Memo to Autoblog - I’m still here.

Autoblog were giving the Turbonines forum a kickstart (in a very unusual entry, I must say) and mentioned that TS is under a cloud and the future is uncertain here! Well, it is, sort of…..But only I’m allowed to say that!

The comments are a classic both in general, and in Emgification, which is a new word I’ve made up just now.

As for TurboNines….well….one reason I’ve never started a forum from TS is that I didn’t want to tread on the ground occupied by others in the Saab community. Saab Central were always good to me and I’ve always appreciated that support in the early days. I wish T9’s well, but I know where I’ll be visiting in my limited forum time. Loyalty counts.

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Another 13 Saabs were spotted today as we headed into Gastown for some corny souvenir shopping. The Saabs included two C900 four-door sedans, which was quite a surprise.

The running total now stands at 30, IIRC.

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I’ll writer a fuller thankyou in a coming post, but Saab Canada have come to the party in conjunction with Saturn-Saab of Richmond here in Vancouver - I know have a Saab to drive to the great TS Pacific Northwest meetup!

If you’re in the area and are still undecided as to whether you’ll come, please do. The weather’s looking great and we’re going to have a great time hooking up with other Saab owners from the region.

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Saab sales data for the US in August 2008:

In a month where GM’s total sales rose 30%-plus, it kinda stands out like a mutt’s appendage that Saab sales fell by 50% on the previous year.

Saab USA moved 1,503 vehicles in August, compared to 3,011 in the same month last year - and that’s despite an Employee Pricing sale that lowered prices to some degree. All three Saab models were down by around 50%, so there’s no one particular model letting the side down.

That employee pricing sale has been extended, by the way, to September 30.

The full sales press release is here. Reading further, it seems Saab are selling well in the CPO market rather than the new vehicles market, which might be why we haven’t seen any pictures of Steve Shannon’s head on a pike just yet (which I sincerely hope doesn’t happen, by the way. I like the guy)

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In other GM news, they’ve entered into a joint buyout with GAZ, a Russian outfit, and now co-own engine company VM Motori.

That might make getting diesel engines into Saabs a little easier.

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Everybody hurts…..some time.

Mini were up by 14% in July and for just about everyone else it was a case of managing the pain. I opined yesterday that Saab might struggle to break 2,000 unit sales in July, and in a way I was right. They did struggle, I’m sure, but they got their 2,000 units. If 2,000 was the goal they were aiming at, that’d be great. Unfortunately you’ve got to measure it against the 3,000+ they sold in the same month last year to get an idea of just how hard they’re finding life at the moment.

Saab USA sold 2,026 vehicles is July 2008, which was down by 37.^ on their July 2007 volume, which was 3,247 units.

Individual model sales were as follows:

Saab 9-3: There were 1,394 sales of the Saab 9-3 in July, down from 2209 the year before. This was a fall of 36.9%.

Saab 9-5: There were 227 sales of the Saab 9-5 in July, down from 480 the year before. This was a fall of 52.7%.

Saab 9-7x: There were 405 sales of the Saab 9-7x in July, down from 558 the year before. This was a fall of 27.4%.

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Rather amazing, that. In these SUV-beating times, the 9-7x took the smallest dent in sales numbers.

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