IKEA.
And the green NG900SE who parked near you at the gas station in Fairhaven, Bellingham while you were waiting for me to fill up.
And the silver 9-2X Aero going NB on I-5 around Mount Vernon (you may not have seen it, Swade).
Ken’s got the lead foot and the lane-change jones? How very left coast of you!!
I got the need ……… the need, for speed !!
(and in the process I think I blew out the resonator or center muffler ! Matilda was sounding gruffy on the way home)
Yeah, I spotted the 9-2x, Ken, but my memory tells me it was a black one. Could there have been two 9-2x’s on the road that day?
A 9-7x and a 9-2x sighting in the wild in one day - wow!
One I saw was silver. I didn’t see the black one, hey TWO 9-2X’s in one day. The planets were definitely aligned yesterday.
That was the third 9-7X I’ve seen ever on local roads, although it may be the same one as one of the previous ones I saw. Wonder how many Lansdowne sold in total to date ?
Amidst all the excitement I never got to ask to drive your 9-3SS. How long do you have it for ? [wink]
SaabKen - I’m watching that terrible movie right now, how weird!
Eggs - Bad driving isn’t endemic to the West Coast…I should know, I drive like a jackass and I’m about as East Coast as you get.
Odd, yesterday I saw a Saab from each of the past four decades — a 99, a 900, a NG900 and a dame Edna 9-5 and several 9-3s. Red letter day for me as well!
Jeff: I am acutely aware of that. I’m a moderately agressive driver, too. However, the rapid lane changes typify west coast driving to me since they do so much driving on multi-lane highways.
My thanks to everyone who set this up. It was great to meet some other people who are as enthusiastic about the brand as I am ( and some even more so
I think I have made up my mind I need to get a 900 or 99! Swade, it was great to meet you! Hope someday we can do this again.
Cheers
Chris 08 9-5
Yesterday was great fun.
I’m very impressed with the 99 for keeping up with you guys with your newfangled cars and your fancy turbo chargers! I had to give it quite the thrashing to keep up with you guys even though you were just playing around. That was actually the hardest I’ve ever driven it since I got it!
Mag-X …… I see a C900 Turbo in your future [wink]
I had one for a while, but it was an automatic so I think it may have actually been slower than the 99.
A lot of great fun. 105 mph up the hill on HWY 18 is a good way to clean out the mid muffler.
some pixs:
http://www.saabcentral.com/phpgallery/album151
The meet-up and drive were great fun. Thanks to everybody to had a hand in setting it up. I was amazed at the big turnout. Like Mag-X, I had to thrash my non-turbo 900 up the hills, but according to Jesse I didn’t hold him up in his 99 turbo which is a good thing. I’m sure that is because the orange stripe adds at least 15 HP to my car…
KR900, its yellow that adds horsepower. Otherwise my car would have 1000HP since the whole thing is orange.
More pics from Saturday:
http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg281/SK9T/Saabs/TrollhattanSaab%20PNW%202008/
More pics here:
http://s251.photobucket.com/albums/gg281/SK9T/Saabs/TrollhattanSaab%20PNW%202008/
For some reason this thread won’t accept my Photobucket URL, so I’ll point to the SaabCentral thread that contains the URL to my album:
(see post #26):
http://www.saabcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=135548
I wish I could have driven up from Portland for the weekend. That would have been one more Viggen to poke a stick at.
Will this be a yearly event?
We sure could make it a yearly event. An event better turnout I suspect ;-).
I’ll be posting my pics here in a bit. Right now, distracted by monday night football.
I wish I could make it a yearly event!
Ok, pics are uploading to http://viggen.smugmug.com
Enjoy! I enjoyed seeing the turnout. Just more motivation to get more next year. It felt good to have a Viggen to zoom by ;-).
I’d really like to do a cook out at a state park or something (I’ll see what I can find out about reserving Golden Gardens here in Seattle).
BlackTurbo,
Why DON’T we make it an annual event ? We should discuss with SCS. I know you guys already have lots of activities in your neck of woods with NWSOC and SCS. How about annual journeys a bit more north, to say Whidbey Island or Everett area (”Born From Jets” ? …… cough ) so it’s more mid-point for the three clubs ?
Thanks everybody! I took a few post-drive snaps here:
http://www.saabcentral.com/phpgallery/album150
Enjoy!