In the last week, the 9-6x patent story’s made its way around the web and it’s now being headlined at Truck Trend as follows:

New Saab SUV Leaked Via Patent Images

This is completely erroneous, but such is the way of the internet sometimes. So how did we get to this?

Last Saturday, the 9-6x patent story started right here at Trollhattan Saab after I received the results of EduSaab’s patent research. It was a fun side note but the only question that could reasonably be raised from it why “Why register the patents now?”.

That was the end of it until the guys at TurboNines decided to pen a piece on the issue. The piece starts as a pretty good comparison between the 9-6x images and the revised Subaru Tribeca from 2007. In my opinion, that’s probably the reason or the patents and it’s where the article should have finished. Unfortunately, they went on stating that there might be reasons to think that the 9-6x project was being revived:

Thinking about the current cash-starved plight of Saab and its owner GM, the idea of a rejuvenated 9-6x project begins to make sense.

They then go on to list their reasons and to their credit, they DO conclude on the fact that it’s all based on circumstancial evidence and a bunch of assumptions.

But that’s not the way it gets picked up.

A day later, and I assume after an email from Turbonines that was similar to the one I received, Autoblog and Jalopnik both covered the issue with the possibility that Saab could be digging this vehicle out of the grave right there in the text.

From Autoblog:

Just this month a patent was filed for a Saab vehicle that can be nothing but the 9-6x that we all thought was dead. Why now? Well, the folks at TurboNines posit that we may yet see the Saabaru crossover for a couple of solid reasons.

From Jalopnik:

The interesting part is the supposed Saab 9-6X swipes much of its architecture and styling from the Subaru Tribeca, even though GM split with the Japanese automaker shortly after the original spy photos. These filings are dated as of November 4, 2008, so it’s not like they’ve been floating around in the ether for 3 years. It’s also possible the web is in the process of getting snookered by some photoshopper who thinks he’s a funny guy. If real it would be a replacement for the 9-7X which is about to be killed off with a plant closure.

They were both skeptical, but even a possibility of something like this gets picked up by the readers as happening and sure enough, the commenters at those sites had a fun old time talking about how Saab were so lame, blah blah blah.

A few days later, I spoke with Eric Geers and knocked the whole issue on the head. The 9-6x is off the table and has been for a number of years. I emailed both Autoblog and Jalopnik but nothing’s happened to update the story on either of those sites (apart from a few of you commenting in the original stories there – thanks).

Still, even after this story’s been killed, it showed up at Truck Trend with the headline I mentioned at the beginning of this story. The front page of the TurboNines site still shows the feature story Saab 9-6x On Again? and the story features no update as to the situation.

I don’t blame anyone for this. TurboNines probably should update their story to show that it’s off the table, but their original story DID say that it was based on inference and supposition.

It’s just an interesting study in how getting a story around the web can sometimes be like a giant game of Chinese Whispers.

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The end reply: “That car is completely off the table”

it took a few moments to get there, mind you. This car is so far off the table that I had to go back and re-cover last weekend’s report on the patent discovery in order to introduce the subject.

Eric surmised, like many of you in comments, that it was something else that brought about this design patent. It certainly wasn’t any plan for production and the patent didn’t originate out of a Swedish office as far as he knew.

“It could be something to do with some legal issues or something, but I don’t know. That car has nothing to do with out portfolio planning. It was initially destined to be the 9-6….”

With the discovery of the patent application last weekend, a few websites began to speculate that the model might still be a possibility. The TurboNines forum speculated after a little historical research that this might have been the case. This story was picked up by Jalopnik, and shortly thereafter by Motor Authority and a few others.

I think we can now sleep safely knowing that the next rounds of Saabs we’ll see will be designed as Saabs from the ground up.

I covered a few other issues with Eric Geers during this call, and I’ll get around to transcribing those in the near future.

For now, take a final look at what would have been the 9-6x and kiss it goodbye.

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In part two, I did a poll here asking you which vehicle you’d prefer: the 9-6x or what became the gap filler – the 9-7x. Over 60% of respondents thought the 9-6x would have been a better vehicle for Saab, despite the baggage of the Subaru connection that killed the 9-2x.

Actually, what was more interesting for me as a blogger was the low response rate. With only 156 votes, it seemed like people were somewhat careless about a Saab SUV all together.

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On to part three.

I wish I could tell you more about it, but the firewall on my PC won’t let me look into it further. That will have to wait until later.

What I can tell you is that some forum members over at VW Vortex’s Saab spinoff, TurboNines, claim that there’s some life left in the 9-6x story. I got this in via email from one of the TurboNines moderators:

I had time to do a little investigation last night via Google on what the rumors were back in 2005. Putting the pieces together, there’s a compelling case for the 9-6x being back in the cards. I’d be curious to hear your thoughts on it.

Jalopnik have picked up on the story, too, and provide linkage to the T9 site that I can’t see.

Without having seen the material, I’ve got to say I’m skeptical about it. I’ll stick to the theory that they were just covering off their intellectual property.

The thought that there would be a three-year-old design on the way when the current designs (9-5 and 9-4x) are yet to make it into production just seems a little too far-fetched to me.

I’ll check out that material later and follow up, but in the meantime, check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

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EduSaab is the Saab enthusiast world’s premiere patent researcher. Every story I’ve come up with here that’s involved registering a patent or design or whatever has come through his work. And here’s his latest effort.

He was looking around this weekend and having some trouble finding anything Saab related. GM are now registering new stuff as “GM” rather than “Saab” so it’s getting tougher to find things, though not impossible. By some clever use of search filters, EduSaab managed to come up with a new patent labelled as an “automobile” that he hadn’t seen before. The applicant were Anthony Lo and Anders Gustafsson and the applicant was GM Global Operations, Inc.

It gets even more interesting – the patent application was registered very recently – on the 4th November 2008, in fact.

There were no drawing with the initial page that EduSaab found, but he kept digging. A few searches later, he came up with these by searching via the patent number.

Now, those of you who are relatively new here at Trollhattan Saab might be seeing this vehice for the first time.

Those of you who have been here since the early days would recognise a very strong similarity between these images and the Saab 9-6x that was being proposed back around 2005.

These were the days of the 9-2x, when General Motors still owned part of Fuji Heavy Industries. The proposal was for a second Saab-Subaru collaboration, one that would provide Saab with a midsize SUV largely based on the Subaru B9 Tribeca.

These were amongst the first ever spyshots I showed here at Trollhattan Saab, back in August 2005:

The vehicle in the patent is a five-door vehicle and the one in the spyshots is a three door vehicle but the similarities are obvious and undeniable.

It’s an interesting development and one can’t help but be curious about why they’re lodging a design patent in 2008 on a vehicle that was canned back in 2005/2006.

The other interesting angle is to pause and reflect on a vehicle that was widely regarded with a tinge of caution (to say the least) a few years ago. As you know, the 9-2x was critically panned because it was way too much Subaru and too little Saab. Enthusiasts viewed these photos with a certain amount of cautious optimism, fearing that the 9-6x would be more of the same – too much Tribeca and not enough Saab.

The sale of GM’s interest in FHI took care of everyone’s concerns as the plans were cancelled. We’ve still got the 9-7x as we wait for the 9-4x to come to market.

Again – why register the design now, in November 2008?

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Many thanks to EduSaab for the excellent detective work!!

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News came out a few days ago that General Motors had lodged a design patent on the defunct Saab 9-6x, which was to be a Saab SUV built on the same architecture as the Subaru Tribeca. It didn’t happen, of course, because GM sold their interest in Subaru, they probably knew that XWD was in the pipeline, and maybe the flak from the 9-2x was too much to handle.

So, which would you have preferred?

The 9-7x has been met with a mix of criticism and praise. On one hand, it’s the best of the GM360 vehicles and very much appreciated by all the people who have actually bought one. It’s been Saab’s second best selling model in the US, has given them a quick, inexpensive presence in a market segment they were absent in and the Aero model sounds like the running of the bulls and goes like stink! On the other hand, it’s about as Saaby as a labrador retriever.

The 9-6x could have seen a lot more Saab input than the 9-7x and had the potential to use a much more modern AWD system and a more contemprary look.

But before you get all 9-6x-ish on us, though, remember that whilst the 9-2x was a reliable and fun car, it was roundly panned for being way too much Subaru and way too little Saab. The photos we saw of the 9-6x in prototype form showed that it was potentially heading that way, too.

So if you were king, which would you have made?

The voting lines are open…..

n

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There’s a report here in Dutch about how the 9-7x is quietly slipping into Europe in place of it’s dead brother. For those that prefer English, Yahoo have a story, basically the same as the one I put up earlier, but with more detail.

“We’ve had a good partnership; however both GM and FHI came to the conclusion that there were not enough collaborative projects to sustain the alliance and that each of our interests could be better served through a different approach,” said Troy Clarke, GM group vice president and president, GM Asia Pacific. Clarke resigned as Fuji’s director of the board Wednesday.

Since GM acquired a stake in Fuji in 2000, the companies have been working together in product development, advanced technology and global purchasing. GM will continue work with Fuji on one production vehicle, the Saab 9-2x, GM said. But other projects will end, including the joint development of a crossover vehicle, announced last year.

This last section has now been confirmed in a GM press release.

Jan-Ake, can I buy this one?? I’ll give you $5

PS. Thanks to all of you that wrote to me on this subject whilst I was snoring away in the Australian night time. Cheers.

Whoa!! This in from ITV….

….the big news is that the three-litre petrol boxer engine will not be alone. Saab and Subaru have been working closely to develop a boxer turbodiesel which is likely to debut in the 9-6X as a flat-four or flat-six. Industry sources say Saab have been working with Porsche engineers in an effort to advance the design of a horizontally-opposed turbodiesel engine. The German firm’s expertise in extracting high outputs from petrol-fuelled boxer layouts has apparently proved useful in creating an oil-burner with a sporting character.

How good could this vehicle be?

I’ve read in comments to the 9-6x preview photos that there’s a lot of scepticism surrounding this vehicle, but I suspect it could be a much better entrant in the SUV segment than the 9-7x. More individual, more versatile and if it comes with a flat-six diesel as an option, then it should be well and truly up to any towing tasks that you might have.

This is good news. The article quotes the 9-6x as being available in Britain in late 2007.

The article, in reference to the 9-6x photo, translates as follows:

“SAAB: Two new SUVs to bring momentum

Following the money cutting course including dismissal of a total of 12,000 employees in its european plants, GM will release new models in near future to improve capacity utilization.

For SAAB even two SUVs are to bring new verve. The bigger of the two models will certainly be an offset of the Japanese Subaru B9 Tribeca. Henderson did not disclose whether the second SAAB is to originate on the
same platform as the planned Opel-SUV that is positioned below the VW Touareg or the Mercedes M class. The SAAB models will be primarily produced for the US market.

Source: Auto-Reporter”

Here’s the photo again for those that missed it:

There is a reference, directly above the photo in the Speedheads article, to this being the 9-4x. However I think it is a 9-6x 3-door concept, based on the similarity of the rear-end to the both the photo’s I’ve received before (click here) and to the Tribeca itself.

Pavel’s idea (in comments) about ditching the Suuby taillights in favour of some SportCombi-style lights at the back is a one that Saab would do well to listen to. Not only would it look better but it’d also create a little more common DNA in the range.

This photo has been published on a site called ‘Speedheads‘ in Germany. If there’s any German readers that can translate any of the accompanying material, then we’d all be grateful, I’m sure.

From what I can tell, it’s being written up in a forum at Speedheads as a photo of the smaller 9-4x, but it looks very much like the photos I published here a while ago and it looks waaaaaay too much like a Tribeca at the rear to be anything but the 9-6x.

So what do you think? Personally, I think it’s a good starting point. I’m not sure about the huge door handles it seems to be sporting here, and I think if they’re going to do a 3-door, then the doors should be bigger – give it a more sporting feel. Other than that, I think it looks alright.

The word around the traps is that there’s people (i.e. decision-making people) that are unhappy with the whole 9-6x thing as it currently stands, saying that it needs a heck of a lot more work prior to production (which is likely to be why it didn’t get a run at Frankfurt). We’ll wait and see…..

It’s been all about the facelifted 9-5 this week, but I wanted to elevate this post again, as it’s significant. The impressions I’m getting from people indicate a pretty decent level of acceptance for this configuration, but a low tolerance for the B9-like tail lights. GM-employed readers (I know you’re out there) please take note. We’d love to see this car, but we want it done RIGHT.

And forget the headline, the consensus reads 9-6x all the way…..

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Djup Strupe II has done it again!! After coming through with the 9-5 spyshots last month, we have another scoop and a very exciting one at that.

The following two photos are of a model that may be previewed in Frankfurt (unconfirmed). Upon first glance they appear to be a crossover vehicle so the natural thought is for it to be the 9-6x.

The front. Note similar styling to the new 9-5 front.

However, a closer look shows that the car is actually a 3-door model. Djup mentions that it’s not likely for actual production in this guise, but looks fantastic.

It’s reportedly around BMW X3 size, which leads me to think it may be a prototype model for the 9-4x that’s been mentioned around the traps, crafted on the Epsilon platform. If so, then this is a very early prototype as the 9-4x isn’t scheduled for release until 2009.

So, 9-6x with a tricky body or 9-4x prototype? It’s hard to say, but here’s hoping they roll this baby onto the stage in Frankfurt next month so we can all get a better look!

The rear. Note the twin pipes and similar styling in the rear lights to the Tribeca.

Djup hints that the interior is very roomy and that this 3-door model hasn’t received a go-ahead for production. The dash is similar to a 9-3 or 9-7x dash.

Not much more to tell, I’m afraid.

I’m going with this as a tricky-body 9-6x. The cues from the Tribeca are just too strong in the rear for it to be anything else in my humble opinion. The fact thay’ve built up a 3-door is a big surprise and if this is a model in the balance then can I please add in my 0.02c worth and say “Yes!!”

Your verdict?

UPDATE: thanks to Ken via SC – Channel 4 are reporting in their Frankfurt preview that the 9-6x won’t be seen until the Detroit Motor Show in January. Bummer.