This is swedish Prime Minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt, commenting on Saab and Volvo at the World Economic Forum this week:

“We do not foresee a Swedish solution to this problem because I think, in the first place, they were sold because they were not able to stand on their own. That’s very important to remember, even in this time of crisis.”

Now Fred…..

The Saab that was sold 20 and 10 years ago (in chunks) was a Saab that was not as modern in it’s manufacturing as Saab is today. It was a Saab that didn’t have access to technology like the Saab of today.

If there’s one thing that perhas we can thank GM for, it’s making Saab put on some big-boy pants and see a little further over the horizon. The fact that they tried to mold Saab in ther own image was a problem, but the ‘bigger picture’ that Saab got to see about their own operations has them well placed; a leaner operation that has the potential to do some great things.

Help them out, Mr Reinfeldt. I bet you owned a classic Saab at one stage or another.

Hirsch have been doing a very tasty photoshoot by the looks of things……

Look at that exhaust pipe! Mama!!!

I gotta get me one of these Swiss precision machines one day…..

This is just a few random dot points encompassing some disjointed things I’ve heard in the last few weeks as well as some common knowledge – and I’d also like to address a few lines of thought that came through in the most recent summary post on the 2010 Saab 9-5.

Photofun

I like the photo manipulation done by ‘keeneyes’ on one of the spyshots of the 9-5. Like everything else, it’s inconclusive, but it definitely adds some interest.

‘Jeff’ has also been playing, and come up with some similarities with other existing vehicles….

….but the bottom line is that we know little other than how they do their disguise work.

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Engines

Djup Strupe has been in touch overnight and left a note to the effect that the 1.6Turbo is being looked at for the 9-5 in continental markets, but that the engine’s emissions figures aren’t quite as impressive as the low engine volume would suggest. Maybe there’s some more tweaking to be done in that department.

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Horsepower vs useable horsepower

Hopefully Saab have learned from the Turbo X that if you’re going to bring a new car to market then it’d be a marketing mistake of no small proportion – if it’s touted as a performer and it’s in the larger category of cars – to under-cook the output.

An Aero edition of the Saab 9-5 will need to bring at least 300hp to the table, and yes, I’d agree with everyone else that being outgunned by the OPC Insignia would be a negative…..BUT….

One of the things that you may not be aware of is that the decisions for much of this sort of thing were made in Germany, by GM Europe. The biggest player within the walls of GM Europe is Opel, and the gents at Opel – despite the smiles you might see publicly at car shows – don’t like Saab too much.

In fact, from what I’ve heard, now that GM are looking to spin Saab off into an quasi-independent entity, the phone lines between Saab and Opel have almost stopped ringing completely.

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I believe that the Saab 9-5 will get the top-model power it needs – eventually. But don’t be surprised if it’s not all at once. I don’t have any info in this respect – I’m just urging some caution lest some of the reactive types out there throw the baby out with the bathwater. Saab’s first priority here is a solid, well-performing, upper-end vehicle to sell to a majority of potential buyers in that slice of the market.

The solid, uber-performance niche version can wait a little.

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I definitely don’t agree that the Saab 9-5 needs anything north of 350hp to do well. And furthermore, if they do go as high as 350hp then they’d better do it with the utmost efficiency otherwise their brand and marketing messages are going to be quite compromised.

Such thinking is the same sort of thing that’s led to the situation carmakers are in now —> More more more!!

No No No.

What’s needed is smart smart smart, not same same same.

This car will need a reasonable top end power figure, but more importantly, it’ll need monstrous torque available through the majority of the rev range and it’ll need XWD to keep the power to the ground. These three elements, done the Saab way, will see one ripper of a vehicle come into play.

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And as to the suggestion of a big, normally aspirated 3.6litre V6 engine as the top model…..I certainly hope not.

Saab need to maintain an all-turbo lineup. It’s part of the driving characteristics of the brand. 0-100km/h isn’t anywhere near as important as 80-120km/h or 100-140km/h. I realise that it might be when it comes to newsprint, but not in the real world.

Give us a range of efficient, direct injected, turbocharged, real-world performing engines and teach the rest of them some common sense by proving your configuration on the road.

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These are just my thoughts. Feel free to shoot ‘em down.

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OK, it’s not my subframe brace, exactly. It’s Lars’ own subframe brace. But shortly after making this one, he made one up for me, too. It arrived in the mail yesterday and will go on to the Monte soon.

So, introductions first.

The man in question is a Swede now living in Oz. He goes by the geographically descriptive name of AussieLars. This is his Viggen:

And this link will take you to his Flickr account, where there’s more shots of his Viggen as well as photos of Lars fabricating this subframe brace.

These braces are sold by various tuning companies. They’re designed to reduce flex at the front end by stiffening up the chassis. Abbott Racing sell a similar 2-point brace as part of the Viggen Rescue Kit, whereas Nick Taliaferro at Genuine Saab went all-out and designed a six point brace. Lars studied these, and seeing as he’s pretty handy with a welder, he decided to make his own.

Here it is, in the raw. The scoop in the middle is to allow for the exhaust system to pass by without incident.

This is the finished product, painted black…..

And a photo from underneath Lars’ Viggen with the brace in place. There’s no drilling as the holes are already there. Just pop the car up on ramps and bolt it in. Lars made his own ramps, too, by the way. They’re extra long ones, custom made to cope with the Viggen’s low front end.

Click here to see all the photos in-between those ones. Lars photographed all the major points of the manufacturing process and they’re right there at his Flickr account.

He’s had his brace installed in his Viggen for a few weeks now and has noticed a marked improvement in the handling of the car. I’m hoing to get a chance to instal mine over the weekend, though we have family visiting at the moment so time’s kinda hard to come by this week (hence the rarity of posts in the last few days, and me writing about subframe braces at 12.45am).

Lars is based here in Australia and if any Aussies are interested in getting one of these made up, just shoot me an email and I’ll pass on Lars’ contact details.

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Before I start on that…..

I got this email in this afternoon from a guy I know in Sweden:

……I had been invited to a special viewing of the new 9-5 at Saab. The car was showed in a little courtyard and was covered with a nice thick cover. When they pull the cover off, it’s a standard 9-5 sedan that they’ve slapped an old 99 ducktail boot onto….and the interior is stock but addad an alitmeter and a compass and an analog(!) radio.

I told one of the Saab employees “You’re all screwed, better start looking for new jobs cause Saab wont be around in 12 months.”

Then he woke up……

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The 2010 Saab 9-5 is most likely around 7 or 8 months away from making a public debut, but the momentum is already gathering around this most important of vehicles.

With the possiblity of a new lease of life being breathed into Saab courtesy of a financial crisis and an interested Swedish government, there’s some renewed optimism surrounding Saab and most of that optimism is being channelled – with no small amount of anticipation – in the direction of the Saab 9-5.

So here’s a summary of what we think we know so far.

* The car will most likely make it’s public debut at the Frankfurt Motor Show in September 2009. The fact that it would come in 2009 was confirmed further in a press release from GM themselves earlier this month.

* Originally slated for manufacture in Russelsheim, Germany, it looks increasingly like the Saab 9-5 will be built in Saab’s own plant in Trollhattan, Sweden. This was first mentioned back in December 2008 and now looks quite likely, due to the loans Saab might get from the Swedish government having to be used for works inside Sweden.

* It is believed that the Saab 9-5 will be on sale in Europe shortly after the Frankfurt show. Steve Shannon, who works at Saab in some capacity or other in the US, recently told Motor Trend magazine that it was “about a year away”

* It may or may not have a hatch (how’s that for committed!)

* When you cover it in tape and big bits of plastic, and quite possibly tack on bits that aren’t real, it looks like this:

* And the interior may look like this:

* One English source claimed that the new Saab 9-5 may well get a turbocharged 1.6 litre engine. I thought that was too small and many of you did, too, but I guess it’s possible.

* A commenter here at TS, who previously posted some very accurate engine specs for the 9-4x, chimed in with the following as engines that will be used in the Saab 9-5:

2.0T 190hp + 220 hp
2.0T Biopower 190-220 hp
2.8T V6 260 hp
2.0 Tid 160 hp + 190 hp
2.9 Tid V6 XWD AT 250 hp

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That’s it so far.

It’s not much when you look at it, but it’s a heck of a lot more than we had even a month ago.

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I’m pretty confident that the Swedish government won’t hang Saab out to dry. I can’t help but feel that Saab have a bright future with the proposed independence plan being worked on at the moment.

Still, the good people living in Trollhattan – a city I had the distinct pleasure of visiting and falling in love with back in 2007 – are nervous. And not without reason, too. I’m confident in Saab’s future, but I’m sitting here at home in Australia, far away from the fallout of Saab were to go under.

Reuters have an article from Trollhattan today, where they’ve been talking to some locals about the impact that it would have if Saab were to close down.

“If Saab fell, there would probably be no money for anything beyond the absolute necessities in this municipality,” said Akerlund. “Many street lights would probably have to go dark.”

In Sweden, midwinter days bring just six hours of light.

It’s as if the local economy has gone into suspended animation. Akerlund, who sits on the municipality’s council, says tax revenues in the region are already declining and the town’s budget now needs to be revised.

The few people moving about on Trollhattan’s frigid streets say they are contemplating the possible demise of a company that has been making cars here for six decades.

“Everything is standing still at the moment,” said resident Amanda Frendberg, 24, in a deserted bar. “Nobody dares to buy a house for example, with all this talk about closing Saab down.”

Trollhattan is a beautiful little city. Perhaps I visited during an idyllic time, but I absolutely loved the place and the people I met there. In an ideal word, I’d love to go work for Saab and live right where it all began. The winters might be a trial, but I couldn’t imagine a work or living situation that I’d love more.

The one thing you come to understand after you visit Trollhattan is just how ingrained Saab is to the fabric of the city. There are other things going on there, but Saab is hub of the city. As with the future of the cars we all love, I find it quite objectionable that the future of such a beautiful location was placed in the hands of a bunch of board members in Detroit who couldn’t care less.

It’s a recommended read. To the people of Trollhattan – I’m thinking of you. Hopefully I’ll get to see you again some time later in the year.

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It’s nice to be able to tie up the loose ends of stories like this one.

Back in August last year I wrote about a somewhat neglected Saab 900 stretch limousine that was up for sale on Ebay. It was blowing a little smoke and was pretty rough around the edges, but it only had 45,000 miles on it and could turn out to be quite a charmer given the right amount of TLC.

Regular TS reader and commenter, Nate 9-3, certainly hopes the new owner provides that TLC because 1) the limo’s ended up being not too far away from him, and 2) he’s getting married next year and hopes that he and the future Mrs Nate 9-3 might be able to use it!

The 900 limo ended up being purchased by the family that owns Iowa City Saab. These are the same folks that once owned the Meyer Garage, which unfortunately burned down a few years ago but I’m assuming has been rebuilt now.

They have a page for the limo here.

They plan on restoring the vehicle to its former glory and offering it for use on occasions just like the one Nate is planning. From what Greg Abbott mentioned at the time of the fire, the family are real pillars of the local Saab community, so it’s great to see them taking a project like this on. I hope it promotes their business well and I’m sure the Saab locals will love it.

My thanks to Nate 9-3 for passing on the good news!

Swedish website Altommotor has come across some new images of the Saab 9-5 in testing. Unlike the last lot, which were shot in Spain, this time it looks like it might be following the 9-4x around in northern Sweden.

These seem to be a bit closer than the Spanish shots, as well. You can see the grille through this one, and the rear shot at the link is particularly interesting, I think.

There are five shots in all. Click through at the link above to see them all.

Thanks again to ctm or the heads-up!