UPDATED – new translation of the original article, with thanks to Albert!

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There’s been mumblings here previously about the possibility of the next Saab 9-3 being built on the compact Delta platform instead of the next generation Epsilon II. See the following links for the background:

Saab 9-5 and 9-3 future model news
What’s going on with the Saab 9-3?
Saab 9-1 and 9-3 – the Saab response

In short, those articles cover the possible decision to make the next Saab 9-3 on a compact vehicle platform, the same as will be used for the next Opel Astra. Currently, the Saab 9-3 is built on the larger Epsilon platform and it was assumed that it would be produced on the new Epsilon II platform eventually, in Russelsheim, Germany. The new Saab 9-5 will be produced on this platform starting in 2009.

In the article noted above as “the Saab response”, Saab’s PR manager in Sweden, Eric Geers, confirmed that they were looking at the compact Delta platform for the 9-3 as a means to reduce weight and better meet emission requirements. He pointed out that the vehicle architecture is just a modular basis for the vehicle and that vehicles of varying sizes and specifications can all be made from the one architecture.

That’s the history.

Today there’s been another article appear in Hendelsblatt, in Germany, that all but confirms that the Saab 9-3 will be built on this smaller architecture. The report states that the next Saab 9-3 will be built in Trollhattan rather than in Russelsheim.

The Trollhattan factory is soon to be re-tooled for the Delta platform in the near term and will be producing the current Epsilon 9-3 and the new Delta vehicles concurrently. It seems this will continue until the current 9-3 is phased out and the new version moves to Delta as well. New Epsilon II vehicles such as the Saab 9-5 will be produced in Russelsheim and the withdrawal of the Saab 9-3 from those plans will leave Russelsheim with a fair amount of excess capacity.

An updated translation from the original artical in German is as follows:

GM draws back production job from Opel.

The Opel-mother company General Motors (GM) has made a course correction with the production plans for Europe. The company plans apparently to give the production job for the next generation Saab 9-3 to the family plant of the Swedes instead of to Rüsselsheim.

FRANKFURT. According to information from business circles, the GM Board is expected to deal with the issue in June. With that the automobile manufacturere is giving the precedence to a badly filled aout Trollhättan Saab plant in preference to the Opel family plant in Rüsselsheim, that was originally planned to build the car.

To compensate the GM management around GM-Europe’s boss Carl-Peter Forster considers to give build jobs based on the Astra platform or the Chevrolet Epica to Rüsselsheim, it is said in the company.

A spokesman for GM Europe (GME) would not comment on the plans: “Our management cannot comment to the production site of the future Saab 9-3 at the moment.” The management although has just made clear commitments to order volumes to the works. To this the manufacturer will keep itself, said the spokesman.

In 2005, the Rüsselsheim factory promised that the future Saab middle class car would be made there. According to information from business circles the car company is planning now, however, to build the successor to the Saab 9-3, which is expected on the market in 2012, no longer on the old Vectra platform, but on the basis of a new compact car platform.

The works council chairman of the plant in Bochum, Rainer Einenkel, had already announced in the specialist magazine Auto, Motor und Sport “,that its location would apply to the model. Bochum is one of four future GM Astra plants in Europe and would be able to build the next Saab 9-3 also on this basis. But the U.S. company seems to prefer to fill the capacity at the plant in Trollhättan with the model, where in the future – according to business circles – the planned Saab 9-1 small car is expected to be built.

One year after the decision where to build the most important for GM model in Europe, the Astra compact car, the race for the manufacturing site for the current smallest model Saab is internally as good as decided. Open, on the other hand, is still with which cars GM management will ensure the production capacity and models in the Opel headquarters in Rüsselsheim.

Opel company works council chairman Klaus Franz said recently that he assumes that GM will keep to its assurances. “We have a signed contract with the management, capacity and the volume is definitely ensured,” he said. GM had promised the works council in an agreement in the autumn of last year to produce up to six GM models in Rüsselsheim by 2012. Currently in Rüsselsheim only the middle class models Vectra and Signum are produced, that will be replaced by the Insignia from November,

GM restructures further with this its production plans for its European operations after the reassignment of the important Astra production in the works Bochum, Gliwice and Ellesmere Port.
Only last week the company, that writes its books deep in the red on the home market, had announced investments in a total of 9 billion Euros in its core brand Opel until 2012 and announced a guarantee for the Astra plants, including Bochum until the year 2016.

Once again, I’m going to write to Saab Sweden and seek a response to what appears to be a measure of progress on this issue.

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The possible threat here is that the Saab 9-3 could be too close to the proposed Saab 9-1 idf they are both built on the same architecture. The move to Delta would definitely make a marked difference between the Saab 9-3 and Saab 9-5, however, something that hasn’t been around since 2002.

Eric Geers remained confident when I last heard from him (again, the link above) that the Saab 9-1 would see production. I guess the challenge here is to make sure the 9-1 and the 9-3 are remarkably different vehicles.

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Thanks very much to LML for the article