I know carmakers are suffering and I know Saab are taking a beating in various places around the world.

But this is just…….just……….stabworthy.

In 2007, Saab Australia sold 1862 vehicles and it looked like they were on the front foot, moving forward. That year, we had great 60th anniversary models and a 2008 vehicle waiting in the wings. Things were looking up.

In 2008, that new model hasn’t been well received, despite it’s improvements and the new TTiD engine being available, and Saab are only going to break the 1,000 sales mark in the 10th month of the year. There’s a good chance they’ll struggle to break 1,300 sales this year.

Saab Australia sold just 40 vehicles in September 2008. That’s a massive 79% fall from the same month last year. Saab are down 37% for the year in total, with 967 vehicles having found a home so far this year.

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For those who are interested, here’s a chart of the Australian sales for September. The data is sorted in descending order by sales for that month.

Ay Carumba.

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From Marketing Week comes news that GM, like other car companies all over the world, are slashing their ad spend:

General Motors (GM), which owns brands that include Chevrolet, Opel, Saab and Vauxhall, is to cut 20% of its managerial overheads. Alain Visser, chief marketing officer for General Motors Europe, is one of the group managers facing a pay cut.

According to one of GM’s roster agencies, Visser has instructed agencies to “cut marketing spend to a minimum and focus on highlighting the strengths of individual cars in the most minimalist methods possible.”

File that under “reasons why now is a bad time to be blending Saab, Cadillac and Hummer”.

I need to fill in some gaps in my own data, but I’ve got an idea about looking at Saab sales here in Australia in the last few years (i.e. pre- and post-Hummer). Saab Australia was turfed out and GM Premium brands was formed in its place to accommodate the arrival of Hummer and Cadillac (and possibly Corvette in the future).

Whilst the number of brands doubled in 2008, I’m pretty sure the human and financial resources would have stayed pretty much the same.

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How’s that for a headline? Sounds like I’ve been spending some time at spin school, right?

September 2008 has indeed turned out to be Black September. This month could definitely turn out to be Red October. Here’s the opening paragraphs from Automotive News’ coverage of the sales month, just to let you know how bad thing were across the whole industry:

U.S. auto sales plunged to 15-year lows in September as the nation’s financial crisis and tight credit kept buyers away from showrooms.

Toyota Motor Corp. fell 32 percent, for its biggest monthly decline in at least four decades. Honda Motor Co. plunged 24 percent. Ford Motor Co. posted its 10th straight monthly decline as its Ford, Lincoln and Mercury brands dropped 34 percent. General Motors was down 16 percent, and Chrysler LLC fell 33 percent.

Industry sales fell 27 percent to 965,160 light vehicles — the first submillion sales month since January 1993. It extended the industry’s slump to 11 months of falling sales compared with the previous year’s results.

So with the mighty Toyota falling 32 percent for the month, Saab’s fall of just 27.2 percent might just be cause for celebration. Click here to check out the entire US industry, brand by brand.

OK, maybe not. But whilst I still consider that there’s a certain amount of boneheaddery going on in the Saabian halls of the Renaissance Center, not even I can pin these numbers on a marketing problem, or some such. This is plain-and-simple the worst conditions for selling cars since the early 1990s.

So, on to the numbers.

Saab sold a total of 1,765 vehicles in September, a fall of 27.2% from the 2,424 sold in the same month last year.

Individual models:

Saab 9-3: there were 1,281 units of the Saab 9-3 sold, a fall from 1802 last year (down 28.9%)

Saab 9-5: there were 176 units of the Saab 9-5 sold, a fall from 276 last year (down 26.2%)

Saab 9-7x: the surprise packet of the bunch. There were 308 units of the Saab 9-7x sold, down just 11% from the 346 sold last year.

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It’s the start of a new month, and that means is time for sales reports once again.

Like everywhere else, Saab sales are down in Sweden. They’re not quite as far down in Sweden as they are elsewhere, but they’re down nonetheless.

The Saab 9-3 is holding steady for 2008, with 1,087 units sold in Sept 08, slightly up on the 1,062 sold in the same month last year. For the full year so far, there’s been 9,733 sales, which is up from the 9,222 sold YTD for the same period last year.

It’s good to have a sales increase story, yes?

Unfortunately, the modest increase in the 9-3 is more than offset by monthly and yearly declines in the Saab 9-5.

The Saab 9-5 is still the sixth most popular car in Sweden, selling 606 units for the month (786 last year) and 5,660 units for the year so far (8,037 last year). That’s a 22% fall for the month and a 29% fall for the year to date.

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Cadillac

My favourite whipping boy, the Cadillac BLS, is selling so slowly that it’s not even listed in the figures I’ve seen.

Even the GM total figure, broken down by marque in the BilSweden report, lists no sales for Cadillac.

What a monumental waste.

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‘Green’ cars

The Saab 9-3 BioPower is still the strongest selling ‘green’ car in Sweden, though there’s a real possibility it may be overtaken by the Volvo V70II Flexfuel by the end of October.

The Saab 9-3 BioPower has sold 7,117 units this year (3689 YTD last year) and the Volvo has sold 6,900 units this year (not available last year) and is selling at 1,500 units a month (compared to around 900 for the Saab).

Again, the BLS isn’t listed in Swedish ‘green’ sales figures, despite having a 2.0T flexfuel version, a wagon variant (crucial in Sweden) and it being a car that’s cheaper than the equivalent Saab 9-3.

Someone tell me why they’re wasting money on Cadillac again….

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US sales

There’s blood in automotive showrooms right across the US today as figures are released for June 2008. It seems Honda reaped rewards for being Japanese (i.e. reliable) and somewhat interesting. Their sales went up 13% in June.

Everyone else was down, and in a big, BIG way. I’ll let my inbox tell the story:

Normally, I might get one or two overnight news alerts from Automotive News. This morning there were six of them and they were all concerned with sales.

Chrysler DOWN 36%
Nissan DOWN 18%
GM DOWN 19%
Toyota DOWN 12%
Ford DOWN 28%
Honda UP 14%

So it was a bad month for almost everyone. The dealers who escaped the “bad” description were the aforementioned Honda dealers (for whom it was good) and Saab dealers, for whom the word “bad” isn’t nearly descriptive enough.

Saab dealers in the US sold 1,872 vehicles in June, which was a 57.1% drop in sales in comparison with June last year (4,361 sales). The numbers were as follows:

Saab 9-3 – 1,442 (3,185)
Saab 9-5 – 266 (607)
Saab 9-7x – 162 (543)
Saab 9-2x – 0 (2)

The percentage losses are huge, but it pays to put it in perspective. Last year Saab were offering some rather large incentives to clear out 2007 stocks over the summer, prior to the 2008 model coming online. They had the 60th Anniversary models, too, which were great value. These incentives got even bigger in July 07, so watch out for big percentage drops this month, too.

This year, they’ve recently introduced some financing incentives, but the cash on the hood isn’t anywhere near what it was last year. Add to that the financial issues facing a lot of people in the US this year and it’s a problematic mix.

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Swedish sales

Here’s the Swedish sales data that came in from ctm, overnight:

Total Market
Jun: -9.5%
Jan-Jun: -8.2%

1: Volvo V70
Jun: 2056 vehicles
Jan-Jun: 11727
Market share this year: 8.4%

2: Saab 9-3
Jun: 1224 vehicles, -7.2%
Jan-Jun: 7136, +9.3%
Market share this year: 5.1% (4.3%)

3: Volvo V50
Jun: 1125 vehicles, +52.6%
Jan-Jun: 6195, +5.3%
Market share this year: 4.4% (3.9%)

4: VW Golf
Jun: 1125 vehicles, +33.1%
Jan-Jun: 6171, +33.2%
Market share this year: 4.4% (3.0%)

5: Saab 9-5
Jun: 862 vehicles, -6.6%
Jan-Jun: 4163, -29.7%
Market share this year: 3.0% (3.9%)

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105: Cadillac BLS
Jun: 15 vehicles, +114.3%
Jan-Jun: 190, +65.2%
Market share this year: 0,1% (0.1%)

Note: The Saab 9-5 is actually up two spots on monthly sale compared to May, passing Ford Focus and Audi A4.