Just a short post to set the record straight on SPGs and whether I, personally, actually ever owned one. I didn’t. It wasn’t my fault! (Read on).

After studying the recent spread on the 900 SPG in Hemmings Sports and Exotic Cars, I had to face the fact that Saab stopped making SPGs in 1991. Since I owned a 1993, that caused me to think. (I’m at least bright enough to figure that out!)

I owned a 1993 Saab 900 3-door which was specially equipped for performance. “Factory tuned” to make 10 more hp than any SPG ever made. It had the same (or similar) suspension modifications. It had the factory SPG body kit installed. It was black. It possessed some of the best leather that money could buy.

But, alas, it wasn’t an actual SPG, and I’ve always assumed that it was.

In my defense, in those days you really only could get information on the differences between model years from a few reliable sources. Even if you had the information in hand, you likely had to collate and compare manually and account for the undocumented exceptions on top of that. So as ludicrous as it may sound now, even a Saab enthusiast wouldn’t know the exact model year changes on a long-running automobile such as the 900 without a lot of effort.

What exactly did I own? It appears that it was a 1993 900 Commemorative Edition. From the Saabce.com site (with thanks to PGAero for pointing me in this direction):

The 900 Commemorative Edition Turbo Coupe was offered in the US market in the spring of 1993. This model was only available as a three-door turbo with a manual transmission. It had a 185 Hp engine which made it the highest performing 900 ever. The extra horsepower was achieved through the modified “red box” APC, a 2.8bar fuel pressure regulator, and a special distributor with enhanced vacuum advance. It also offered an improved suspension. You could get it in any color you wanted; as long as that color was black with tan interior. At the time, it was considered the quintessential Saab 900 Turbo. Only a limited number were produced (literature states 325 but it appears only about 314 were actually built). All included leather interior, a burled walnut instrument panel facia (the first Saab 900 to get this treatment), a leather gear knob and boot, and special directional alloy wheels with polished outer lips and metallic gray centers.
Each 1993 Commemorative Edition came with a special 3.5″x 1.5″ engraved brass plaque to be mounted on the floor console in front of the shifter. The plaques showed each car’s specific number in the series (xx of 325). The plaques were not mounted on the cars when they were built and may not reflect the cars actual build number. The plaques came in the owner’s packet for each car and were to be installed by the dealer or by the owner. They were mounted with double-face tape and often came off, or perhaps were never installed, so some CE’s may not have their original plaque.

This fits my car’s description exactly. That silly little plaque was an eyesore that I removed almost as soon as I bought the thing. It was affixed to the glove box door on my car. Cheesy. It was as if Saab USA had contracted with Things Remembered or a local sports trophy shop to make a few thin little stick-on markers with the standard serif font. As stated above, they simply used double-sided tape to stick the plate to the car. Again, cheesy.

When I bought the car from TRA Saab, our local Saab dealer in Knoxville, Tennessee (I lived there at the time), it was two years old and already had the SPG body panels installed. In fact, it is quite possible that they were installed on the car when new, either by the dealer (TRA also sold the car when it was new) or by Saab USA. Either way, it would have been an undocumented upgrade. As an interesting bit of trivia, TRA Saab may have been the smallest Saab dealer in existence at the time. I have no way of knowing 100% whether that’s true, but it was small. The owner, Gary Wagner (I cannot believe that I remember his name), was also the only salesperson! There was one Saab mechanic and only two other employees for a total of four people working at the dealership. They sold out to the local Cadillac dealer in an odd bit of foreshadowing only a couple of years later.

So, here’s the “tale of the tape” as they say. 1991 900 SPG v. 1993 900 CE:

Engine Output:
1991 900 SPG: 175 bhp @ 5500 rpm, 195 ft-lbs. @ 3000 rpm
1993 900 CE: 185 bhp @ 5500 rpm, 201 ft-lbs. @ 2800 rpm

Chassis Modificiations:
1991 900 SPG: Gas-filled shocks with shorter, stiffer springs. Lowered two inches.
1993 900 CE: Gas-filled shocks with shorter, stiffer springs. Lowered two inches.

1991 900 SPG: Sway bars front and rear.
1993 900 CE: Sway bars front and rear.

Wheels:
1991 900 SPG: Silver SPG/Aero three-spoke wheels.
1993 900 CE: Metallic grey/silver directional three-spoke wheels.

The bottom line: I owned a great Saab 900. It wasn’t an actual SPG, but it was darn close. I wish like heck that I still had it.

With the help of the GM Heritage collection 1991 Saab 900 SPG, Hemmings Sports and Exotic Cars has written one of the best summaries on the 900 SPG and the state of today’s market for collector/enthusiast buyers in their December 2008 edition.

Highs: Great pictures, some solid tips on automobile condition and what to look for.
Lows: Workman-like prose, a few omissions.

Result: A satisfying four-page spread on my favorite Saab.
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I’ve always had a fondness for Hemmings Motor News, the original publication from Hemmings that was and still is, to some degree, the gold standard in collector car classified advertising. I can remember reading Hemmings 30 years ago and learning that a) there were a slew of car marques that I knew nothing about, b) English cars had horrible electrical systems and c) people could and would do almost anything to a car.

There were sleek Jaguar E-types and Jensen-Healys from Britain, odd-looking World War II surplus vehicles with various mods and really fat American cars from the 1940′s and 1950′s. It didn’t take very long to determine that Dusenburgs, Cords and pre-war Rolls-Royces were the big money cars (probably still are today) and that people were fascinated with 1957 Chevrolets, an interest that I honestly do not share. Of course, Mustangs and Corvettes were abundantly represented, too.

I remember one particular story written in narrative style by an Austin-Healy Sprite collector that had agreed to buy a bug-eyed Sprite over the phone, took the bus to Denver, Colorado from his home in California and drove the car home. His account included a few twists and turns that I’ve since forgotten, but I remember two fascinating revelations: first, he discovered that the Sprite’s sputtering along the way home was due to the fact that an ignition wire had failed and was arcing the path instead and, second, he had a regular paint shop where he dropped off the car without a word exchanged because “they knew that I never willingly painted any car any color but green.” I wondered then what it must be like to have so many cars that you had a regular paint shop!

All of this digression for a reason: I never really thought that I’d have one of those “collector” cars featured in a magazine such as Hemmings. Oh, I always thought that I’d have a car or two worth talking about, but I always wanted the different cars, the slant-eyed Chrysler Newports, low-slung Citroëns, muscular Oldsmobile 4-4-2s, busy Lancias and the slab-side Lincoln convertibles. I never really cared for the cars that everybody else wanted.

Fast forward to today, and I’m at least partially there. Hemmings has done a feature piece on a car that I used to own: the Saab 900 SPG. As you can see, the spread is beautifully photographed, and it features the red 1991 SPG from the GM Heritage collection. The article contains a reasonable amount of information about the Saab 900 SPG, particularly with respect to model year changes and volumes. Unfortunately, the article is available only to subscribers or purchasers of the magazine. If you are a Classic 900 fan as I am, you’ll want to buy your own copy for your very own — it’s US$5 very well spent.

An excerpt from the article’s first page:

Saab built 908,810 900-series cars in five body styles — three- and five-door hatchbacks, two- and four-door notchbacks and convertibles — between 1979 and 1993, but the three-door hatchback was the most recognizably “Saab”. It was this style in which they chose to showcase their ever-evolving engine performance technology in 1984, with a show car that made its debut at the Brussels Salon Auto-Moto that January.

Called the Turbo 16 Aero, this pearlescent champagne three-door was powered by the third generation of Saab’s H-type 1,985cc four-cylinder. While the Bosch K-Jetronic fuel-injected 2.0-liter engines in production 1984 900 Turbo models sported a single overhead camshaft and two valves per cylinder head, the contemporary Turbo 16 Aero used Bosch LH-Jetronic fuel injection and wore a new aluminum pent-dome cylinder head with dual overhead camshafts and four valves per cylinder flanking a centrally mounted spark plug. It also featured an intercooler that cooled the charge-air coming from the Garrett AirResearch T3 turbocharger from roughly 250 degrees to about 140 for greater density.

First of all, I didn’t know that the SPG debuted as a show car, much less in Belgium. Interesting history.

Secondly, it’s interesting to note just how much Saab engineers changed when they moved from the eight-valve turbocharged four to the 16-valve turbocharged four. New turbocharger, new fuel injection system, revised turbocharger cooling (added water cooling), added intercooler, new heads, valves, and the additional camshaft to drive it all. The punch line here is that Saab engineers made this very new package fit in the exact same body, with the same mounts, same transmission design, same basic block.

I did, however, know that the three “pearlescent champagne” (Saab color code 156G officially named Pearl Metallic Clearcoat) prototypes were the beginning of the SPG/T 16 Aero as a high-performance variant of the Saab Classic 900. Much to my surprise, according to a sidebar accompanying this article, one of the 1984 Saab 900 SPG prototypes is in private ownership in the United States! Michael Connelly, the current owner, bought the car from a Saab tech that worked at a dealership in Rhode Island. Apparently suffering from a failed transmission, the SPG had been transported to the dealer on a flat-bed wrecker sometime in 1985. A mechanic at the dealership saw it and immediately asked to buy it. Saab USA wanted the car back, but persistence sometimes pays. That lucky technician bought one of the only three 900 SPG/Aero prototypes ever made! I’ve now made it a goal to track down Mr. Connelly to get his thoughts on owning a little piece of history. Heady stuff.

Oh, and another thing from this section that we all know: “…the three-door hatchback was the most recognizably “Saab”.” Yeah, tell me something else that I don’t know!

From the “Tips” portion of the spread:

On body work: “900′s can corrode in the wrap-under sections of the doors, in the front and rear wheel arches and on the sides of the hood.” Uh-huh.

On the interior: “The falling headliner is an older Saab trademark…” Yep. (But not on a ‘vert!)

On the engine: “The turbocharged engines…are legendary for providing spirited performance and imbuing the car with a powerful but light and agile feel.” Yes!!!

On the transmission: “Saab long had a reputation for building finicky transmissions, and the five-speed manuals in all 900 Turbo SPGs were no exception.” Yikes. I learned that one the hard way.

Stuff that I learned from the write-up that I didn’t know before:

1. I’ve always said that I owned a 1993 900 SPG. Actually, I owned a 1993 900 Turbo Commemorative Edition. Otherwise mechanically identical to an SPG, the Commemorative Edition had two major advantages: the “red box” APC and a 2.8-bar fuel pressure regulator to accommodate the increased boost. Now I’m even more depressed for selling that car!

2. Only 7,625 Saab 900 SPGs were brought into the United States from 1985-1991. I find that to be a pretty small number, considering Saab was selling 30,000 – 40,000 units a year in those days.

3. A few 1985 900 SPGs were imported with color-matching trim. This has always bothered me — why did the other regional markets get color-matching body kits when North America got Anthracite Grey for all SPGs? As it turns out, the all of the 1985 SPGs were black and the earliest ones had black trim. The colors didn’t match very well, and the decision was made to change the lower fairings to grey. I don’t like the decision, but I understand the decision.

4. The three-spoke wheels were originally intended to improve aerodynamics.

5. Red 900′s look a LOT better with the Buffalo Grey interior rather than the Sierra Tan.

Once again, I suggest a trip to your local newsstand to pick up your personal copy.