It’s certainly a busy weekend over at Auto Motor and Sport.

Yesterday it was naked 9-3x photos and today it’s more photos of the Saab 9-5 in winter testing northern Sweden. This vehicle is the one that’s actually registered as being a Holden, but don’t let that throw you off. It’s got a 180hp diesel and an automatic transmission.

There are six photos in all, and they’re all tree times the size of this one (or is that nine times the size? I get confused sometimes).

They’re all available over at Auto Motor and Sport.

Photoshop experts, feel free to do your thing……

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Someone named “keeneyes” produced what is my favourite photochop of the 2010 Saab 9-5 so far, basically by taking a couple of real spyphotos and making silhouettes of them.

Robert B has done some digging through the archives and looked at the many photoshop predictions that have surfuced in the media over the last 18 months and has come up with a very similar shaped vehicle to compare the real car’s silhouette with.

Here’s the comparison. Click to enlarge.

The image on the left first appeared on this site way back in March 2007 and was noted then as coming from a Danish magazine (i.e. a magazine from Denmark, not a magazine about sweet pastries). As far as the overall shape is concerned, it’s a very good likeness.

I find myself hoping that they’ll have evolved the exterior design a little more from the current 9-5, however.

For comparitive purposes, here are the other images that have surfaced so far….right back to mid-2006.

From Saab:

From Vibilgare:

[Read the rest of this entry →]

Following on from his initial effort, covered yesterday, “keeneyes” has produced another 2010 Saab 9-5 silhouette based on spyshots that we’ve seen already.

As ELBOBO said in comments “I haven’t seen it, but I have a feeling you’re darn close”. And I hope that’s right because this looks very tasty indeed.

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After a good debut last year, it looks like our unofficial Saab ambassador in the UK, Robin M, is organising another Swedish Day UK for 2009.

Last year’s gathering was a real success with a decent bunch of Saabs and even a couple of Ovlov’s turning up.

Details will be published here once they come to hand, like now, for instance.

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The blessing of having the right equipment when you’re going to take some photos….

And the beauty of what you can do with it…..from Flickr

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All going well, this website will cease as an active site from next weekend and will become an archive. You’ll directed to the new site automatically.

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This is just a few random dot points encompassing some disjointed things I’ve heard in the last few weeks as well as some common knowledge – and I’d also like to address a few lines of thought that came through in the most recent summary post on the 2010 Saab 9-5.

Photofun

I like the photo manipulation done by ‘keeneyes’ on one of the spyshots of the 9-5. Like everything else, it’s inconclusive, but it definitely adds some interest.

‘Jeff’ has also been playing, and come up with some similarities with other existing vehicles….

….but the bottom line is that we know little other than how they do their disguise work.

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Engines

Djup Strupe has been in touch overnight and left a note to the effect that the 1.6Turbo is being looked at for the 9-5 in continental markets, but that the engine’s emissions figures aren’t quite as impressive as the low engine volume would suggest. Maybe there’s some more tweaking to be done in that department.

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Horsepower vs useable horsepower

Hopefully Saab have learned from the Turbo X that if you’re going to bring a new car to market then it’d be a marketing mistake of no small proportion – if it’s touted as a performer and it’s in the larger category of cars – to under-cook the output.

An Aero edition of the Saab 9-5 will need to bring at least 300hp to the table, and yes, I’d agree with everyone else that being outgunned by the OPC Insignia would be a negative…..BUT….

One of the things that you may not be aware of is that the decisions for much of this sort of thing were made in Germany, by GM Europe. The biggest player within the walls of GM Europe is Opel, and the gents at Opel – despite the smiles you might see publicly at car shows – don’t like Saab too much.

In fact, from what I’ve heard, now that GM are looking to spin Saab off into an quasi-independent entity, the phone lines between Saab and Opel have almost stopped ringing completely.

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I believe that the Saab 9-5 will get the top-model power it needs – eventually. But don’t be surprised if it’s not all at once. I don’t have any info in this respect – I’m just urging some caution lest some of the reactive types out there throw the baby out with the bathwater. Saab’s first priority here is a solid, well-performing, upper-end vehicle to sell to a majority of potential buyers in that slice of the market.

The solid, uber-performance niche version can wait a little.

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I definitely don’t agree that the Saab 9-5 needs anything north of 350hp to do well. And furthermore, if they do go as high as 350hp then they’d better do it with the utmost efficiency otherwise their brand and marketing messages are going to be quite compromised.

Such thinking is the same sort of thing that’s led to the situation carmakers are in now —> More more more!!

No No No.

What’s needed is smart smart smart, not same same same.

This car will need a reasonable top end power figure, but more importantly, it’ll need monstrous torque available through the majority of the rev range and it’ll need XWD to keep the power to the ground. These three elements, done the Saab way, will see one ripper of a vehicle come into play.

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And as to the suggestion of a big, normally aspirated 3.6litre V6 engine as the top model…..I certainly hope not.

Saab need to maintain an all-turbo lineup. It’s part of the driving characteristics of the brand. 0-100km/h isn’t anywhere near as important as 80-120km/h or 100-140km/h. I realise that it might be when it comes to newsprint, but not in the real world.

Give us a range of efficient, direct injected, turbocharged, real-world performing engines and teach the rest of them some common sense by proving your configuration on the road.

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These are just my thoughts. Feel free to shoot ‘em down.

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Before I start on that…..

I got this email in this afternoon from a guy I know in Sweden:

……I had been invited to a special viewing of the new 9-5 at Saab. The car was showed in a little courtyard and was covered with a nice thick cover. When they pull the cover off, it’s a standard 9-5 sedan that they’ve slapped an old 99 ducktail boot onto….and the interior is stock but addad an alitmeter and a compass and an analog(!) radio.

I told one of the Saab employees “You’re all screwed, better start looking for new jobs cause Saab wont be around in 12 months.”

Then he woke up……

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The 2010 Saab 9-5 is most likely around 7 or 8 months away from making a public debut, but the momentum is already gathering around this most important of vehicles.

With the possiblity of a new lease of life being breathed into Saab courtesy of a financial crisis and an interested Swedish government, there’s some renewed optimism surrounding Saab and most of that optimism is being channelled – with no small amount of anticipation – in the direction of the Saab 9-5.

So here’s a summary of what we think we know so far.

* The car will most likely make it’s public debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2009. The fact that it would come in 2009 was confirmed further in a press release from GM themselves earlier this month.

* Originally slated for manufacture in Russelsheim, Germany, it looks increasingly like the Saab 9-5 will be built in Saab’s own plant in Trollhattan, Sweden. This was first mentioned back in December 2008 and now looks quite likely, due to the loans Saab might get from the Swedish government having to be used for works inside Sweden.

* It is believed that the Saab 9-5 will be on sale in Europe shortly after the Frankfurt show. Steve Shannon, who works at Saab in some capacity or other in the US, recently told Motor Trend magazine that it was “about a year away”

* It may or may not have a hatch (how’s that for committed!)

* When you cover it in tape and big bits of plastic, and quite possibly tack on bits that aren’t real, it looks like this:

* And the interior may look like this:

* One English source claimed that the new Saab 9-5 may well get a turbocharged 1.6 litre engine. I thought that was too small and many of you did, too, but I guess it’s possible.

* A commenter here at TS, who previously posted some very accurate engine specs for the 9-4x, chimed in with the following as engines that will be used in the Saab 9-5:

2.0T 190hp + 220 hp
2.0T Biopower 190-220 hp
2.8T V6 260 hp
2.0 Tid 160 hp + 190 hp
2.9 Tid V6 XWD AT 250 hp

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That’s it so far.

It’s not much when you look at it, but it’s a heck of a lot more than we had even a month ago.

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Swedish website Altommotor has come across some new images of the Saab 9-5 in testing. Unlike the last lot, which were shot in Spain, this time it looks like it might be following the 9-4x around in northern Sweden.

These seem to be a bit closer than the Spanish shots, as well. You can see the grille through this one, and the rear shot at the link is particularly interesting, I think.

There are five shots in all. Click through at the link above to see them all.

Thanks again to ctm or the heads-up!

A carrier pigeon dropped this in my mailbox through the week. From parts unknown.

I work at a Saab dealership. A little while ago we had a meeting bringing together a number of dealerships with some senior Saab officials.

We were shown a few pictures of the new 9-5, both the sedan and wagon. They were absolutely amazing! We saw a picture of one of the first pre-production 9-5’s, in white. It may be the car that appeared in Spain. We were asked to kindly keep our phones and cameras in our pockets…

He told us that the 9-4x 9-3x (sorry, my misprint – SW) will have its debut in Geneva on March 09, and the 9-5 on Sept. 19 in Frankfurt.

Most important: 2009 will be, as we know, a tough year for Saab. But from 2010 you should expect an upwards trend! Saab doesn’t want to be another Audi, but wants to be the Apple of the automotive industry. A small company, but with a name ten times bigger and loved by a special group of people. Smashing design, environmental turbo technology, aircraft heritage. A wanna-have car.

Encouraging stuff, indeed. Djup Strupe also related some real optimism amongst those in attendance. I bet they can’t wait to get those new vehicles in their forecourts.

I can’t wait to get one in my driveway!

I don’t have a source for the report just yet, but J4 has just dropped a note in comments claiming that the Director, Saab Brand & Global Sales Operations – Knut Simonsson – has confirmed that the 2010 Saab 9-5 will be shown at the Frankfurt Motor Show.

The Frankfurt Motor Show will be open to the public from September 19-27, 2009.

I’ll print more when I can confirm.

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I should add that Nigel has also mentioned in comments today that his local dealer (in Kent, UK) has told him that the 9-5 will be available on showroom floors in the UK before the end of the year.

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