Here in Australia, European cars are seen as refined vehicles. I European car is, by default, held as being a classier ride than the Australian cars in its class. Because they attract a lot of import duties, they’re usually quite a bit more expensive, though they usually compensate for this by being reasonably well equipped by local standards.
It’s probably for these reasons that we don’t see a lot of highly modified European cars here in Australia. Like most places, the cars that get modified the most are the local cars. in Australia, that means pretty much anything that’s Australian or Asian. Modified Falcons and Commodores are only now being outnumbered by the Fast and the Furious crowd in what could probably be regarded quite rightly as an automotive generational change.
When I went to Sweden last year with my high regard for European cars in mind, I was quite surprised to see vehicles like these on show……
….but then I shouldn’t have been surprised, really, should I?
Just like the kids back home with their hot Hondas and freaky Falcons, these guys were locals modifying their local cars.
Not content with his discovery of the Saab 9000 Camovertible the other day, SaabRobz has been out there surfing the web looking for other very modified Saabs.
Here’s a few of the cars he found:
A chopped, re-snouted and vee-sixed Saab 95 wagon:
A mildly worked Saab 99T enjoying some attention from the ladies:
And a not-so-mildly worked Saab 99 with a 16 valve turbo slotted in there somewhere…
Here’s a very poor image of a modified Saab 96
But there’s a whole heap of better images of modified 96s here
….including another pic of this:
Not only is this a 99T (one of my favourite Saabs ever) it’s also a convertible. And it’s………very purple.
A rather amazing 95 ute that I’d like to see more of.
And of course, the ‘Saab Sonett V’ supposedly designed as a special by Sergio Coggiola and previously featured here.
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Somehow it all feels a little disrespectful and a little wonderful all at the same time. All of these people did things to Saabs that I’d never considering doing, but I’m glad they did it.
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I like it when done nicely, some can be carried off very well. I love the way that ute, pick-ups are made from normal bodies.
I like the 95 pickup as well. Martin’s website still says that his modified 96 turbo is for sale…
I agree with the last comment in the article, about it being kind of disrespectful, to a degree. I do appreciate other people’s takes and interpretations (if you can call them that), or just adding their own personality. It’s interesting at least to see the different things people do.
What I despise is when people turn the car into something it’s not, something that defies everything the car stands for and was meant to be.
I’d say the home-car modification rule is broken here in the US. We modify lots of domestics for sure, but the Japanese import modifiers are a huge crowd too. It’s probably because cars are so cheap in the US.
-Rogan