Usually I don’t bother to announce my departures but with Swade out-of-pocket it seems right to do so.
In the meantime, I’ve got a few links that can help to pass the time and perhaps even teach you something in the process.
Read on!
Alongside Swade’s vacation, I’ll be working some long hours on a trip to corporate headquarters that I’ve been putting off for some months, hence the fact that I’ll be working the longer hours. Very dry stuff for the most part — checking the boxes on some baseline requirements for on going training, annual reviews, project updates, etc. I’ll be back on Friday for a quick hit and then it’s off to visit some of my wife’s family (I’m channelling Swade) on a lengthy day trip on Saturday.
The upshot is that I may not be able to release certain comments from the unapproved slot to the approved slot in timely fashion (spammers create issues for all, they really do). This primarily pertains to comments with links embedded, so if you post a link it may be a while before it shows up on the board.
Of course, there will be little written during this span, which I hope to remedy with the following links:
Time Magazine’s 50 Worst Cars of All Time
The Story of James Bond 007 and his Silver Saab 900 Turbo (newly expanded)
A short lesson in ice racing – Saab v. Porsche.
Enjoy!
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I’d like to thank Eggs for stepping into the breach once again whilst I was gallavanting around British Colombia.
I’ll be posting a bit more tomorrow, prior to jumping on a plane tomorrow night and heading back to the Land of Oz, where hopefully my dog Charli is missing me as much as I’m missing her.
Thanks again, Eggs!
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I would like to say well done to you both for the snippits we get everyday. Dont stress too much Eggs, and Swade, have a good flight back.
Eggs, love all three links. The authoring in the Time list is top notch. Heavily overlaps with the books ‘Lemon!’ and ‘Extra Lemon!’ by Aussie Tony Davis. WIth an Aussie bias it has many more Italian, French, Aussie and of course Leyland atrocities ( a company that made a vertitable country’s worth of crappers).
I noticed some familiar names in the list of SaabCentral people who helped with that 007 Saab article. I’m surprised to read about that weird comment about there being a “special edition 900″ in 1998.
I read those books when they came out as I was a huge James Bond fan, though I was only around 9 or 10 years old at the time. I thought it was really cool 007 had a Saab 900 because at the time my grandfather had a 1978 99 Turbo. Then he traded it in for the 1985 900T I now own!
One of my favorite features of the 007 Saab which wasn’t mentioned in the linked article was a dimmer switch attached to his taillights. When he was being pursued at night he could slowly dim the taillights to give the impression he was pulling further and further away from the pursuers.
At the Saab 60th Anniversary Media Event in San Diego which Swade was so kind to get me into I spent the day with Erik Carlsson. I had him sign my hardcover copies of License Renewed and Icebreaker and I asked him about his time spent with John Gardner while he was researching the book. Erik went into great detail about it.
I found this a great crossover of two of my favorite things: James Bond and Saab!