I’d like to take a moment to welcome anyone visiting Trollhattan Saab for the first time via the link in Saab’s latest Saab-i newsletter. Allow me to show you around a little….

As described in the Saab-i newsletter, Trollhattan Saab is a Saab enthusiast’s playground. It is not run by Saab or by General Motors, nor is it financed by them. Trollhattan Saab is an independently owned and operated weblog, or blog, that carries somewhere between 3 and 5 new Saab-related stories every day (yes, every day). The site has been operational since February 2005 and now carries almost 5,000 Saab-related articles and serves around 8,000 page views per day to Saab enthusiasts all around the world.

The best place to start is right where you landed when you clicked the link in the Saab-i newsletter: the front page at www.trollhattansaab.net. This is where the latest stories are published in chronological order. Click on the headline to read the whole story. If you’d like to dig a little deeper, however, then you can do that too.

Stories are organised into various categories, and you can browse the different categories via a drop-down box at the bottom of the right side-bar.

Some of the feature categories you might like to start off with:

Saab Pride: Where Saab owners shared photos and stories of their experiences with their Saabs. This category was born from a competition held late last year (here are the finalists) and I’m now working on a book based on these entries and new submissions.

Saab Videos and Trollhattan Video: the Saab videos archive contains various videos posted around the web. The Trollhattan Video archive comprises videos that I’ve made personally, including a number from my visit to Sweden last year for the Saab Festival. My personal favourite, though, is still my video tour of the Saab Aero-X concept car, which was an unforgettable experience.

Sweden 2007: If you’d like to see where the passion for Saab comes from, you’ve got to go Sweden for the Saab Festival. It’s held every two years in Saab’s home town, Trollhattan. This archive contains material from my visit there in 2007. The highlights include the guided tour I received of the Saab factory and a visit to the Saab Museum.

That’s just a few categories to get you started.

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Trollhattan Saab also has a number of Saab resources and products to enjoy. Just under the masthead at the top you’ll see a number of links. Hover over those and drop-down lists will appear that you can check out at your liesure.

Of particular interest may be the “Cars” tab, which holds model information for various Saabs over the years. The list isn’t complete yet, but it’s a good historical archive for those that are listed.

The “Downloads” tab contains a great archive of custom made Saab desktop wallpapers for your computer, a collection of X-Ray Saab drawings and a few other fun goodies.

The TS Shop link includes a collection of Saab books available at Amazon, as well as a link to the Saab Design T-Shirt shops. The Saab Design T-shirt stores are a collaboration between myself and a Saab enthusiast based in Hungary and feature a huge range of Saab-inspired apparel that you can purchase. They’re great quality and you can even customise the design colors to your own preferences and add text to the designs.

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What keeps Trollhattan Saab ticking, of course, is news. Trollhattan Saab is known for breaking news about Saabs, whether it’s from the 100 or so regular news sources that I scour every day, tips sent in from readers, or from sources inside Saab who send me news on the quiet. Trollhattan Saab broke some of the first images of the facelifted Saab 9-5 back in 2005, the Aero-X in 2006, the facelifted Saab 9-3 in 2007 and has broken heaps of inside stories in between.

If you want to keep abreast of all the latest that’s happening with Saab (and there’s plenty on the horizon), make sure you do what the Saab dealers do: stay tuned to Trollhattan Saab!

There’s several ways you can keep abreast of what’s going on here. The easiest way is to bookmark the site in your favourites, which I hope you’ve done already. If you’re familiar with using an RSS reader, I’ve got a list of RSS links in the left sidebar, including the most prominent readers like Google Reader and Bloglines. Just click on the icons and you’ll be ready to go.

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About the authors:

Trollhattan Saab is owned, managed, built, published and authored (primarily) by me. My name is Steven Wade and I live in Hobart, Australia. Around here I’m known as Swade. I’m a Saabnut whose owned Saabs ranging from a 1972 Saab 99E to a 1999 Saab 9-3 Viggen.

I’m fortunate enough to have two excellent gentlemen from other parts of the world contribute here from time to time. Click on their names to access the complete archive of their work.

Eggs n Grits is a 900 convertible and 9-5 owner from Franklin, Tennessee. His intelligence, wit and love for the Saab brand are only matched for scale by his tall physical stature and the beauty of his family.

Lance Cole is a working journalist based in the UK and known in the Saab community for his must-have book, Saab 99 and 900: The Complete Story. It’s a true privelige to have Lance’s work hosted here.

TS is also supported by many individuals who send in tips and stories for me to publish here, as well as a large group of people who leave great comments and have great discussions about the various stories.

In addition, TS has been able to send representatives to various Saab events and motor shows around the world. Gripen’s work at the Saab 60th Anniversary event in San Diego (one, two and three) is a notable example.

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Thanks for dropping by. I hope you enjoy your time at Trollhattan Saab and that you come again soon.

My thanks also to Saab for their support in including Trollhattan Saab in their Saab-i newsletter.

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