This is part 7 of the interview I did with Steve Shannon, head of SaabUSA, earlier this month.

In this instalment, I ask Steve what’s coming for the final model year of the current 9-5. I also ask about the future possibility of 300hp Saabs coming in the future as well as 2-door coupes and hatches.

Here’s another instalment of the interview I conducted with Steve Shannon earlier this month.

In this section, I ask Steve about the Born From Jets advertising campaign, which was the subject of some considerable discussion here at the time. Steve reflects on what the campaign means for Saab in the US, and touches a little on how they plan to evolve the campaign in the future.

Previous instalments of this interview, which went for an hour in total found be found at the following links:

Session 1: What Steve Shannon does for a living

Session 2: SaabUSA’s year in 2007

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Here’s part 2 of the interview I conducted with Steve Shannon last week.

I’ve broken the interview into bit-size pieces rather than one huge file, which Google was having trouble serving.

Part 1 of the interview is here.

In this instalment Steve talks about the year so far for Saab in the US, and share his thoughts on the US currency and any effects it might have on future pricing for Saab in the US.

There were some problems with the full interview being served all at once, so I’ve done what I should have done right from the beginning – broken this interview up into bite-size chunks.

This is the first installation, running a shade over 10 minutes. In this episode, we get an insight into what a General Manager of Saab in any given country actually does with his day.

I thought this was important to cover for a few reasons.

Firstly, I had been providing a reasonable amount of commentary here about Saab’s performance in the US, which is defacto commentary about the performance of the team running Saab in the US. So, who are they and what, exactly do they do? Steve takes us on a run-through of what he does and a quick look at who does what.

Second, I wanted to correct what I thought was a commonly held misconception that the MD of SaabUSA was a god and could command the appearance of a particular product. As you’ll hear, Steve’s job mirrors that of his counterparts in other countries and is largely focused on the promotion and marketing of Saab in that country. Product development still resides in Europe. Saab USA can have an influence, of course, but the buck stops with Jan-Ake and his overseers at GME.

Enjoy the broadcast. I’m hoping to get one of these up per day.

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About the broadcast – this interview was conducted on the 6th November, 2007.

Thanks very much to Steve Shannon and Jan-Willem Vester for opening up a spot in their schedules to talk to the Saab enthusiast community.

The interviews just keep on coming! Two days ago I interviewed Steve Shannon, the General Manager of SaabUSA.

Six days ago I did a quick interview with Saab’s global chief, Jan-Ake Jonsson. Jan-Ake was in Melbourne for the Australian launch of the 2008 Saab 9-3 and at the end of a very long test drive he agreed to sit down with me and record this interview.

I recorded it on video but have loaded up the soundtrack only. Halfway through I lost my train of thought completely (it really was a long day and as much as I wanted to do this interview, I was totally unprepared for it), so we both stood to shake hands. I then remembered my next few questions and we carried on, standing up in some office in the GM building in Melbourne – and all you could see on film was my rather rotund gut filling most of the lens.

You should thank me for making this sound only.

We cover a few different topics, including the Swedish market and BioPower, the Hirsch questions once again, and a few other bits and pieces.

The transmission lasts just over 13 minutes. I hope you find it worthwhile.

Thanks very much to Jan-Ake for agreeing to do this. It’s a rare opportunity and whilst there was no huge breaking news (well, the all-BioPower thing in Sweden was pretty interesting) I think it was a really generous thing to do. Did I mention it was a long day?

Enjoy.

UPDATE – The interview has now been removed as it was not serving consistently. I’ve broken it up into parts and will be posting them over the coming days.

SW

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As at the time I put this post together, the video was loading. Hopefully it will come online soon.

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Last night I recorded an interview with Steve Shannon and Jan-Willem Vester of Saab USA.

We covered a lot of ground in the hour or so that we talked, from the State of Saab in the US to the Mexican European Delivery Program, to Bluetooth and tuning your Saab.

We also get an insight into Steve Shannon himself, how he spends his day, what sort of input he’s got and the car he didn’t quite buy when he was working in Europe years ago.

I thoroughly enjoyed the chat and I hope you’ll find it helpful as an enthusiast looking out for what’s going on with the Saab brand looking into the future.

I want to express my appreciation once again to Steve Shannon and Jan-Willem Vester for taking time out of their busy schedules so that I could plug them with questions for the benefit of everyone here.

Thanks guys. I don’t necessarily agree with everything, but the discourse was certainly worthwhile.

To everyone else: the transmission goes for around an hour and 7 minutes. I’ve thrown some photos in just for something to look at while you listen.

Comments are open. I’m sure everyone concerned would enjoy getting your feedback and the point of view that Steve shared during the discussion. Fire away!

The following video was recorded at the Australian launch of the 2008 Saab 9-3, in Melbourne on November 2nd. Parveen Batish is the Australian General Manager of GM Premium Brands, which includes Saab and Hummer at this point, but will expand to include Cadillac and Camaro in the future.

This presentation provides an overview on the state of things for Saab in Australia at present, including the launch of BioPower in the 9-3 range and the announcement of E85 availability here in Australia. Interestingly, whilst talking about BioPower, Parveen mentions that we should watch out for more models equipped with it in the future, including petrol-electric vehicles.

Bring it on!

The video runs just shy of 10 minutes.

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