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Another groovy vintage Saab ad, spotted on Flickr:
Here’s the text. Click to enarge or just view the large version in all it’s glory.
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The Bologna Motor Show is set to start in early December, and Saab will be showing it’s 2009 Griffin edition Saab 9-5s at the show.
Another groovy new set of Saab wheels is born!!
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The real carnage hasn’t even begun but already the body count is starting to mount in the wake of the global financial crisis and the way it’s hitting automakers.
Dashboard plan closes in the UK:
More than 80 staff at a manufacturing firm were today told they face being made redundant before Christmas. Lawrence Automotives, which has been operating since 1875, is expected to cease trading on December 18….
…The firm, which is based in Victoria Business Park in Netherfield, produces dashboards for cars including Peugeot 207s and Saab 95s.
Getrag and Chrysler dissolve US transmission plant plans and start suing one another:
The roundabout that was the Chrysler, LLC-Getrag partnership recently came to an end with Chrysler pulling out the deal, citing untenable financing terms. Now Getrag Transmission Manufacturing, the U.S. company that was going to build the dual-clutch transmissions for Chrysler, has filed for Chapter 11. Getrag has done so in order to streamline its handling of claims and creditors.
Detroit ad agencies are in for some pain:
Word that General Motors Corp. will slash its 2009 marketing spending by a “double-digit” percentage is the latest bad news for Detroit’s struggling advertising industry.
The cut is part of the automaker’s attempt to stay afloat financially after reporting a $2.5 billion third-quarter loss and warning that it could run out of cash next year.
It’s all happening, people.
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Guys from GM Europe on speaking with the German government:
Opel thanks German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), Economics Minister Michael Glos (CSU) and Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück (SPD) for the opportunity to meet in the Federal Chancellery today and to talk about possible government guarantees. The talks were conducted in a very constructive and open atmosphere. The representatives of Adam Opel GmbH are therefore reassured that their request was listened to seriously and will be so considered.
Carl-Peter Forster, Supervisory Board President of Adam Opel GmbH and President of General Motors Europe underscores once again the special situation of Opel as a subsidiary of General Motors. “Opel does not have a short-term liquidity problem,” Forster says. Instead, the talks were required in the worst-case scenario that financial flows from the US no longer would be possible. It would then be necessary to secure the competitiveness of Opel. In this case, a government guarantee could be a solution. “We are not talking about subsidies, rather a protective umbrella of available liquidity in the worst case,” Forster says.
The Opel management, Forster says, feels duty bound to work toward the goal of securing the future of this traditional brand. This is particularly important for the future of great automobiles: On the very day of the chancellery talks, the new Opel Insignia was awarded “Car of the Year 2009” by expert motoring journalists.
Participants in the talks for Opel were Carl Peter Forster, Supervisory Board President of Adam Opel GmbH and President of General Motors Europe; Hans Demant, Opel Managing Director and Klaus Franz, head of Opel Works Council.
Note: Any funds they secure for Opel have to stay in Germany and don’t necessarily help Saab, especially in Sweden, but progress is progress nonetheless.
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6 responses so far ↓
1 Eduard(Edusaab)
// Nov 18, 2008 at 10:14 am
About Lawrence Automotive, cheking its website it seems they do interior trims for the BLS, and I suppose for the 9-3ss.
About the 9-5 griffin, I found the catalog in Saab.com Germany website for download.
http://www.saab.de/de/de/start#/buy-own/services/broschure-anfordern/
regards
2 Swade
// Nov 18, 2008 at 10:30 am
It looks like Saab Germany have adopted the Global website’s template, too. Looks great.
3 Markac
// Nov 18, 2008 at 10:41 am
Obviously Lawrence Automotive did not get the contract for the new 9-5 or perhaps the delay on the new model is more than it can cover?
It seems that Opel is pretty optimistic it can survive the worst that could happen to GM North America. I hope that Saab as part of GM Europe is in a similar position.
4 elsch
// Nov 18, 2008 at 6:08 pm
“… don’t necessarily help Saab,… ” – When I came home yesterday evening, there was something on the onboard news screen of the subway: Sweden’s minister of finance considers governmental help for both Volvo and Saab. He said this at a presenation of a economic forecast, which was presented in Stockholm yesterday. Although, he mentionend no details.
So maybe it’s not the German government (why should it?) that helps Saab through the crisis, but the Swedish.
Here’s the link to the German article: http://www.focus.de/politik/schlagzeilen?day=20081117&did=949733&gn=0
5 Snotfjold
// Nov 18, 2008 at 6:38 pm
It would be interesting to see what the consequences would be if each national government started helping their ailing car manufacturers. Would Saab and Volvo become nationalized and Swedish, would opel be split up into several independant companies? GM Europe is a Swiss entity, perhaps the Swiss buy the whole lot off from GM, I doubt it.
It seems to me that a concerted effort is needed but perhaps not in terms of direct help to individual companies. The Eu has with new legislation made it more and more difficult over the years for car makers to actually make money. It is time they give some of that back and at the same time increase incentives or reduces taxes on cars to drive up demand.
GM in North America is suffering from utter incompetence, lack of vision and a very large baggage of decades of bad decisions and what they need is a team going in making big and necessary cuts at all levels.
The risk for Saab at this stage is that if Opel and Saab would be separated, Opel may not want to keep Saab around anyway. Then all we can hope for is a quick sell of the brand and Swedish assets to a company that catually want to do something with it, for instance make money AND good cars.
6 Markac
// Nov 18, 2008 at 6:53 pm
Snotfjold: Opel could retain part ownership of Saab and remain the major OEM supplier of platforms etc. Someone more interested could run Saab and spearhead them into the future. That could work out rather well.