Red October indeed!
Holy cow. All companies had negative sales during Red October, but GM took the cake amongst the bigger companies with sales dropping f-o-r-t-y-f-i-v-e percent in October.
Given that the arse fell out of GM’s sales so dramatically, it’s pleasantly surprising to report that Saab sales actually bucked this trend. They were still down for the month, but at only 13% down, it almost feels like a win!
There were 1,975 Saab sold in the US market during October, a 13.2% drop from the 2,275 sold there at the same time last year.
Year to date, there have been 19,337 Saabs sold in the US, which is still a massive 30.8% drop on the 27,960 sold last year.
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Saab 9-3
SaabUSA sold 1,471 units of the Saab 9-3, down by 12.3% on the 1,677 units sold this time last year.
Interestingly, in the press release, it says the following about Saab and the 9-3 in particular:
Saab retail sales were up 7.4 percent compared with a year ago, driven by the strong retail performance of the 9-3, which was up more than 16 percent.
Retail sales were up by 7.4? Retail 9-3 sales were up by 16? What are the non-retail sales, and how far did they fall through the floor to lead the brand down over all?
I suspect they’re sales to GM employees, etc, which if I remember correctly were going to be restricted for MY09. Perhaps that’s taking hold? If so, those employee sales must ba making up a significant chunk of the total.
Saab 9-5
Saab USA sold 188 units of the Saab 9-5, down from 282 this time last year. That’s a fall of 33%.
Saab 9-7x
The Saab 9-7x was stable in October, selling 316 units – the exact same number it sold this time last year.
The 9-7x was most likely boosted in the second half of October by a gasoline price that fell to below $3 a gallon.
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There were also 506 Saab Certified Pre-owned vehicles sold, which was down by 2%.
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From the press release:
[GM's PR guru, Mark] LaNeve announced that GM’s no-haggle Red Tag Event starts nationwide tomorrow, Nov. 4. The Red Tag Event will provide great deals on most new vehicles in GM’s portfolio by offering a special Red Tag vehicle price and customer cash back. In addition, GM’s recently announced “Financing That Fits” program enables consumers to find financing at affordable rates from GMAC and thousands of other banks, credit unions and financing institutions.
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A few days ago, Robert Farago wrote at TTAC according to one of his sources, an announcement would come from GM on Monday that would effectively put Saab and GMC on the same starvation plan as HUMMER.
Farago expanded on his doomsday scenario for Saab yesterday when he asked how come you can’t build a 2009 Saab on the SaabUSAA website?
Monday’s come and gone in the US and guess what – nothing. Well, that’s not quite true. There was something…..
I got an email from Jan-Willem Vester at SaabUSA indicating that the delay in getting the 2009 models on the website was primarily due to them using a new vendor for the “Build your own” section of the website. It’s not ready yet, but should be by around mid-November.
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GM’s other brands in the US were down during October, as follows:
Cadillac 55.1%,
Buick 46.3%,
Chevy 40.3%,
GMC 52.5%,
Pontiac 48.2%
Saturn 54.6%
Hummer 64.6%
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Who wants to buy a car from a company making the headlines regularly as going into chapter 11, sooner or later…
I can’t bring myself to register at TTAC, primarily because those regularly contributing seem to be on the ignorant end of the spectrum when it comes to Saab stuff. So instead of commenting there about the 08s versus 09s on the website, I’ll do it here.
Keep in mind that last year it wasn’t until December that the 2008s showed up on the SaabUSA website. They are ahead of last year’s schedule with a mid-November launch of the 2009s.
Over at LeftLaneNews:
“We’ve been told that, in the last few days, suppliers working on Saab’s 9-4x crossover vehicle were instructed not to ship any more parts to GM facilities. Production was scheduled to commence in the fall of 2009 at GM’s Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico. Apparently the Saab is now delayed as much as 12 months for the U.S market.
Codenamed GMT168, the 2010 Saab 9-4x was set to be sharing GM’s TE chassis with the new 2010 Cadillac SRX (GMT166). For now, we hear the Caddy is still a go and will start rolling down the line in May of 2009 at Ramos Arizpe.”
Bean-counters, anyone?
Sigh. Its freakin brutal out there.
I hope GM and Saab are around in two years for me to buy another Saab.
Peter – the mid-November launch for 2009 models cannot be correct.
I saw two 2009 models Aero with XWD (one SC, one SS) two weekends ago at one of our local dealers. I was surprised to see them as I hadn’t read anything on TS, but there they were….beautiful….and the retail sticker read around $45,000+ US.
The interior was not parchment, nor the grey, but a dark black – very nice.
Their website says they have 5 in stock.
Salesman said he got them in middle September.
Sorry, I meant they received shipment middle of October, of course.
If you’ll watch the video, the new identifier on the rear deck no longer reads ‘Aero’, but now reads ‘Aero V6′, and under that ‘turbo.
Tim,
Peter’s referring to their presence on the SaabUSA website rather than their actual presence at dealers, which is correct.
Dealers are getting a few 09s dribbling into their yards now, but the SaabUSA site hasn’t been updated to include the 09s, but that website update should happen by around mid-November according to the info I received last night from JWV of SaabUSA.
Good pickup on the new badging, Tim!
Though I think it might be an XWD badge below the V6
yup; you’re right again, Swade. it reads ‘XWD’
The fact that 9-5 sales have tanked for the past year or so is an indication that the new one should be introduced asap! I will say it again, good on the 9-7X which must be lessinging the negative side of Saab’s profit/loss table. $40000 x 316 is a half decent amount of money assuming that they sell for anywhere near that amount. Its better that $40000 x ZERO though. Yes the 9-7X isnt a real Saab but its a sale!
I’m registered at TTAC and there are times I just throw up my hands at the level of ignorance there, whether it’s about Saabs or about much of anything else for that matter. Swade has more tolerance of the Coliseum mentality (‘let’s cheer the bloodletting of all the Detroit car companies!’) than do I.
The “Build Your Own” section at the Saab USA website really did need some work. I remember playing around with it and it appeared that if you pick the Aero trim level for the 9-5 you couldn’t specify ventilated seats as an option. But if you picked the 2.3T (non-Aero) you could specify the ventilated seats option. That made no sense. Why would the up-level trim line not allow you to add an option you could to the standard trim line?
I think it was JWV who explained to me that it’s just a limitation of the website. You can order the Aero with ventilated seats, it just doesn’t allow you to on the website.
I wonder how many other quirks like this there were? I guess it justifies changing vendors.
Interesting on the addition of the V6 badge – although this might be intended to solve the problem of people being surprised that Saab offers a V6 in the Aero model.
Many individuals I talk to have no idea that Saab offer’s a V6 in it’s current model lineup – which is a good thing on the road.
SAAB isn’t taking as big of a hit as the other GM brands. That’s good news.
More fuel efficient cars? Smarter buyers? Less affected by the economy?
The Aero V6 comes from the fact that in some markets there is also a Aero 4 with 210bhp and even the Aero TTiD. The V6 badge is just a differentiation to show the car has the biggest engine.
Speaking of badging, Saab can’t (re)introduce more visible badging soon enough. The present badge with the griffin with the Saab name below is simply too small to read and is not exactly iconic like the Benz star, VW or even BMW badge that anyone particularly recognizes. Also, many of these Saab griffin badges have peeled off. Fortunately, it appears the badging on future vehicles have scrapped the griffin in favor of a large “SAAB.” It almost looks to be a return to the chrome SAAB badge on my ’69 V4 and at least should make the brand more recognizable.
If the badges didn’t peel it wouldn’t be a true Saab
Seriously, I like the griffin in the badges but they’ve been peeling since 1970. It baffles me that
they haven’t been able to solve the problem.
Luckily there are lots of sticker type solutions out there that seem to work. Makes one question
the design of anything coming out of GM and Saab..ie a guy on the internet can make a sticker
that last but Saab can’t…
Red Tag Event= Employee Pricing. Why don’t they just put the prices down and leave them there?
As someone who is looking for a lightly used Sportcombi, the new prices just seem to high. Sure the 2.0T is 24K, but add in 6K of options to get it loaded up, and you’re right back at 30K. On the plus side, if you’re looking for a manual tranny, and no options, you could get a sweet deal on a sedan.
My wife and I visited the (now combined) Saab/Hummer dealer. We were the only people in the showroom, or on the lot, in the middle of a perfect 65 degree Saturday. Not another soul for the hour we were there. Not a good sign.