Monthly Archives: October 2008

Some slightly better (and worse) news for Saab

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I’m sorry to be acting like the harbinger of doom today. It’s just the way the news seems to be flowing.

But hey, Saab sales in Russia were up 90% in Q3 of this year!!! That’s got to be a good thing? And there’s more good news, too…..

Saab satisfaction in Germany

A recent poll of car buyers in the German market by automobile club, ADAC, surveyed their levels of customer satisfaction and especially satisfaction with the car itself and experiences with the garage service (quality of the work, costs, friendliness of the employees and consulting competence).

I’m not sure exactly what the numbers mean, but I’ve been told the lower the number, the better. Here are the results (we non-Euro types should put a decimal where the comma is):

Subaru 1,23
Jaguar 1,26
Porsche 1,29
Honda 1,34
Dacia 1,35
Toyota 1,35
Mazda 1,38
Saab 1,41
Mitsubishi 1,41
Daihatsu 1,41
Suzuki 1,45
Volvo 1,45
Skoda 1,47
Alfa Romeo 1,48
BMW 1,49
Audi 1,5
Hyundai 1,52
Chrysler 1,6
Nissan 1,63
Mercedes 1,63
Seat 1,68
Citroën 1,68
Kia 1,71
Opel 1,72
Ford 1,72
VW 1,76
Smart 1,81
Fiat 1,83
Land Rover 1,86
Peugeot 1,89

That’s pretty good placement, knocking over many of the revered Germans themselves!

Thanks Alexandros and Marc!!

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Third Quarter Sales Data 2008

GM’s global 3Q sales data is in and indeed, Saab were up 90% in the third quarter in the Russian market. But that’s just about where the good news ends.

Saab global sales were down in the third quarter by 29.3% (20,938 this year vs 29,633 last year). For the full year so far, Saab’s global sales are down by 21.1% (75,453 this year vs 95,620 last year). Bets on reaching 100,000 in 2008?

Saab’s sales in Latin America and the Middle East were UP by 5.6% in Q3, but are down by 0.6% for the year to date (349 cars this year vs 351 last year).

Saab’s sales in Europe (incl UK) were down 25.9% in Q3 (14,292 vs 19,296) and are down by 16.7% year to date (53,805 vs 64,604)

Saab’s sales in Asia Pacific were down 34.4% in Q3 and are down 18% year to date.

Saab’s sales in North America were down 36.3% in Q3 (5,912 vs 9,284) and are down 31.9% year to date (18,837 vs 27,661)

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The GM/Chrysler deal and what it could mean for Saab

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We’ve already heard that GM are delaying R&D, design and a whole slew of future models because of the downturn in the economy and the need for them to stem all unnecessary outflows.

First, here’s a precis of the situation with regards to GM and Chrysler. This seems to be priority one at the moment and there’s no doubt it could have a profound effect on Saab if it comes off. And it seems GM really want to pull this one off.

The proposed deal as it stands:

* GM want around $10b in government funding to facilitate the acquisition of Chrysler from Cerberus. For that, they get all of Chryslers brands (Chrysler, Dodge and Jeep) as well as factory capacity and a whole bunch of workers, pension liabilities and dealer relationships. Oh, and there’s around $11b in Cerberus cash, too.

* Cerberus want to buy out a significant chunk of GM’s remaining 49% stake in GMAC. Apparently, if Cerberus can take their stake high enough, GMAC will qualify as a bank holding company and get access to Fed funds.

* The US government uses some of its national bailout money to buy up bad car loans, just like it’s going to buy up other bad loans. This will allow the car makers to throw good money after bad offer finance to new potential buyers.

* There’s talk about that bailout money being used as an equity stake in the merged entity, but apparently US lawmakers are very hesitant about supporting a merger that’s going to result in a lot of job losses. It’s understood that whilst GM may choose to retain some of Chrysler’s manufacturing capacity and keep Jeep and Chrysler’s minivan range, there’d still be a lot of job losses, mainly white collar jobs.

* After GM deal with excess capacity and staff (read: the UAW), they’ve then got to deal with the dealers. And they’ve got to do all this is a breakneck pace.

References for the above: Business Week and Reuters.

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The uncertainty over this transaction, and poor market conditions in general, means that GM have put the brakes on everything that’s seen as non-essential or less than around 90% finished. And that places Saab on the receiving end of some very poor conditions.

We believe from information left in comments here that the 2010 Saab 9-5 will be at least a minor casualty of this slowdown. The word on the streets is that the model could be delayed, at this stage by as much as three months and perhaps longer.

But Saab have a whole bunch of products in the pipeline and this could effect all of them.

Saab 9-4x: This is the other nearly-done model in the Saab range, but if the 9-5 is going to be delayed, then the 9-4x is almost certainly going to feel the pinch as well.

Saab 9-3x: If anything on the horizon for Saab could be seen as non-essential, this is it. I’d already heard from Djup Strupe that the 9-3x was delayed until 2010. This could kill it completely.

Saab 9-3: Any plans for a final refreshing of the Saab 9-3 prior to it’s move to Delta architecture are most likely going to be placed on hold. And that move to Delta? The exact timing’s unknown, but with this slowdown I don’t think it’s going to come any sooner.

Saab 9-1: There’s been no decision as yet as to whether this model would even get a green light. If they’re delaying a more mainstream compact car like the Chevrolet Cruze, I don’t think we can expect something about the 9-1 anytime soon.

2009 Saab Festival: ????? It costs money, right? There’s no date set yet, right?

Saab are going to get the 9-5. It’ll be delayed, but it’ll come. That’s the good news. They’ll also get the 9-4x, but maybe even later than planned.

The other stuff that we were all hoping for? Let’s hope that cool heads can prevail. Saab sure needs it.

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Right now, even as you read this, the fit is hitting the shan at the Ren Cen. There has never been a perfect storm of historically boneheaded, company-weakening decisions and barely skeletal market conditions like what we’ve got right now.

I think we’re at the point where the roller-coaster is just over the top of the crest. The passengers are starting to scream and unbenownst to them, there’s a wobbly wheel in the front left corner of the carraige.

Hang on!

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Saab 9-5 delayed? Seems so.

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Automotive News have written a major story on an issue that first surfaced a few days ago. Back then it was rumours about the Chevy Cruze compact car being delayed. Today’s story concerns quite a lot of GM’s coming models being delayed due to funding problems putting constraints on research and development.

General Motors is postponing nearly all of its spending on product development in 2009 and 2010 — a cost-cutting move that could delay the introduction of key vehicles such as the Chevrolet Cruze.

The automaker also is cutting spending on engineering, design and r&d, say sources familiar with GM’s plans. So far, nothing has been officially canceled, but nearly everything is delayed, the sources say.

“The 2009 stuff that’s too late to cancel is coming out, then everything else gets pushed out anywhere between three months and up to a year,” said one of the sources. “It’s not just capital budget; it’s also engineering, design … everything that would cause money to flow out in 2009.”

There’s nothing about Saab mentioned directly in the Automotive News story, but then we have this, which came through TS earlier today…..

Sorry to say this but on a meeting today i got the information that 9-5 is delayed. The number of try-out builds are also reduced but i dont know if or how that affect the geneva show.

Guys, this circus is going nowhere but down. I also got some other ‘what-the-heck-is-going-on-here” info…but i guess the 9-5 is enough of bad news for you..

…..and I can confirm from the information I’ve seen associated with that comment that the commenter knows what he’s talking about.

I imagine that Saab will still show the car in Geneva, though it seems that in this current climate, nothing is certain. What seems highly likely is that the 2010 Saab 9-5 won’t come out for sale late in 2009, as we assumed.

GM are going to proceed with vehicles that are near production already. Vehicles such as the Buick Lacrosse, Chevy Traverse and Cadillac CTS wagon will go ahead. Similarly, they’ll proceed with the Chevrolet Volt as that vehicle is seen as essential for the near-term future of the company.

Saab? Not so essential from the company point of view.

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For those who haven’t been following it themselves, the GM/Chrysler merger story is still well and truly alive. In fact, multiple sources are now saying that the deal is all but done, with GM lobbying the US government for funds to complete the deal. The government cash would provide an equity stake in the merged company that I’m guessing the government would able to sell down the track.

This means that GM would have a whole lot of brand/people/dealer cutting to do. Where that would leave Saab, I don’t know.

Would GM use it as an opportunity?

I know they’ve committed to Saab etc etc, but that was before their entire world was turned on its head. I’ve got a feeling that the GM we’ll all be observing in 12 months from now will be quite different to what we’re seeing today.

I’m not trying to scaremonger here, but I am pretty sure that September-to-December 2008 is going to be seen as a defining time for GM, should they survive the next 12 months.

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Wednesday Snippets

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When I was a kid, we had a tradition at school where anyone having a birthday would receive ‘birthday bashings’ from everyone else. We’d all line up and punch the birthday boy on the arm, the number of punches rising each year in accordance with newly attained age.

I’d love to be in England right now :-)

Happy birthday, Robin M, our unofficial Saab Ambassador to the UK! But why is the cake 38 candles short?????

Nice T-shirt, too!

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Speaking of TS T-shirts and other things, I’ve just added a few new TS-logo shirts to the US version of the TS shop, and these Saab kicks as well.

Note: they’re not official Chuck Taylors and the sizing is a little funny (take care to measure correctly as Spreadshirt don’t do returns on shoes), but they’re well priced, they look cool and they’re unique.

Appropriate additions will be made to the Euro TS shop soon.

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I haven’t been able to find a picture of it yet, but Top Gear Australia had some fun in a tractor last week, and partially at Saab’s expense.

They were trying to out-do all those luxury SUV’s that never get taken offroad by driving around in a big farm tractor. Luxury SUV’s are known as Toorak Tractors in Melbourne, so of course it was Toorak, a well-to-do Melbourne suburb, that got the Top Gear treatment.

As part of the sketch, they decided to reverse-park the tractor and ended up riding up onto the hood of a Saab ng900.

Grrrrrrrrr.

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A young lady named Carmen writes on her own blog about her Saab doing one of the things that a Saab’s meant to do, and feeling the way many of us feel about our Saabs:

My beautiful, black Saab met its match last Wednesday when a large deer ran in front of it. I have mixed feelings about this. In many ways, it’s like the end of an era. This car was the first car I ever bought by myself. It was my “I’m a single and successful young woman” car that I bought when I was 23. It’s almost symbolic of that time period of my life. I almost cried when I went today and cleaned it out. It’s been a constant in my life and has seen me get married, buy our first home, take a step of faith and move to Georgia, buy our second home and now as we are trying to sell and move again. There was nothing like the carefree feeling of driving the rural roads of Georgia with my sunroof open, radio blaring and turbo engine revving. I’m very sad that this car had to go “this way.”

Carmen, I’m glad you’re safe. Your Saab was designed to take exactly that sort of impact and protect it’s cargo. I hope you replace it with another one.

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And in other crash news, can you believe it’s legal in Victoria (and probably in other states here in Australia) to have as many as eight people in your compact Mitsubishi coupe?

Victoria Police Chief Commissioner Christine Nixon said earlier today as long as all of the car’s seatbelts were being used, overloading the vehicle with people was not a crime.

“No, it’s not an offence,” she told Radio 3AW. “In fact it’s the number of seat belts. I think it’s four or something in this car, and if those people had the seatbelts on, no, it’s not an offence.

“It’s just the technical part of the law.”

The car in question was this Mitsubishi Lancer, which crashed just after midnight last night with the aforementioned eight people on board.

Miraculously, they all survived the crash, though I think the driver’s in serious trouble.

I think that law’s in for some review, too.

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I thought I’d also better mention, in the interests of transperancy, how things are running around here at the moment.

Server

As the site grows in page numbers and sheer storage space required, TS has once again outgrown it’s current web hosting plan. If you’ve been experiencing slow loading times or even an inability to load at all (esp near the end of the month), this is probably why.

I’m looking into several options to alleviate this, including relocation of the entire TS blog to my old web host. Unfortunately, my old host has just been lumbered blessed with a new baby so might be a few weeks from helping me out. He’s Hobart based and I’m much more comfortable with him running things than some faceless geezer an ocean away.

Video

The use of video seems to be clashing and causing some pages to not load. Some users typically get a warning message about a bug problem and the page just won’t load. Obviously this is not a satisfactory state of affairs so I’ll be looking into possible solutions, including a change of the site template (again) if necessary.

Direct Advertisers

I’ve been fortunate enough to have attracted a couple of direct advertisers in the right sidebar. I’m very appreciative of their support and want to make sure they get value for money. TS gets a lot of page impressions, but I’d like to include them in the community that is Trollhattan Saab.

Some of you may have noticed that I’ve taken a more active role in promoting the sponsors of this site. The arrangement is as follows: Advertisers, of which there will be a maximum of four at any given time so as not to clutter the page, will have something from their range promoted in an ‘Advertiser drive-by’ entry once every two weeks. I’ve asked advertisers, where they can, to provide a special offer for TS readers as part of this.

I’ve also asked advertisers to consider submitting some articles for publication here, not as a means of further advertising, necessarily, but as a way of providing useful content for readers, and as a way of building up some genuine content-based rapport. It’s a measure aimed at including them more in the conversations that go on here.

Google Ads

Google Ads continue to be the main steady income source for this site and will continue in the left sidebar and at the top of the page. Apart from banning spammy advertisers, I have little control over who advertises there as that’s all arranged by Google via an auction system. So if you see Volvo, Porsche or Toyota advertising there (as I have in the last month or so), then please blame GM for not targeting TS as an ad site.

Support-a-Saab-blogger donations

I haven’t put up the donations button for a number of months now. I wasn’t comfortable doing so around mid-year as I really wasn’t certain as to what the future was for this site. I didn’t want to ask you to support it if it wasn’t going to be around much longer (which was a realistic outlook back around July, August).

The outlook is now much more positive for me, personally, and TS is going to be around for some time to come. The publications of site stats and the TS donations button will both return soon and if you feel so inclined, your contribution to the ongoing running of things would be welcome.

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Question: how would you go about starting a Saab car club?

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I got an interesting email in from David PR this morning and at his suggestion, I thought I’d throw it up here for comments:

There are a bunch of us enthusiasts in New Mexico, USA who would like to get together more formally and have a Saab club. To the best of my knowledge there is not one in this state. The only thing is, how do you do it, what do you do?

My initial response was: Just do it! But I guess there’s more to it than that.

A few quick thoughts off the top of my head:

1) Advertise

When we started up a Tasmanian branch of the Saab Car Club of Australia, I kicked things off by putting a classified ad in the motoring section of the main newspaper here in Hobart. It cost me around $30 but it did result in a few calls and a few more attendees at our first meet.

2) Buddy up with your local Saab dealer

You should find you local Saab dealer pretty happy to help out. It’s in his/her interests to do so as anyone in the club would be a potential client.

The dealer should be able to help you in a number of ways. First and foremost is a potential venue for club events. Many of our events start with us meeting up in the dealer’s car park. SCCAnight4.jpgWe even got our local dealership to clear out the other GM products one night so that we could fill the showroom with old Saabs for a club event that he publicised amongst his full client list, which turned out to be an outstanding success!

Your dealer should also be able to assist with exposing the club to local Saab owners. If the dealer’s been there for a while then he’ll know most of them, anyway, and can pass on info about the club.

3) A simple website

It’s pretty cheap to get a website off the ground these days and a simple website is a great central point for club information and photos from previous events.

4) Decide what sort of club you’re going to be

A socially-oriented club?
A workshop-oriented club?
A motorsport-oriented club?

Car Clubs, like all gatherings of humans, are made up of a wide variety of people. Personally, I’m very much a driving-oriented person and I like driving-oriented events. I found it frustrating to organise events for our local club because the majority of people in it weren’t like me. Many of them were socially oriented people and were more interested in a short drive that ended at a winery or some form of eatery that involved proper cutlery. Needless to say, I handed over any organisational role that I had after a reasonably short period.

5) The nitty-gritties

Some clubs have no fees. Others do have fees. Some come together with a shared understanding that they’re all responsible for themselves. Others get insurance.

This is the annoying stuff, but if you’re in it for the long haul then it may pay to address it early. It might help to contact a bigger club (say, the Saab Club of North America) and become affiliated with them, if such affiliations exist. They’ll have some wise heads that can point you in the right direction.

Personally, I’d start with the KISS principal and feel your way using points 1-4, above.

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So there’s just a few suggestions from me.

I’m sure others out there have been involved in running car clubs for a while and have some advice to share, too.

And David, when you get things up and running make sure you give me a yell and I’ll add the Saab Car Club of New Mexico to the list of clubs here on TS.

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Saab 9-X Air quick video

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GM Europe have just posted a video of the Saab 9-X Air on YouTube (check it out here at Fastlane Daily – I’m still having problems posting video here).

The video is all CGI stuff but it gives a good look at some of the car’s party tricks – the side mounted cameras, the wrapped dashboard – and even a teaser glimpse at the roof!

You’ll have to go to the video to see it in action (and it’s not the full roof mechanism, just the closing sequence) but I’ve chopped up the screenshots here. Not a lot to see, but noted for the record, anyway.

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Some fun with that AMS 2010 Saab 9-5 picture

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Auto Motor and Sport published what we believe might be the first 2010 Saab 9-5 mule photo we’ve seen so far. It was all Opel Insignia on the outside, but it had this on the inside:

I’ve tried (in vain) to clear that one up a little so that we can tell a little more from it. It hasn’t worked that well, but I think it’s a little better.

Given that the dash seemed to fit so neatly into what we assume is a standard Insignia shell – it might be another toad for all we know – I thought it’d be interesting to try and do a direct comparison between the two.

So I took our photo above and tried as best I could to match it in size with this photo of the Insignia interior:

Next I dropped them both into Photoshop Elements and played with their respective opacities, trying to basically superimpose one upon the other. Again, I only had a marginal amount of success as the respective angles of the photos were different. And then there’s all that glare from the 9-5 shot.

Anyway, I think it still made for an interesting experiment. Here’s the graduated results:

What can we see here?

Well, thanks to all that glare, we can see nowhere near as much as we’d like to. But…..there’s still some definite Saab cues here as well as some points of similarity.

The 9-5 dash looks to be retaining that cockpit-like, driver-focused shape and direction. The angles of the photos are a little deceptive and make it look like the 9-5 dash is pushed in much more towards the driver. It won’t be so far to the driver’s side as these shots indicate, but it’ll still retain that distinctive Saab form.

The satnav screen is similarly positioned to a current 9-5 screen rather than up high as in the Insignia. The green lighting is another obvious point of difference.

One thing I’d be interested to know is whether this test mule is testing the dash only, or the full front interior of the car. The reason I’m wondering is that apart from what looks like a start button near the gearshift, that gearshift area looks almost identical between the two cars.

There’s not a whole lot we can tell based on the quality of the AMS photo, but it’s fun to try and really does whet the appetite for what’s going to possibly be Saab’s most important new model in a decade or so.

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Tuesday Snippets

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Saab art. There’s not enough of it, is there?

So here’s some from one of Gripen’s mates, Kyu Kwon. I’ve mentioned Kyu on this site before, back during Saab’s 60th Anniversary celebrations in San Diego, where he met Erik Carlsson for the second time; the first was back in his native Korea when he was a kid. There’s some more Saab art at that link, and here’s some new Saab animation that Kyu’s sent through Gripen for me to share with you here at TS.

Kyu’s website features a whole heap of automotive art and photography. Check it out.

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Saab Sweden have been trying out some inventive personal marketing…..

Saab’s ingeniousness has recently also been demonstrated in the promotion field. The brand simply called the businessmen and women on their way to Arlanda airport (in Stockholm) to offer them a ride in a Saab instead of having to pay a taxi.

This is an awesome example of Wait Marketing

I’ve never heard of Wait Marketing, but I guess it makes sense. Make some good use of what would otherwise be idle time.

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Parkers have a summary of the employee discounts currently available courtesy of Saab in Great Britain. Click to enlarge.

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One of the best attended Saab clubs in the world – The Saab Turbo Club of Sweden – had an event last weekend and as always, the photos are worth checking out if only for the sheer breadth of cars in attendance.

That’s my favourite blue Saab 99, taken from this album at Saab4fun. There’s another great collection of photos at the STCS forum.

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