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The following is my account on what turned out to be a highlight of our holiday in Canada so far – the great TS Pacific Northwest Meetup.

When we organised this event, I was bouyed by the interest of the three clubs involved: the Saab Club of Western Canada, the Saab Club of Seattle, and the Northwest Saab Owners Club. Responses to me personally were a little light, though, and I thought that we’d get maybe a dozen or as many as fifteen cars along for the meet. This is North America, though, and everything’s supersized here. My expectations were blown out of the water with the final tally of vehicles.

We started the day with the Canadian Saabers meeting up at the Coquitlam Ikea store. A number of them had to work, or perhaps were put off by the full-day nature of the event. Consequently, we only had three cars in the carpark there. We pulled up in our 9-3 loaner vehicle from Dueck Saab and Saturn just after 9am to find SaabKen and Todd waiting in the carpark.

Todd was kind enough to come down and meet us even though he was unable to attend the event due to a birthday commitment that day. His 2006 9-3 Aero was an excellent example and he had nothing but good things to say about it. Like a friend of mine back in Hobart, he chose this model specifically for the combination of the V6 motor and the button dashboard and has been a very happy camper ever since. Whilst Todd’s dad has had a number of Saabs, Todd’s virtually a new Saab customer having owned mainly VWs since owning a Saab 99 as his first car.

After a decent chat at Ikea (and a Saab 9-7x spotted as we left the Ikea car park), we finally made our way to the Aldergrove border crossing, where I noted that a particular Saab Central moderator sports a set of Saabnet number plate surrounds on his 9000 CSE – tres political!!

It should be noted by those interested in such things that when loaded with an appropriately sized cup from a Swedish-themed venue, the Saab 9-3’s controversial cupholders performed with aplomb.

After crossing the border we had a pretty gentle drive down to Bellingham, where we paused for some refreshment and used the ladies washroom due to some doofus taking 15 minutes in the mens. Then it was on to the ominously titled but beautiful Chukunut Drive, heading south out of Bellingham.

We passed one house with three or four Saab 9000s in the driveway along Chukunut. I felt like stopping and asking them why they weren’t accompanying us, but each to their own, I guess.

I’d have loved to fly along this route, but we got held up in traffic along the way. Still, I guess it gave us more time to enjoy the beautiful Washington surrounds.

After the Chukunut adventure, Ken realised that we were running a little late for our 3pm rendezvous at XXX Root Beer in Issaquah, so we had to motor. That meant Ken leading the way at considerable speed and us trying to keep up as he weaved his way in and out of four lanes of traffic. Here’s our target, and this was about as close as we got to him in the next few hours!

Note: at least one and quite possibly two Saab 9-2x were spotted as we made our way south.

As we got close to our target, we spotted what looked like a couple of Saab OG9-3’s heading in the same direction. I’ll explain the “what looked like” bit shortly. We played musical Saabs for a few miles before settling in and following them to our destination at XXX Root Beer. It was here that my expectation of maybe 15 Saabs was blown out of the water.

There must have been at least 15 there already. The four in our convoy would make it close to 20 and more were rolling up very shortly thereafter. Prior to our later drive around the Saab Club of Seattle’s “flogging route” the number was tallied at 24 cars.

I have to apologise to some because I was so swept up in the whole day that there’s some cars that I probably forgot to include. Not to mention that my photos are really just snapshots rather than nicely composed. There was just so much to see, though, and so many Saab people to meet and talk to.

Some (but definitely not all) of the notable vehicles in attendance were as follows:

A Saab 9000 running on the stock Turbo and stock ECU and pushing well over 300hp. Note the little red switch on the dash. That’s the volume button and the car goes up to 11 when you flick that switch.

Nitrous.

Mag-X drove all the way up from Oregon to attend this event in his 1976 Saab 99GL. He said the ride around the flogging loop was the hardest he’d ever pushed the little car. Like me, he was from out of town and would have been completely lost if he hadn’t kept pace with the pack!

This Saab 96 was owned by an older gent named Dick, who took out the award for most Saabs owned over time amongst attendees at the event. This is one of the 33 Saabs he’s had over his lifetime.

This Saab 99 Turbo brought back some very fond memories for me, having owned a few of them in the past. We never got this gunmetal grey color in Australia, though. I don’t think my photo will do it justice, but it looked superb.

The TeamD Saab 900 was featured in an earlier group photo. They bought this car for $250 and then prepped it for the Alcan Rally, a 5,000 mile trek from Washington to northern Canada and back. It didn’t miss a beat.

Here’s the interior with all the rally gear installed.

Here’s a great example of a much overlooked car – the four door Saab 900 sedan. Dennis L bought this one brand new as a graduation present to himself back in the late 1980s. He’s still got it and some mild refreshing of the car a few years ago turned into almost a full mechanical rebuild complete with a customised stand-alone engine management system.

It really does go to show how great these sedans can look given the right treatment.

These are just a few of the cars that were there. The vehicles ranged from the 96 and 99s you’ve seen here right up to a couple of Dame Edna Saab 9-5s and of course, my loaner Saab 9-3.

After an hour or so of chatter, tyre-kicking and getting-to-know-yous, we all jumped in our cars for the drive around the Flogging Loop, a mix of suburban and highway driving where the locals really did give the cars a flogging.

I had my brother-in-law in the car with me for the drive down to Issaquah and therefore was OK if we got lost at that stage. As cars took off for the Flogging Loop, however, he was just getting a burger from the XXX Root Beer restaurant. That left me driving solo in a loaned car in a place I’d never been before.

Like Mag-X in his little 99GL, I was totally stuffed if I lost track of the cars I was running with. As the main group got split at a set of traffic lights, we ended up being a small group of just 5 or 6 cars. I had to keep up and believe me, these guys called it a Flogging Loop for a reason.

I was in a group comprising all 900s and one Saab 99, and it was a real pleasure to see and hear these classic Saabs enjoying a good run in the countryside.

We made our way back to XXX Root Beer, where there were a few more cars still to come. Food was eaten, music was listened to and there was a lot of close-up inspection of various cars.

That 9-3 that I thought I saw on our way to the event earlier in the afternoon? Well, it turns out it was a Saab 900 SE Talladega, and one of the best upgrade customisation jobs I’d ever seen.

Here’s a picture but there’ll be more on that one later.

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Again, I’d like to thank all who helped to organise the event and especially all those who made the time to turn out. Particular thanks must go to SaabKen from The Saab Club of Western Canada, James from The Saab Club of Seattle and Tim S from the Northwest Saab Owners Club. If you’re in the area and you’re not a member of one of these Saab clubs, then I’d encourage you to join up and get involved.

Of course, my thanks also to Dueck Saturn Saab of Richmond, in Vancouver, for the use of the Saab 9-3 2.0T that we had for the day. Dueck have some huge plans for Saab in the lower mainland area of British Columbia and I’ll be sharing more about that this week. It’s really exciting stuff.

There’s already talk of this becoming an annual event and whilst I won’t be able to make it annually (oh, how I wish I could!), I certainly hope that it happens. It’s a great venue and everyone had a great time.

For more photos, see SaabKen’s album at Photobucket, and Dennis L’s collection at SaabCentral.

FYI – the Flogging Loop.

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