26 ms·

New cars make me want to Saab (2020)

156 points by freediver 5y ago

m_mueller 5y ago
Author might enjoy “drive my car”, a new Japanese film where a Saab features prominently.
rednerrus 5y ago
Why don't we have more modular cars? With EV being the next big thing, why not just sell the platform and let others build on top of it?
wallfacer 5y ago
When I owned a Saab I loved it. The folks over at Taliaferro made it easy to own and between them and another local mechanic, I never had repair issues. AFAIK, they are still doing high-performance tuning with custom-parts manufacturing. https://www.genuinesaab.com/ https://www.genuinesaab.com/
smoyer 5y ago
I've had three Saabs that were my daily drivers (a 99, 900 and 9000) and I'm now restoring a 1971 Saab Sonnett III [0]. All very innovative cars! AMA 0. http://saabworld.net/wp/1970-saab-sonett-iii-heritage-collection-saab-usa/ http://saabworld.net/wp/1970-saab-sonett-iii-heritage-collec...
- agumonkey 5y ago
  A hifi head guy showed me an old SAAB part, unless he's misguided they used pneumatic actuated user panels long ago. Felt insanely overengineered .. but pretty sexy at the same time.
  - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
    > pneumatic actuated user panels What does that mean?
    - agumonkey 5y ago
      the buttons would control other parts of the car through air pressure, it was bidirectional too IIRC not sure, he only had half of a device in his shop
  - Aloha 5y ago
    For what its worth, up until 1970-71, vacuum operated things in cars (locks and and I think windows) were not uncommon, even beyond that, up until basically the start of the current era (2010), vacuum operated air conditioning systems (to change the flow of air) were the norm too (I suspect they still are on ICE cars). In addition, most cars with concealed headlights used vacuum motors to open and close them. Furthermore, windshield wipers were not infrequently powered by the power steering system, rather than electrically driven. High torque electric motors in a small enough package and affordable enough didn't exist until the late 60's.
  - smoyer 5y ago
    Yeah ... and some (like my 99) had alterations made at the U.S. point-of-entry. The added A/C system was so cold it would freeze your body parts. Since the air-ducts were routed through the glove box (who doesn't want heated gloves in the winter), this also resulted in having ice-cold Cokes in the summer :)
  - frontierkodiak 5y ago
    Not a mass-market product, but another fantastic anomaly in automotive engineering is the hydraulic system used to power the accessory systems in the Mercedes 600; the classic chariot of late-20th century despots and celebs. It ran on mineral oil at a nominal pressure of IIRC 3200 psi. Could cleanly slice a finger off if poorly maintained & it sprung a leak in an inopportune corner of the system. All this to ensure that the auto's accessories operated with all the smoothness and silence that befitted a head of state.
  - jjtheblunt 5y ago
    I'm pretty sure my 1982 SAAB 900 Turbo (bought used in 1988 with about 94k miles on it from original owner) had pneumatic actuation for the dials...but it's long gone and i can't check now.
- robin_reala 5y ago
  The Saab Sonnets are beautiful little things, especially in orange.
  - smoyer 5y ago
    The one I'm working on was originally somewhere between lime and avocado green and was wrecked with about 70K miles on it in 1975. It's been in a garage ever since. The downside of a fiberglass body is that it shatters in ways a metal body wouldn't. The upside is that repairs can be as smooth and as strong as the original.
- pcurve 5y ago
  how worried should I be about Saab 900 ('78-'94) and its manual transmission reliability? I adore this car (and its lovely seats) so much I'm tempted to buy one but I hear its manual tranny is fragile.
  - smoyer 5y ago
    My 900 had the automatic transmission which turned the car into a real dog. It had the same engine as my 99 but was a heavier car. My Father-in-Law had a special edition 900 with the standard transmission and it was an amazing car. It had very few mechanical problems but was unfortunately claimed by rust caused by our central PA winters.
TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
My father told me a story from the late 60s or early 70s. He went to a Saab car dealership (USA). The salesman was so excited to show off the car’s indestructivness, that he opened a car door, stood on top of it, and jumped up and down. I guess Saab and Volvo at the time marketed themselves as “tanks” on the road in terms of safety. My father bought a Volvo 144.
- alophawen 5y ago
  Volvo 240 aka traktorn
  - tmountain 5y ago
    I had a 240. My mechanic called it the "Swedish brick". Aptly named. Amazing car that I drove for 10+ years and then sold for the same price I bought it for.
    - sklargh 5y ago
      A regular thought (not plan) would be to reproduce the 240 SL using lightweight materials on an appropriate EV skateboard with modern ADAS systems and not many other changes.
      - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
        The 144, 164, 240, and 244 were beautiful. I just don’t think that asthetic would sell to enough people anymore. It is vastly different style than what is on the road today. Fashion changes and people move on.
- shever73 5y ago
  I have an old photo somewhere of 8 of us standing on the girder-like front bumper of a 1970s Saab 900. They were solid!
throwaway581294 5y ago
While the article was a nice read and I do love some older cars from the 80s/90s, those cars are gone. Cars look the way they do now and days because of the increased safety standards and airbags everywhere. I would much rather be driving a car today than from the 80s if I wanted safety. That being said, there are still plenty of cars that are unique looking now, Miata, Supra, GR86, BRZ, CT5-V, CT4-V, Stinger, Taycan, and plenty more!
- chermanowicz 5y ago
  I don't get the Saab obsession. I can't speak to anything mechanical about them, but I've seen plenty and they look like many others on the road at that time. Like, what exactly is so aesthetically interesting? a different grille design? You could make the argument about many older cars - like the Nissan Fairlady/Z - but not really the Saab.
  - tomc1985 5y ago
    I don't know what my parents liked about Saab but they swear up and down about Volvos' safety ratings. My dad is a swedish car nut nut and his Saab always seems to be in a state of repair. Then he had the nerve to criticize for buying a Corolla, after teenage me got sick of dealing with auto shit after going through no less than three old, cheap Volvos that seemed to constantly need work of some kind. (Two of which had a habit of stalling at the most inopportune moments, like driving 60+ MPH on the freeway. It took years to feel safe driving again!)
  - gotaquestion 5y ago
    Guilty. I've owned three Saabs in my life (1982 99, 1987 900S, 1997 900T). It's a completely irrational aesthetic addiction. I'll admit it. But as an industrial designer, I admire good design, and Saab has that in a way BMW and Mercedes do not, although Volkswagen is of the same ilk. I'll try to answer specifically. For me it is the body shape of the 99/900. It feels organic and part of the road, the mushroomed shape makes me feel like I'm part of a natural outgrowth of entire automotive ecosystem: map + city + road + car + driver + civil engineering. The interior is also minimal and of the school of Bauhaus or Dieter Rams. The late 900's and 9-3 lost this charm and became more conventional. There's no logic behind it, it is simply shape and form that appeals to certain people. I know people who are nuts over early BMWs, or 1950's VWs, everyone has their thing.
shever73 5y ago
I've owned and loved Saabs. The 900 was absolutely bulletproof. The 9-3 I owned less so. The innovative mechanism that also locked the gear stick when the ignition key was removed was genius! Maybe it's just me, but this article seemed to end a bit abruptly. As a die-hard Saab fan, I was left wanting a bit more.
- sdoering 5y ago
  I remember that feature. My uncle owned a Saab and always parked the back of the car against a wall because the gear locked in reverse and only then the key could be removed. I was 14 or so and he allowed me to park it. I was blown away by the idea of ensuring a safety feature against thieves that was so "easy". Edit: typo
omosubi 5y ago
I totally agree with the point about all new cars looking completely ridiculous. I have never understood why there isn't a low cost automaker that has only the bare minimum - the style barely ever changes and looks decent, manual everything, bare minimum heat/ac, minimum radio that can easily be replaced, as cheap as possible - is the only reason this doesn't exist because of ever increasing regulations?
- _carbyau_ 5y ago
  I suspect the car market will move to similar form as phones. Fewer models and if you want it cheap you buy the few years older one - either direct from the manufacturer/refurbed/second-hand.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  >is the only reason this doesn't exist because of ever increasing regulations? Pretty much. They preclude that car from actually being cheap enough that people would buy it over a nicer used car and as the new car market skews higher and higher end the used car market skews likewise making the competition stiffer. >about all new cars looking completely ridiculous. The front body work is bounded by pedestrian safety requirements in the EU and aerodynamics. The rooflines and beltlines are bounded by US safety requirements. It's no surprise that the designs all converge.
  - Aloha 5y ago
    You're not wrong. Airbags, active suspension systems, ABS, backup cameras, etc all increase the cost of cars. Though I dont know how much of that is tied to increasing price of used cars - that seems to have more to do with Cash for Clunkers taking a huge amount of used cars out of the used car market, while it put a bunch of people in new cars, it also skewed the pricing for used cars higher - it took an entire generation of used cars out of the market - which continues to effect pricing today.
    - themitigating 5y ago
      Active air suspension is a performance part and not in most cars
erwincoumans 5y ago
Nice article but I'm not much into Saab styling but I wouldn't mind renting a classic MG-A or MG-B for a summer trip. For a daily driver, I like my Tesla Model 3, styling and its performance and control are great in my opinion.
- hrudham 5y ago
  I have a 1977 MGB and a 2005 MG TF. I still prefer the MGB; its easy to drive, cheap to maintain (relative to buying any new car today), and you have the added benefit of being able to fix things yourself (if you're so inclined) with part availability still reasonably good after all these years (and I am by no means an actual mechanic). I've already encountered issues with the MG TF regarding the electronics, and the difficulty in fixing things there due to proprietary lock-in (and it's 17 years old). Simply creating a spare key is a nightmare. It makes me wonder what the future of repairability on newer cars with deeply embedded but proprietary software will be like.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - erwincoumans 5y ago
    Ah, an MG-F was my first car, loved the style of that mid-engine roadster.
- lvturner 5y ago
  My Model 3 changed my opinion entirely on cars... the more I drive it the more I love it. I was weary of moving to an electric drive chain and a car I can't maintain myself (my previous Mitsubishi could be serviced with scant more than a 10mm socket and an impact driver) and wasn't sure about losing almost all physical controls -- the only thing that annoys me is there is no easy way to open the glovebox, for everything else the touch screen actually seems easier than my previous physical controls.
quartz 5y ago
For the Saab lovers I present The Saab Suite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwpzhiNurI0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwpzhiNurI0 I personally grew up with Volvo 240's (1 GL and 2 Turbos) and bought a Saab 9000 for college. I thought Saabs were one of the best used cars at the time because they lost their value so quickly off the lot and that value just continued to plummet every year. Not sure I'd personally point to Saab when it comes to design so much as cult appeal. I've definitely noticed the old Swedish cars are starting to surge in price as they become nostalia items though.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  Ah, the highlight of my senior year AP Computer Science class along with network Quake.
josefresco 5y ago
There's a lot of diversity in automobile design if you look outside of the top selling segments. We don't need Saab, we need a model that allows large auto manufacturers to make smaller runs of more unique cars without massive "retooling".
- tmountain 5y ago
  I wonder if the "roller skate" platform for up and coming electric vehicles will allow a more modular manufacturing pipeline and open the door to a wider variety of "shells" for new cars. Ford did a concept recently where they retrofitted a vintage pickup with an electric drive train to advertise their new electric crate motors (https://ford.to/3J2B5WW https://ford.to/3J2B5WW). Personally, I'd love to see more of this, as it really opens the door for a lot of creativity regarding the body styles of what's available.
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    My guess is no. I don't think the headache with producing a large variety of cars is the drivetrain. I expect almost all of it is the crash requirements.
- camtarn 5y ago
  I'm reminded of Honda Motorcycle and its habit of making odd small-run bikes, such as the Valkyrie Rune or the NM4 Vultus. Both of those are in the premium segment of an already premium market (at least in the US/UK/etc) but it's great seeing a major manufacturer do something cool and weird. A bit like a rolling concept vehicle. I'd love to see more of that in the car market, and I'm curious what prevents it. Safety standards might be a big part of that - of course motorbikes have very little in the way of safety systems or crash test requirements, which probably massively reduces the investment required for small-run vehicles. Maintainability might also be part of it: there's just more stuff in a car which might have to be located and packaged differently for a different body shape, which affects anybody who has to work on it, requires a bunch of service manuals to be written, might even require spare parts to be stocked for decades, etc.
bonestamp2 5y ago
My dad had a couple of SAABs that I fell in love with as a young adult. After working for a few years, my car died and I was excited to get my own SAAB. I switched to BMW after my SAAB was written off by a distracted driver and SAAB was no longer in business. BMW has a lot of similar design objectives and delights, but it was still missing a couple of characteristics that made SAAB unique. Then I went to Volvo, who hired many of the SAAB engineers and brought over some of SAAB's character, such as the center console mounted ignition (which SAABs had as an homage to their fighter jet history). Volvo is doing a good job at their mission of safety and style, but they still haven't captured that same feeling that SAAB did (nor do I think they intend to). I feel like BMW is the closest experience I've had to a SAAB. I wish their quality was better, and/or they were priced similar to SAAB, but their engineers seem to want to delight their buyers in the same ways that SAAB did: thoughtful design, nice materials, and fun. FUN! Most people buy cars to get from point A to B -- it's a "tool". That's fine, but it's hard to find "tools" that are also fun; yet, it's magic when you do. That's SAAB.
- tiahura 5y ago
  Volvo is now Chinese junk. My wife’s xc60 needed new motor mounts at 40k and a ring job at 50.
sklargh 5y ago
Saabs were great cars because they did practicality with a little bit of zest and elan, pure IYKYK. The death of physical buttons and simple interfaces in car interiors is an enormous safety issue. I suspect this serious issue is widely disregarded by industry because it costs less to produce and modify a software interface than a hardware interface. I hope that cars reach a point where self-driving is real but we aren't there yet, and interfaces that require people to take their eyes off the road to navigate to basic functions are not appropriate for cars. Don't get me started on touchscreens in planes during turbulence...and yes I am a brown station wagon with a manual kind of person.
- lnanek2 5y ago
  I used to feel that way, then noticed my friend driving a Tesla. He had this neat use for the LCD that showed a map of where all the cars around him was as output from the sensors. Yes, theoretically, on a traditional car you can adjust the mirrors so you have no blind spot and check them all religiously before lane changes and the like - but I still felt he had more awareness of who was in what lane than someone in a traditional car would have.
  - oblio 5y ago
    Modern cars have blind spot indicators.
  - sklargh 5y ago
    I'm not hating on ADAS or even screens, FWIW I will not purchase a car without radar-based adaptive cruise control, it's a game changer and I know it's better than I am at maintaining attention over a long period of time. Nor would I begrudge anyone satellite navigation or a simple music interface. What I am talking about is the habit burying all simple functions in menus or on touchscreens. Temperature control, vent direction, volume, fwd, back on music, basic menu navigation. Inevitably these cumulative seconds of searching add up to enhanced risk for pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists.
    - nradov 5y ago
krnlpnc 5y ago
I'm hoping for a resurgence of wagons in the US, and ideally manual transmissions. It's really a shame that the most popular "cars" are trucks and SUVs, it's quite expensive and wasteful.
- jnwatson 5y ago
  I completely agree. I'd buy a luxury wagon in a heartbeat. BMW makes several models, but don't ship them to the US.
  - aidenn0 5y ago
    Mercedes Benz makes an E-Class wagon that sells in the US (I even saw one the other day with an AMG logo on it if that's your thing), and the Volvo V90 is at least a bit upscale...
  - phil21 5y ago
    Audi makes the A6 Allroad (also A4), and Mercedes has the E-class All Terrain. Others have mentioned Volvo as well. The RS6 Avant would be the supercar version I suppose. Based on at least the Allroad's numbers shipped since 2020, I think it's uncertain if they last in the US market. Hopefully that improves with time and supply chain issues resolving.
- thatguy0900 5y ago
  I'm not sure how you could return to manual transmissions. I feel like once the skill of using it is widely gone its not coming back. It would have to have a huge education campaign with it
  - massysett 5y ago
    Now that a CVT gets better mileage than a stick shift, it’s impossible to make the case for a stick. Plus, EVs don’t even have transmissions, at least not ones that need shifting.
    - 5y ago
pantulis 5y ago
As for unique and distinctive cars models, I bring you the 1976 Renault 14: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_14 An unremarkable car in every other aspect, you could not but look to it the first time you saw it.
- zwieback 5y ago
  I remember when that thing came out. There was a certain population in Germany that would buy French cars in that era, against better judgment.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    Yes, the only way to get a less reliable car was to buy a Fiat (which I did).
    - tiahura 5y ago
      My friend’s French dad’s Renault Fuego would like a chance to speak.
      - pantulis 5y ago
        those were amazing! (and pretty rare to spot btw)
    - zwieback 5y ago
      I should add that, while growing up in Germany, my dad had a Fiat 850, Triumph Spitfire, Alfa Spider (3, with the ugly spoiler) and another Spider (the ugly 1996 spaceship looking one) which my mom still drives. The Spitfire was an especially weird piece of crap but I inherited that and drove it for a few years and sold it for a pretty penny.
zwieback 5y ago
Yes, modern cars are ugly but Saabs were ugly when other cars looked good, sorry to say.
lnanek2 5y ago
I kind of like how my BMW X3 looks like a spaceship, personally. Especially all the lights at night like in the door handles. Maybe someday we'll have the fairings of all cars 3D printed at the factory and customizable to taste when ordering, though, so we can make simpler looking ones too!
- kart23 5y ago
  same, the door handles lighting up is such a nice touch. plus all the ambient lighting on the interior in modern cars. I do have a preference for cloth seats and more buttons in interiors though. Leather invariably ends up cracking and looking like crap, and buttons provide a much more tactile experience.
rkangel 5y ago
Part of the issue is that cars can't really differentiate on shape, and therefore go overboard to differentiate on styling. Europe has strict rules about pedestrian safety - placing requirements on the shape of the front of the car to minimise damage to pedestrians on impact. Between that and the desire for low drag (for efficiency) there aren't really that many solutions. This means that most cars in Europe look fundamentally quite similar in overall shape, particularly bonnet curve at the front.
darkwater 5y ago
Unpopular opinion in a post about Saab lovers: Saab (and Volvo) are/were fugly as hell, I'm pretty happy that those '80s designs disappeared.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  The Volvo V90 looks sharp as hell, especially for a wagon.
  - goostavos 5y ago
    Ditto. They look super cool to my eye. I'm thinking about pulling the trigger on the smaller 40 model (if I can overcome my complete terror of spending money on things). The only thing that sucks is their all touch infotainment system. It is unintuitive, clunky, and so laggy (and ugly!). Just getting a phone paired took my gf and I a few minutes of awkwardly stabbing at the screen trying to figure out which swipe would lead us down the right path. It's pretty much impossible to use while driving. Most of the stuff I've test driven the last few weeks follows the same all-touch or mostly-touch setup. So, it kinda seems like something you just have to put up with these days
  - johnisgood 5y ago
    Yeah, looks good IMO.
- magicalhippo 5y ago
  I read in a book about fluid simulation that the boxy shape of the Volvo 240 was the result of a bug in the wind tunnel simulator they used, causing it to report less drag for the the boxy shape. Maybe urban myth, but keeps popping up when I see them around town.
- code_runner 5y ago
  You're right... but as soon as you drive one of those saabs you realize just how wrong you actually are. Its the most beautiful ugly car I've ever had.
aliswe 5y ago
> And part of the reason that cars are ugly now, and that they have so many curves, is because they are more fuel-efficient; the aerodynamics of a “teardrop” design help reduce the impact of wind on the open road (ironically a design staple of Saab in the 1980s). Fuel consumption maybe better on an engine level, but the resulting total it seems to be more or less the same as 80 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29321519#29322389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29321519#29322389
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  In other words, engine efficiency has increased dramatically but so has car safety, and those competing goals mean the bottom line efficiency is similar.
  - aliswe 5y ago
    Has engine efficiency increased that much though? Serious question.
kkfx 5y ago
Well... Honestly I dream a simple car, not full of crappy sw and hw that's are by themselves an issue, as probably many, many, many others but that's not where carmakers push: they push toward cars-as-a-service model, so they need completely different cars and they know there is essentially no more room for small carmakers we have had decades ago in most developed countries, so they can steer the market not fearing any new player. Golf-cart-style e.v. will probably be the future city-car and beside that, behind the super-expensive hypercar probably only some still expensive and still crappy models probably will exists so... It's an era that for next half a century at least it's simply gone...
juancn 5y ago
Crash safety puts lots of constraints on car body design. Specially at the front.
warpech 5y ago
This article reminded me of a wonderful Saab Suite Ballet ad from 1987: https://youtu.be/yzyxGJDIUzA https://youtu.be/yzyxGJDIUzA
lambic 5y ago
I started reading the article then got distracted by the pretty squiggly links, nice little touch.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
slim 5y ago
I would go for a Maserati quattroporte 1999
Melatonic 5y ago
I always wanted a Saab-Aru - best of all worlds! 9-2X
- jeffbee 5y ago
  Yeah the world's least-reliable powerplant and you have to get it serviced at a Chevy dealer. Truly the perfect combination.
  - abawany 5y ago
    I think you are referring to the Saab 9-7X, which was a rebadged Chevy Trailblazer. The GP is talking about 9-2X, which was a rebadged Subaru.
    - jeffbee 5y ago
      At that time GM owned Saab and a large stake in Subaru, that's why Saab was selling a rebadged Impreza. When Saab inevitably went out of business, GM dealers had to do the recalls and warranty work on these cars.
bborud 5y ago
I heartily agree modern cars look horrible. My daily driver looks horrible and it is by many considered to be "great design" (an Alfa Giulietta QV). However, I grew up with SAABs. I hated the things. :-) When I was a kid it was the only thing that made me car-sick, and when I started driving I couldn't stand the horrible front end feel. It felt like driving an old man's boxer shorts. I love old cars though. Especially old Alfa Romeos. I currently have a homologation special from 1987 (The 75 Evo) and I've owned several 75s and a GTV from 1982. Yeah, old Alfas aren't reliable. And stuff just stops working for no good reason. In fact the dash of my Evo has a reset button. It is worn. Every time I brake hard the warning lights go into 1970s disco mode. You know what? I don't mind. Because it smells like a car, sounds like it means business, looks like a car, handles like a car, and it doesn't have opinions on how it is supposed to be driven. (Well, the Evo tries to kill you with its crazy 80s turbo boost, explosive horsepower delivery and no toys to rein it in, but hey, it makes you feel alive!)
- UomoNeroNero 5y ago
  How do I understand you. I kept a girlfriend for a long time because her father lent us his Alfa 75 Quadrifoglio. I have never driven anything more wonderful. The pleasure of those carburetors. The driving precision. I live in the mountains, every trip was a driving orgasm
- sgt 5y ago
  Yeah...Our family changed from Saabs to BMW at some point (back when BMW was still cool and not something literally everyone owns), and I started getting less carsick. The Saab was pretty cool but they really didn't need to do everything different only to be different. Some things were just plain weird.
  - vanviegen 5y ago
    Literally everyone owns a BMW? That's quite a bubble you're living in!
    - technothrasher 5y ago
danesparza 5y ago
I'm sorry -- the writer of the article lost me at the subtitle. "Optimus Prime"? Really? Optimus Prime is a semi truck. Almost no cars look like semi trucks.
- code_runner 5y ago
  I'm not sure how canonically-correct the author is trying to be.... as much as they're just drawing comparison to transformers in general.
- raldi 5y ago
  Yeah, this metaphor is bizarre. Optimus Prime’s forms are a biped robot or a semi; neither is particularly “folded up”, so I have no idea what car that’s supposed to look like.
Gravityloss 5y ago
If you're in Finland, you can order a Saab cab: http://www.retrotaksi.fi/en/index.html http://www.retrotaksi.fi/en/index.html
cluoma 5y ago
I really like a lot of stylings in modern cars. It's nice to see some harder angles. Never was a fan of the overly smooth, almost bubbly, look of cars from the 90's and 00's.
dangus 5y ago
This video here does a better job of discussing what was so special about Saab during its best years, much more than just the look of the car or the aerodynamics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY-xA2w7JHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY-xA2w7JHQ Saab was once a huge source of technological innovation. That said, I think some modern cars both look cool and unique and offer a lot of great features and properties. The driving dynamics of even the most bare and basic economy cars and SUVs drive today is absurdly good when compared against some of the best cars on the road 20 years ago.
- MonaroVXR 5y ago
  If they are that great, why is the company gone?
  - dangus 5y ago
    Saab was very innovative decades ago, but under GM's ownership they became less desirable and competitive against a wider field of rivals. Ultimately, it's my opinion that Saab couldn't find their segment to occupy where their cars were Many of their cars sat on the market too long without being updated enough to compete, and their semi-luxury not-really-sporty market segment during the GM years made it a brand that I think was hard to recommend over alternatives. Why buy a Saab for your luxury car if you could buy a BMW, Mercedes, or Audi instead? Why buy a Saab for your reliable family hauler if you can buy an optioned out Honda Accord instead? Why buy a Saab for your family SUV when the only one they ever offered was a rebadged Trailblazer? It's really just my opinion, but I think the last decade of Saab just couldn't find its buyer.
dan-jackson 5y ago
found a 1991 saab 900 turbo for you: https://driverbase.com/vehicle/9330472/1991-saab-900-in-hinsdale-il/YS3AL76L7M7021102 https://driverbase.com/vehicle/9330472/1991-saab-900-in-hins...
MontgomeryPy 5y ago
I may be the only commenter here with a Saab as my daily driver (9-5 model). The appeal for me is partly design, as this article notes, but many other factors as well: it's fun to drive the manual turbo, a sedan with great cargo capacity (e.g. the skis easily fit in the trunk with pass-thru to back seat), known safety record, durability (yes things need to be fixed but they are generally not terminal issues), tows the trailer/boat fine with 3500# tow ability, good in snow (not AWD but gets the job done), etc. It's a labor of love but I think next step for me is a small utility pickup which won't be anywhere near as fun to drive.
- sirkiller 5y ago
  Daily driving a Turbo-X :) Also own a facelift 9-5 sedan.
- zyberzero 5y ago
  You're not the only one. I still drive a 2005 Saab 9-5, but the station wagon. It is really comfortable to drive compared to other cars (I've driven mostly new Volvos, especially V40 and XC40 and I prefer the Saab any time). I'm Swedish though, and my mom used to work at Saab back in the day when I grew up (as most of the people in that town did then).
  - tow21 5y ago
    Chiming in here from Finland as another 9-5 owner, 2001 model. Also a station wagon (or "farmari" as the Finns like to call it). Definitely a much-loved model, I get appreciative comments regularly from middle-aged men whose formative years were clearly spent in Saabs. When I went to the Mercedes car dealership last weekend (thinking about upgrading to an electric vehicle), the salesman was in such raptures over my Saab he nearly forgot to try and sell me a new car.
    - jabl 5y ago
      Aren't the ~2000+ models the ones that were made after GM/Opel(?) bought them out and converted to their common platforms?
code_runner 5y ago
the 2001 saab 9-3 turbo I got around 2007 was and is still my favorite car I've ever owned. What is night mode and why did I use it all the time? What is this CD? a tour of my own car... hosted by a jet fighter pilot and random disembodied female voice? Where do I put the key? Oh, next to the gear box... like mid thigh. (the cd will tell you this is to avoid injuring your knee in an accident) Wait, how do I remove the key? Shift to reverse? Well it won't go in reverse... oh pull up on gearbox skirt and THEN shift into reverse. The windows rolled up and down unnecessarily fast. Faster than you're thinking. I had little wipers on the headlights (so european!) Its turbo suddenly died, taking the engine with it... but I would LOVE to own that car again.
- actionfromafar 5y ago
  Yeah, the turbo is a known issue. Always let it run a minute before you start your trip, especially when cold out. Never rev the engine until a couple of minutes after water temp stopped increasing. (So the oil is up to working temp.) Always let the engine run 30 seconds after you pulled in to park. If you ran fast or towed something, let it run a minute or two. Change oil twice a year or every 6000 miles, which ever comes first. Always use 5W-40 or 0W-30 fully synthetic high quality oil. If you do this, the turbo will live many years. If you start to see white or blue smoke on start, the turbo is shot. You still have time, but not much, to change turbo. It can be as little as a few cold starts left until it burns out. If it completely burns out, the engine will suck in oil, run dry, heat up the catalytic converter etc etc. But if you replace the turbo when the first smoke appears, you are golden. You have two options for turbo. New Old Stock is mostly gone. So either order a chinese Garret copy, or order a used one. Both a used original and a chinese Garret copy cost about the same, $200-300. Both have about the same chance of working for a long time. Some of the old ones have a lot of miles left in them, and the quality of the copies seem to have a high spread. If you or your mechanic can adapt inlets and outlets, you can put a turbo from another brand of car on your SAAB engine. The -2003 ("original") 9-3 SAAB, are in my opinion undervalued. They look good, and they drive good. It's not extremely fast, but I have never felt as "one" with a car as with that model, and it's also extremely forgiving. If you push it to its limits in corners, it will let you know long in advance what it's about to do. It felt completely undramatic to push it to its limits, never felt scary. I have driven both slower and faster cars which have both felt scary when approaching their limits. For some reason, I also pretty much immediately felt "where the car is" when parking the SAAB. I have driven many cars since then, various models of Mercedes, Volvo, Citroën, VW, and also the next generation SAAB 9-3, but in all of them it's taken me a lot longer to figure exactly "where the car is" when parallel parking and such.
frereubu 5y ago
I used to have a Saturday job repairing and restoring classic Saabs, mostly 93s, 95s and 96s. (Which are different from the 9-3s and 9-5s, which were almost 40 years later). They were handsome cars in a lumpy kind of way, and there were plenty of people willing to stump up the cash to have them carefully restored. (For all that the article talks about lack of aerodynamics in the 900, the 96 was a pretty aerodynamic car, perhaps rooted in Saab's genesis as an aerospace company, although I'm glad things have moved on - I hate to think how much lead and carbon monoxide I inhaled). The first turbocharged car I was driven in was a 900, and boy was that exciting - I can still remember the whine of the turbo. Have to say though, much as I love the Saabs (particularly the 96) if I had the money to get into classic cars, I'd be eyeing up a Citroen SM, rust issues notwithstanding.
clajiness 5y ago
I bought an '88 900 Turbo when I was 19 years old. That car and I had a LOT of fun together. The closest thing I've found to that (feeling) is my '19 Golf R.
telchior 5y ago
I'm always amazed that so many feel strongly about car A looking better or worse than car B. The way people talk about the differences, it's like they're comparing an art nouveau house to a ranch style home -- you know, two things that have massive, immediately obvious differences. But really, comparing cars (even across decades of time) is more like comparing trends in suits. Does it have two or three buttons? Single or double breasted? Single or double cuff? I'm amazed that anyone, barring a small minority with serious artistic sensibilities, can muster the energy to find one vastly different from the other -- at the end of the day, it's the same damn thing. A suit is a suit, a mass-market car is a car, and car appearance = 4 wheels, 4 windows, headlights, a color, generally aerodynamic shape. Everything beyond that is (in modern cars) some minor tweak. Even the two trucks the article gives as examples look basically the same to me; I'll grant that the newer model tries to look more "badass", but the metaphor of it going to bomb a village is pretty silly. I guess it's a function of this being an extremely expensive object that was, for a long time, a status symbol. But I still can't see how people feel passionate about any of it -- again, excluding people like Jony Ive (who designs for a living) or own / desire models of car that are, in fact, vastly different (usually antiques or niche brands).
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  The second most expensive thing most people buy, they keep it years, and 'wear' it most every day as they go about their business. It's not surprising to me that people care about the way their car looks like they care about anything else closely associated with them.
  - telchior 5y ago
    There's a lot there to care about: gas mileage, the maintenance schedule and reliability, the interior feel, and most of all, the feel of driving it. The exterior appearance is the least consequential, least differentiated and most boring aspect of a car. So it's also not crazy to think that, perhaps, people shouldn't care so much about it. And really, they don't -- from my observation, what people care most about is the brand of the hood ornament, with various post-hoc justifications about appearance after that fact.
calvinmorrison 5y ago
Well, finally an an area of expertise of mine. And with 215 comments already. What more to add? I drive my saabs every day. My daily driver is an old 900 turbo hatchback from the 80s. It's a constant work-in-progress as I fix it and it degrades from the beatings and many miles I give it. I drive my 60's saab on the weekend, rolling around town on a light footprint with a engine that was actually manufactured by Ford for skidsteers, and made its way into Saab because of emissions requirements. I sometimes drive my convertible, another 900 turbo, though mostly my mother gets the pleasure of using it. I don't often drive my 9000 Aero, even though it's the most comfortable and modern of my Saabs, it feels like a whale. A fast whale, but I don't drive it often. I recently acquired a base model 900 from the 90s... It has no turbo, no stick shift, no go-fast-parts. It's such a lovely around-towner I have been driving it any time I don't have to hit the highway. I love saab. I love 80's saab. I think it's close to my dream car. When I get older, I will spend the time manufacturing upgrades to this vehicle badly needed from the factory. Maybe a better transmission. An improved rear axle would be fantastic. Common failures I have started to meter out with 3D printed parts - and sourcing them from other manufactures. What you hear about parts is mostly rubbish. Saab made a car, bosch built everything else from the ECU and electrical sensors, to the waterpumps and brake pads. If you get smart you can find and make work crossover bits. Right now we're trying to locate some VW distributors that have a hall sensor built in for a 4 cylinder. They're fairly close (also Bosch) to the saab 900 (pre 90) distributors, and are still available. If I can make that work on my 900 - we have many more good years on the road. All in all... ask me anything about saab from the 60's to the 2000s. I've worked on them all and love them dearly.
- QuarterReptile 5y ago
  Your comment makes it seem like you mostly do work with new parts sourced cleverly, rather than my experience growing up. We had a 96 (?) 9000 with 397,000 miles when someone rear ended it to death, and we always went to saab graveyards for parts. So do you mostly avoid the graveyards?
  - calvinmorrison 5y ago
    Mostly I do avoid them. I have stocked up on a lot of reman kits - or sourced or made my own. For my 96, which is a 1968, I sourced bearings like normal, and made gaskets by hand. A bit tedious but rewarding. For things like brake calipers, I reman those. When it comes to irreplacable parts that wear, I gave up on finding new ones for exorbitant sums. The ill fated 900 dashboard comes to mind, baking in the sun. You'll find collectors boasting how their is uncracked, but mine is as well - given 30 or so hours of using a plastic welder and a lot of sanding it even looks half decent. For 3D printed parts, Jordan Pagano and other have been doing it a lot longer than myself, though I have built out some vacuum manifold pieces that are NLA. In the end - I am more focused on replacing that plastic with something long term. In the case of the vacuum manifold - i took a leaf out of my Porsche 944's playbook and tapped in brass fittings, that don't leak and will never wear out! Another example is the key barrel system, which combines a reverse lockout, and starting functions, and the switch is NLA. I'm now getting ready to order a retrofit keyless fob system. The key barrel will be removed and replaced with a knob that requires no key - and since my door key barrels, and my replacement sets are wearing thin - I found a system that can also send a 12v trigger. That'll be my key going forward to lock and unlock the doors. upgrades people, upgrades... So, it's fun. It's really fun that saab used similar systems. the Jetronic, K-Jet and others are all over volvo, porsche, saab, bmw, of the 70s-80s-and-90s... Hell my 96 even has a Solex carb... That's not to say I haven't stripped a few 900s down. I must have a half dozen axles in my shop I rescued, cut up body panels and little pieces scattered - and a very good friend and addict who has about 20 of them in his backyard.
TristanBall 5y ago
Dad is/was a Saab guy, and for a long period my folks had matching terracotta Saab 900's. Not sure mum ever fully forgave him for that, she wasn't consulted!! I learned to drive in one, before buying my very own 1986 Mitsubishi Sigma. The Saab 900 weighs 18 bazillion tonnes, and is almost impossible to to roll or skid. The Sigma weighs about 4.2 grams, and will skid sideways if you close the door too hard. Driving on the winding country roads of my youth, some rapid adjustment of driving styles was required! I don't remember it being all that quirky tho.. I know you couldn't take the keys out of the ignition in any of the "on" positions, and I think the driver's side door could only be locked from the outside, making it hard to lock your keys in the car. Something similar with the lights, I think, it was very hard to leave any lights on accidentally overnight and run your battery flat And I think maybe reverse gear was an odd spot compared to other cars.. although it also made it very hard to accidentally (try to) put the car in reverse while shifting.. Given the tech level at the time tho, they were all pretty sensible solutions to issues that people had with other cars, even if they were all "operator error" problems.
hugh-avherald 5y ago
As usual, Jeremy Clarkson is insightful (no really), SAAB was a company full of genuine innovation and ill-disciplined management. Clarkson tells the story of General Motors, after taking over the company, giving them a car that they could sell under SAAB badges, just to get SAAB's bottom line back under control. SAAB instead changed everything, even the SatNav software, at immense cost.
danbr 5y ago
I suppose this is one of the many reasons why I’m on my third Saab (only have bought used Saabs). It’s easy for me since I’m able to repair pretty much anything myself, but I realize it won’t last forever. I’m worried when the time comes for the next car, I’m not sure what it’ll be…
deleted 5y ago
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cmrdporcupine 5y ago
Well, HN, thanks for making me feel guilty about the 84 Saab 900 SPG "project car" sitting mostly untouched in my garage for... oh... 6 years?

156 points by freediver 5y ago

Author might enjoy “drive my car”, a new Japanese film where a Saab features prominently.

Why don't we have more modular cars? With EV being the next big thing, why not just sell the platform and let others build on top of it?

wallfacer 5y ago

When I owned a Saab I loved it. The folks over at Taliaferro made it easy to own and between them and another local mechanic, I never had repair issues. AFAIK, they are still doing high-performance tuning with custom-parts manufacturing. https://www.genuinesaab.com/ https://www.genuinesaab.com/

smoyer 5y ago

I've had three Saabs that were my daily drivers (a 99, 900 and 9000) and I'm now restoring a 1971 Saab Sonnett III [0]. All very innovative cars! AMA 0. http://saabworld.net/wp/1970-saab-sonett-iii-heritage-collection-saab-usa/ http://saabworld.net/wp/1970-saab-sonett-iii-heritage-collec...

agumonkey 5y ago
A hifi head guy showed me an old SAAB part, unless he's misguided they used pneumatic actuated user panels long ago. Felt insanely overengineered .. but pretty sexy at the same time.
- TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
  > pneumatic actuated user panels What does that mean?
  - agumonkey 5y ago
    the buttons would control other parts of the car through air pressure, it was bidirectional too IIRC not sure, he only had half of a device in his shop
- Aloha 5y ago
  For what its worth, up until 1970-71, vacuum operated things in cars (locks and and I think windows) were not uncommon, even beyond that, up until basically the start of the current era (2010), vacuum operated air conditioning systems (to change the flow of air) were the norm too (I suspect they still are on ICE cars). In addition, most cars with concealed headlights used vacuum motors to open and close them. Furthermore, windshield wipers were not infrequently powered by the power steering system, rather than electrically driven. High torque electric motors in a small enough package and affordable enough didn't exist until the late 60's.
- smoyer 5y ago
  Yeah ... and some (like my 99) had alterations made at the U.S. point-of-entry. The added A/C system was so cold it would freeze your body parts. Since the air-ducts were routed through the glove box (who doesn't want heated gloves in the winter), this also resulted in having ice-cold Cokes in the summer :)
- frontierkodiak 5y ago
  Not a mass-market product, but another fantastic anomaly in automotive engineering is the hydraulic system used to power the accessory systems in the Mercedes 600; the classic chariot of late-20th century despots and celebs. It ran on mineral oil at a nominal pressure of IIRC 3200 psi. Could cleanly slice a finger off if poorly maintained & it sprung a leak in an inopportune corner of the system. All this to ensure that the auto's accessories operated with all the smoothness and silence that befitted a head of state.
- jjtheblunt 5y ago
  I'm pretty sure my 1982 SAAB 900 Turbo (bought used in 1988 with about 94k miles on it from original owner) had pneumatic actuation for the dials...but it's long gone and i can't check now.
robin_reala 5y ago
The Saab Sonnets are beautiful little things, especially in orange.
- smoyer 5y ago
  The one I'm working on was originally somewhere between lime and avocado green and was wrecked with about 70K miles on it in 1975. It's been in a garage ever since. The downside of a fiberglass body is that it shatters in ways a metal body wouldn't. The upside is that repairs can be as smooth and as strong as the original.
pcurve 5y ago
how worried should I be about Saab 900 ('78-'94) and its manual transmission reliability? I adore this car (and its lovely seats) so much I'm tempted to buy one but I hear its manual tranny is fragile.
- smoyer 5y ago
  My 900 had the automatic transmission which turned the car into a real dog. It had the same engine as my 99 but was a heavier car. My Father-in-Law had a special edition 900 with the standard transmission and it was an amazing car. It had very few mechanical problems but was unfortunately claimed by rust caused by our central PA winters.

TedDoesntTalk 5y ago

My father told me a story from the late 60s or early 70s. He went to a Saab car dealership (USA). The salesman was so excited to show off the car’s indestructivness, that he opened a car door, stood on top of it, and jumped up and down. I guess Saab and Volvo at the time marketed themselves as “tanks” on the road in terms of safety. My father bought a Volvo 144.

alophawen 5y ago
Volvo 240 aka traktorn
- tmountain 5y ago
  I had a 240. My mechanic called it the "Swedish brick". Aptly named. Amazing car that I drove for 10+ years and then sold for the same price I bought it for.
  - sklargh 5y ago
    A regular thought (not plan) would be to reproduce the 240 SL using lightweight materials on an appropriate EV skateboard with modern ADAS systems and not many other changes.
    - TedDoesntTalk 5y ago
      The 144, 164, 240, and 244 were beautiful. I just don’t think that asthetic would sell to enough people anymore. It is vastly different style than what is on the road today. Fashion changes and people move on.
shever73 5y ago
I have an old photo somewhere of 8 of us standing on the girder-like front bumper of a 1970s Saab 900. They were solid!

throwaway581294 5y ago

While the article was a nice read and I do love some older cars from the 80s/90s, those cars are gone. Cars look the way they do now and days because of the increased safety standards and airbags everywhere. I would much rather be driving a car today than from the 80s if I wanted safety. That being said, there are still plenty of cars that are unique looking now, Miata, Supra, GR86, BRZ, CT5-V, CT4-V, Stinger, Taycan, and plenty more!

chermanowicz 5y ago
I don't get the Saab obsession. I can't speak to anything mechanical about them, but I've seen plenty and they look like many others on the road at that time. Like, what exactly is so aesthetically interesting? a different grille design? You could make the argument about many older cars - like the Nissan Fairlady/Z - but not really the Saab.
- tomc1985 5y ago
  I don't know what my parents liked about Saab but they swear up and down about Volvos' safety ratings. My dad is a swedish car nut nut and his Saab always seems to be in a state of repair. Then he had the nerve to criticize for buying a Corolla, after teenage me got sick of dealing with auto shit after going through no less than three old, cheap Volvos that seemed to constantly need work of some kind. (Two of which had a habit of stalling at the most inopportune moments, like driving 60+ MPH on the freeway. It took years to feel safe driving again!)
- gotaquestion 5y ago
  Guilty. I've owned three Saabs in my life (1982 99, 1987 900S, 1997 900T). It's a completely irrational aesthetic addiction. I'll admit it. But as an industrial designer, I admire good design, and Saab has that in a way BMW and Mercedes do not, although Volkswagen is of the same ilk. I'll try to answer specifically. For me it is the body shape of the 99/900. It feels organic and part of the road, the mushroomed shape makes me feel like I'm part of a natural outgrowth of entire automotive ecosystem: map + city + road + car + driver + civil engineering. The interior is also minimal and of the school of Bauhaus or Dieter Rams. The late 900's and 9-3 lost this charm and became more conventional. There's no logic behind it, it is simply shape and form that appeals to certain people. I know people who are nuts over early BMWs, or 1950's VWs, everyone has their thing.

shever73 5y ago

I've owned and loved Saabs. The 900 was absolutely bulletproof. The 9-3 I owned less so. The innovative mechanism that also locked the gear stick when the ignition key was removed was genius! Maybe it's just me, but this article seemed to end a bit abruptly. As a die-hard Saab fan, I was left wanting a bit more.

sdoering 5y ago
I remember that feature. My uncle owned a Saab and always parked the back of the car against a wall because the gear locked in reverse and only then the key could be removed. I was 14 or so and he allowed me to park it. I was blown away by the idea of ensuring a safety feature against thieves that was so "easy". Edit: typo

omosubi 5y ago

I totally agree with the point about all new cars looking completely ridiculous. I have never understood why there isn't a low cost automaker that has only the bare minimum - the style barely ever changes and looks decent, manual everything, bare minimum heat/ac, minimum radio that can easily be replaced, as cheap as possible - is the only reason this doesn't exist because of ever increasing regulations?

_carbyau_ 5y ago
I suspect the car market will move to similar form as phones. Fewer models and if you want it cheap you buy the few years older one - either direct from the manufacturer/refurbed/second-hand.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
>is the only reason this doesn't exist because of ever increasing regulations? Pretty much. They preclude that car from actually being cheap enough that people would buy it over a nicer used car and as the new car market skews higher and higher end the used car market skews likewise making the competition stiffer. >about all new cars looking completely ridiculous. The front body work is bounded by pedestrian safety requirements in the EU and aerodynamics. The rooflines and beltlines are bounded by US safety requirements. It's no surprise that the designs all converge.
- Aloha 5y ago
  You're not wrong. Airbags, active suspension systems, ABS, backup cameras, etc all increase the cost of cars. Though I dont know how much of that is tied to increasing price of used cars - that seems to have more to do with Cash for Clunkers taking a huge amount of used cars out of the used car market, while it put a bunch of people in new cars, it also skewed the pricing for used cars higher - it took an entire generation of used cars out of the market - which continues to effect pricing today.
  - themitigating 5y ago
    Active air suspension is a performance part and not in most cars

erwincoumans 5y ago

Nice article but I'm not much into Saab styling but I wouldn't mind renting a classic MG-A or MG-B for a summer trip. For a daily driver, I like my Tesla Model 3, styling and its performance and control are great in my opinion.

hrudham 5y ago
I have a 1977 MGB and a 2005 MG TF. I still prefer the MGB; its easy to drive, cheap to maintain (relative to buying any new car today), and you have the added benefit of being able to fix things yourself (if you're so inclined) with part availability still reasonably good after all these years (and I am by no means an actual mechanic). I've already encountered issues with the MG TF regarding the electronics, and the difficulty in fixing things there due to proprietary lock-in (and it's 17 years old). Simply creating a spare key is a nightmare. It makes me wonder what the future of repairability on newer cars with deeply embedded but proprietary software will be like.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- erwincoumans 5y ago
  Ah, an MG-F was my first car, loved the style of that mid-engine roadster.
lvturner 5y ago
My Model 3 changed my opinion entirely on cars... the more I drive it the more I love it. I was weary of moving to an electric drive chain and a car I can't maintain myself (my previous Mitsubishi could be serviced with scant more than a 10mm socket and an impact driver) and wasn't sure about losing almost all physical controls -- the only thing that annoys me is there is no easy way to open the glovebox, for everything else the touch screen actually seems easier than my previous physical controls.

quartz 5y ago

For the Saab lovers I present The Saab Suite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwpzhiNurI0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwpzhiNurI0 I personally grew up with Volvo 240's (1 GL and 2 Turbos) and bought a Saab 9000 for college. I thought Saabs were one of the best used cars at the time because they lost their value so quickly off the lot and that value just continued to plummet every year. Not sure I'd personally point to Saab when it comes to design so much as cult appeal. I've definitely noticed the old Swedish cars are starting to surge in price as they become nostalia items though.

selimthegrim 5y ago
Ah, the highlight of my senior year AP Computer Science class along with network Quake.

josefresco 5y ago

There's a lot of diversity in automobile design if you look outside of the top selling segments. We don't need Saab, we need a model that allows large auto manufacturers to make smaller runs of more unique cars without massive "retooling".

tmountain 5y ago
I wonder if the "roller skate" platform for up and coming electric vehicles will allow a more modular manufacturing pipeline and open the door to a wider variety of "shells" for new cars. Ford did a concept recently where they retrofitted a vintage pickup with an electric drive train to advertise their new electric crate motors (https://ford.to/3J2B5WW https://ford.to/3J2B5WW). Personally, I'd love to see more of this, as it really opens the door for a lot of creativity regarding the body styles of what's available.
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  My guess is no. I don't think the headache with producing a large variety of cars is the drivetrain. I expect almost all of it is the crash requirements.
camtarn 5y ago
I'm reminded of Honda Motorcycle and its habit of making odd small-run bikes, such as the Valkyrie Rune or the NM4 Vultus. Both of those are in the premium segment of an already premium market (at least in the US/UK/etc) but it's great seeing a major manufacturer do something cool and weird. A bit like a rolling concept vehicle. I'd love to see more of that in the car market, and I'm curious what prevents it. Safety standards might be a big part of that - of course motorbikes have very little in the way of safety systems or crash test requirements, which probably massively reduces the investment required for small-run vehicles. Maintainability might also be part of it: there's just more stuff in a car which might have to be located and packaged differently for a different body shape, which affects anybody who has to work on it, requires a bunch of service manuals to be written, might even require spare parts to be stocked for decades, etc.

bonestamp2 5y ago

My dad had a couple of SAABs that I fell in love with as a young adult. After working for a few years, my car died and I was excited to get my own SAAB. I switched to BMW after my SAAB was written off by a distracted driver and SAAB was no longer in business. BMW has a lot of similar design objectives and delights, but it was still missing a couple of characteristics that made SAAB unique. Then I went to Volvo, who hired many of the SAAB engineers and brought over some of SAAB's character, such as the center console mounted ignition (which SAABs had as an homage to their fighter jet history). Volvo is doing a good job at their mission of safety and style, but they still haven't captured that same feeling that SAAB did (nor do I think they intend to). I feel like BMW is the closest experience I've had to a SAAB. I wish their quality was better, and/or they were priced similar to SAAB, but their engineers seem to want to delight their buyers in the same ways that SAAB did: thoughtful design, nice materials, and fun. FUN! Most people buy cars to get from point A to B -- it's a "tool". That's fine, but it's hard to find "tools" that are also fun; yet, it's magic when you do. That's SAAB.

tiahura 5y ago
Volvo is now Chinese junk. My wife’s xc60 needed new motor mounts at 40k and a ring job at 50.

sklargh 5y ago

Saabs were great cars because they did practicality with a little bit of zest and elan, pure IYKYK. The death of physical buttons and simple interfaces in car interiors is an enormous safety issue. I suspect this serious issue is widely disregarded by industry because it costs less to produce and modify a software interface than a hardware interface. I hope that cars reach a point where self-driving is real but we aren't there yet, and interfaces that require people to take their eyes off the road to navigate to basic functions are not appropriate for cars. Don't get me started on touchscreens in planes during turbulence...and yes I am a brown station wagon with a manual kind of person.

lnanek2 5y ago
I used to feel that way, then noticed my friend driving a Tesla. He had this neat use for the LCD that showed a map of where all the cars around him was as output from the sensors. Yes, theoretically, on a traditional car you can adjust the mirrors so you have no blind spot and check them all religiously before lane changes and the like - but I still felt he had more awareness of who was in what lane than someone in a traditional car would have.
- oblio 5y ago
  Modern cars have blind spot indicators.
- sklargh 5y ago
  I'm not hating on ADAS or even screens, FWIW I will not purchase a car without radar-based adaptive cruise control, it's a game changer and I know it's better than I am at maintaining attention over a long period of time. Nor would I begrudge anyone satellite navigation or a simple music interface. What I am talking about is the habit burying all simple functions in menus or on touchscreens. Temperature control, vent direction, volume, fwd, back on music, basic menu navigation. Inevitably these cumulative seconds of searching add up to enhanced risk for pedestrians, cyclists and other motorists.
  - nradov 5y ago

krnlpnc 5y ago

I'm hoping for a resurgence of wagons in the US, and ideally manual transmissions. It's really a shame that the most popular "cars" are trucks and SUVs, it's quite expensive and wasteful.

jnwatson 5y ago
I completely agree. I'd buy a luxury wagon in a heartbeat. BMW makes several models, but don't ship them to the US.
- aidenn0 5y ago
  Mercedes Benz makes an E-Class wagon that sells in the US (I even saw one the other day with an AMG logo on it if that's your thing), and the Volvo V90 is at least a bit upscale...
- phil21 5y ago
  Audi makes the A6 Allroad (also A4), and Mercedes has the E-class All Terrain. Others have mentioned Volvo as well. The RS6 Avant would be the supercar version I suppose. Based on at least the Allroad's numbers shipped since 2020, I think it's uncertain if they last in the US market. Hopefully that improves with time and supply chain issues resolving.
thatguy0900 5y ago
I'm not sure how you could return to manual transmissions. I feel like once the skill of using it is widely gone its not coming back. It would have to have a huge education campaign with it
- massysett 5y ago
  Now that a CVT gets better mileage than a stick shift, it’s impossible to make the case for a stick. Plus, EVs don’t even have transmissions, at least not ones that need shifting.
  - 5y ago

pantulis 5y ago

As for unique and distinctive cars models, I bring you the 1976 Renault 14: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_14 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renault_14 An unremarkable car in every other aspect, you could not but look to it the first time you saw it.

zwieback 5y ago
I remember when that thing came out. There was a certain population in Germany that would buy French cars in that era, against better judgment.
- tonyedgecombe 5y ago
  Yes, the only way to get a less reliable car was to buy a Fiat (which I did).
  - tiahura 5y ago
    My friend’s French dad’s Renault Fuego would like a chance to speak.
    - pantulis 5y ago
      those were amazing! (and pretty rare to spot btw)
  - zwieback 5y ago
    I should add that, while growing up in Germany, my dad had a Fiat 850, Triumph Spitfire, Alfa Spider (3, with the ugly spoiler) and another Spider (the ugly 1996 spaceship looking one) which my mom still drives. The Spitfire was an especially weird piece of crap but I inherited that and drove it for a few years and sold it for a pretty penny.

zwieback 5y ago

Yes, modern cars are ugly but Saabs were ugly when other cars looked good, sorry to say.

lnanek2 5y ago

I kind of like how my BMW X3 looks like a spaceship, personally. Especially all the lights at night like in the door handles. Maybe someday we'll have the fairings of all cars 3D printed at the factory and customizable to taste when ordering, though, so we can make simpler looking ones too!

kart23 5y ago
same, the door handles lighting up is such a nice touch. plus all the ambient lighting on the interior in modern cars. I do have a preference for cloth seats and more buttons in interiors though. Leather invariably ends up cracking and looking like crap, and buttons provide a much more tactile experience.

rkangel 5y ago

Part of the issue is that cars can't really differentiate on shape, and therefore go overboard to differentiate on styling. Europe has strict rules about pedestrian safety - placing requirements on the shape of the front of the car to minimise damage to pedestrians on impact. Between that and the desire for low drag (for efficiency) there aren't really that many solutions. This means that most cars in Europe look fundamentally quite similar in overall shape, particularly bonnet curve at the front.

darkwater 5y ago

Unpopular opinion in a post about Saab lovers: Saab (and Volvo) are/were fugly as hell, I'm pretty happy that those '80s designs disappeared.

Hamuko 5y ago
The Volvo V90 looks sharp as hell, especially for a wagon.
- goostavos 5y ago
  Ditto. They look super cool to my eye. I'm thinking about pulling the trigger on the smaller 40 model (if I can overcome my complete terror of spending money on things). The only thing that sucks is their all touch infotainment system. It is unintuitive, clunky, and so laggy (and ugly!). Just getting a phone paired took my gf and I a few minutes of awkwardly stabbing at the screen trying to figure out which swipe would lead us down the right path. It's pretty much impossible to use while driving. Most of the stuff I've test driven the last few weeks follows the same all-touch or mostly-touch setup. So, it kinda seems like something you just have to put up with these days
- johnisgood 5y ago
  Yeah, looks good IMO.
magicalhippo 5y ago
I read in a book about fluid simulation that the boxy shape of the Volvo 240 was the result of a bug in the wind tunnel simulator they used, causing it to report less drag for the the boxy shape. Maybe urban myth, but keeps popping up when I see them around town.
code_runner 5y ago
You're right... but as soon as you drive one of those saabs you realize just how wrong you actually are. Its the most beautiful ugly car I've ever had.

aliswe 5y ago

> And part of the reason that cars are ugly now, and that they have so many curves, is because they are more fuel-efficient; the aerodynamics of a “teardrop” design help reduce the impact of wind on the open road (ironically a design staple of Saab in the 1980s). Fuel consumption maybe better on an engine level, but the resulting total it seems to be more or less the same as 80 years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29321519#29322389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29321519#29322389

rootusrootus 5y ago
In other words, engine efficiency has increased dramatically but so has car safety, and those competing goals mean the bottom line efficiency is similar.
- aliswe 5y ago
  Has engine efficiency increased that much though? Serious question.

kkfx 5y ago

Well... Honestly I dream a simple car, not full of crappy sw and hw that's are by themselves an issue, as probably many, many, many others but that's not where carmakers push: they push toward cars-as-a-service model, so they need completely different cars and they know there is essentially no more room for small carmakers we have had decades ago in most developed countries, so they can steer the market not fearing any new player. Golf-cart-style e.v. will probably be the future city-car and beside that, behind the super-expensive hypercar probably only some still expensive and still crappy models probably will exists so... It's an era that for next half a century at least it's simply gone...

juancn 5y ago

Crash safety puts lots of constraints on car body design. Specially at the front.

warpech 5y ago

This article reminded me of a wonderful Saab Suite Ballet ad from 1987: https://youtu.be/yzyxGJDIUzA https://youtu.be/yzyxGJDIUzA

lambic 5y ago

I started reading the article then got distracted by the pretty squiggly links, nice little touch.

deleted 5y ago

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slim 5y ago

I would go for a Maserati quattroporte 1999

Melatonic 5y ago

I always wanted a Saab-Aru - best of all worlds! 9-2X

jeffbee 5y ago
Yeah the world's least-reliable powerplant and you have to get it serviced at a Chevy dealer. Truly the perfect combination.
- abawany 5y ago
  I think you are referring to the Saab 9-7X, which was a rebadged Chevy Trailblazer. The GP is talking about 9-2X, which was a rebadged Subaru.
  - jeffbee 5y ago
    At that time GM owned Saab and a large stake in Subaru, that's why Saab was selling a rebadged Impreza. When Saab inevitably went out of business, GM dealers had to do the recalls and warranty work on these cars.

bborud 5y ago

I heartily agree modern cars look horrible. My daily driver looks horrible and it is by many considered to be "great design" (an Alfa Giulietta QV). However, I grew up with SAABs. I hated the things. :-) When I was a kid it was the only thing that made me car-sick, and when I started driving I couldn't stand the horrible front end feel. It felt like driving an old man's boxer shorts. I love old cars though. Especially old Alfa Romeos. I currently have a homologation special from 1987 (The 75 Evo) and I've owned several 75s and a GTV from 1982. Yeah, old Alfas aren't reliable. And stuff just stops working for no good reason. In fact the dash of my Evo has a reset button. It is worn. Every time I brake hard the warning lights go into 1970s disco mode. You know what? I don't mind. Because it smells like a car, sounds like it means business, looks like a car, handles like a car, and it doesn't have opinions on how it is supposed to be driven. (Well, the Evo tries to kill you with its crazy 80s turbo boost, explosive horsepower delivery and no toys to rein it in, but hey, it makes you feel alive!)

UomoNeroNero 5y ago
How do I understand you. I kept a girlfriend for a long time because her father lent us his Alfa 75 Quadrifoglio. I have never driven anything more wonderful. The pleasure of those carburetors. The driving precision. I live in the mountains, every trip was a driving orgasm
sgt 5y ago
Yeah...Our family changed from Saabs to BMW at some point (back when BMW was still cool and not something literally everyone owns), and I started getting less carsick. The Saab was pretty cool but they really didn't need to do everything different only to be different. Some things were just plain weird.
- vanviegen 5y ago
  Literally everyone owns a BMW? That's quite a bubble you're living in!
  - technothrasher 5y ago

danesparza 5y ago

I'm sorry -- the writer of the article lost me at the subtitle. "Optimus Prime"? Really? Optimus Prime is a semi truck. Almost no cars look like semi trucks.

code_runner 5y ago
I'm not sure how canonically-correct the author is trying to be.... as much as they're just drawing comparison to transformers in general.
raldi 5y ago
Yeah, this metaphor is bizarre. Optimus Prime’s forms are a biped robot or a semi; neither is particularly “folded up”, so I have no idea what car that’s supposed to look like.

Gravityloss 5y ago

If you're in Finland, you can order a Saab cab: http://www.retrotaksi.fi/en/index.html http://www.retrotaksi.fi/en/index.html

cluoma 5y ago

I really like a lot of stylings in modern cars. It's nice to see some harder angles. Never was a fan of the overly smooth, almost bubbly, look of cars from the 90's and 00's.

dangus 5y ago

This video here does a better job of discussing what was so special about Saab during its best years, much more than just the look of the car or the aerodynamics: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY-xA2w7JHQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BY-xA2w7JHQ Saab was once a huge source of technological innovation. That said, I think some modern cars both look cool and unique and offer a lot of great features and properties. The driving dynamics of even the most bare and basic economy cars and SUVs drive today is absurdly good when compared against some of the best cars on the road 20 years ago.

MonaroVXR 5y ago
If they are that great, why is the company gone?
- dangus 5y ago
  Saab was very innovative decades ago, but under GM's ownership they became less desirable and competitive against a wider field of rivals. Ultimately, it's my opinion that Saab couldn't find their segment to occupy where their cars were Many of their cars sat on the market too long without being updated enough to compete, and their semi-luxury not-really-sporty market segment during the GM years made it a brand that I think was hard to recommend over alternatives. Why buy a Saab for your luxury car if you could buy a BMW, Mercedes, or Audi instead? Why buy a Saab for your reliable family hauler if you can buy an optioned out Honda Accord instead? Why buy a Saab for your family SUV when the only one they ever offered was a rebadged Trailblazer? It's really just my opinion, but I think the last decade of Saab just couldn't find its buyer.

dan-jackson 5y ago

found a 1991 saab 900 turbo for you: https://driverbase.com/vehicle/9330472/1991-saab-900-in-hinsdale-il/YS3AL76L7M7021102 https://driverbase.com/vehicle/9330472/1991-saab-900-in-hins...

MontgomeryPy 5y ago

I may be the only commenter here with a Saab as my daily driver (9-5 model). The appeal for me is partly design, as this article notes, but many other factors as well: it's fun to drive the manual turbo, a sedan with great cargo capacity (e.g. the skis easily fit in the trunk with pass-thru to back seat), known safety record, durability (yes things need to be fixed but they are generally not terminal issues), tows the trailer/boat fine with 3500# tow ability, good in snow (not AWD but gets the job done), etc. It's a labor of love but I think next step for me is a small utility pickup which won't be anywhere near as fun to drive.

sirkiller 5y ago
Daily driving a Turbo-X :) Also own a facelift 9-5 sedan.
zyberzero 5y ago
You're not the only one. I still drive a 2005 Saab 9-5, but the station wagon. It is really comfortable to drive compared to other cars (I've driven mostly new Volvos, especially V40 and XC40 and I prefer the Saab any time). I'm Swedish though, and my mom used to work at Saab back in the day when I grew up (as most of the people in that town did then).
- tow21 5y ago
  Chiming in here from Finland as another 9-5 owner, 2001 model. Also a station wagon (or "farmari" as the Finns like to call it). Definitely a much-loved model, I get appreciative comments regularly from middle-aged men whose formative years were clearly spent in Saabs. When I went to the Mercedes car dealership last weekend (thinking about upgrading to an electric vehicle), the salesman was in such raptures over my Saab he nearly forgot to try and sell me a new car.
  - jabl 5y ago
    Aren't the ~2000+ models the ones that were made after GM/Opel(?) bought them out and converted to their common platforms?

code_runner 5y ago

the 2001 saab 9-3 turbo I got around 2007 was and is still my favorite car I've ever owned. What is night mode and why did I use it all the time? What is this CD? a tour of my own car... hosted by a jet fighter pilot and random disembodied female voice? Where do I put the key? Oh, next to the gear box... like mid thigh. (the cd will tell you this is to avoid injuring your knee in an accident) Wait, how do I remove the key? Shift to reverse? Well it won't go in reverse... oh pull up on gearbox skirt and THEN shift into reverse. The windows rolled up and down unnecessarily fast. Faster than you're thinking. I had little wipers on the headlights (so european!) Its turbo suddenly died, taking the engine with it... but I would LOVE to own that car again.

actionfromafar 5y ago
Yeah, the turbo is a known issue. Always let it run a minute before you start your trip, especially when cold out. Never rev the engine until a couple of minutes after water temp stopped increasing. (So the oil is up to working temp.) Always let the engine run 30 seconds after you pulled in to park. If you ran fast or towed something, let it run a minute or two. Change oil twice a year or every 6000 miles, which ever comes first. Always use 5W-40 or 0W-30 fully synthetic high quality oil. If you do this, the turbo will live many years. If you start to see white or blue smoke on start, the turbo is shot. You still have time, but not much, to change turbo. It can be as little as a few cold starts left until it burns out. If it completely burns out, the engine will suck in oil, run dry, heat up the catalytic converter etc etc. But if you replace the turbo when the first smoke appears, you are golden. You have two options for turbo. New Old Stock is mostly gone. So either order a chinese Garret copy, or order a used one. Both a used original and a chinese Garret copy cost about the same, $200-300. Both have about the same chance of working for a long time. Some of the old ones have a lot of miles left in them, and the quality of the copies seem to have a high spread. If you or your mechanic can adapt inlets and outlets, you can put a turbo from another brand of car on your SAAB engine. The -2003 ("original") 9-3 SAAB, are in my opinion undervalued. They look good, and they drive good. It's not extremely fast, but I have never felt as "one" with a car as with that model, and it's also extremely forgiving. If you push it to its limits in corners, it will let you know long in advance what it's about to do. It felt completely undramatic to push it to its limits, never felt scary. I have driven both slower and faster cars which have both felt scary when approaching their limits. For some reason, I also pretty much immediately felt "where the car is" when parking the SAAB. I have driven many cars since then, various models of Mercedes, Volvo, Citroën, VW, and also the next generation SAAB 9-3, but in all of them it's taken me a lot longer to figure exactly "where the car is" when parallel parking and such.

frereubu 5y ago

I used to have a Saturday job repairing and restoring classic Saabs, mostly 93s, 95s and 96s. (Which are different from the 9-3s and 9-5s, which were almost 40 years later). They were handsome cars in a lumpy kind of way, and there were plenty of people willing to stump up the cash to have them carefully restored. (For all that the article talks about lack of aerodynamics in the 900, the 96 was a pretty aerodynamic car, perhaps rooted in Saab's genesis as an aerospace company, although I'm glad things have moved on - I hate to think how much lead and carbon monoxide I inhaled). The first turbocharged car I was driven in was a 900, and boy was that exciting - I can still remember the whine of the turbo. Have to say though, much as I love the Saabs (particularly the 96) if I had the money to get into classic cars, I'd be eyeing up a Citroen SM, rust issues notwithstanding.

clajiness 5y ago

I bought an '88 900 Turbo when I was 19 years old. That car and I had a LOT of fun together. The closest thing I've found to that (feeling) is my '19 Golf R.

telchior 5y ago

I'm always amazed that so many feel strongly about car A looking better or worse than car B. The way people talk about the differences, it's like they're comparing an art nouveau house to a ranch style home -- you know, two things that have massive, immediately obvious differences. But really, comparing cars (even across decades of time) is more like comparing trends in suits. Does it have two or three buttons? Single or double breasted? Single or double cuff? I'm amazed that anyone, barring a small minority with serious artistic sensibilities, can muster the energy to find one vastly different from the other -- at the end of the day, it's the same damn thing. A suit is a suit, a mass-market car is a car, and car appearance = 4 wheels, 4 windows, headlights, a color, generally aerodynamic shape. Everything beyond that is (in modern cars) some minor tweak. Even the two trucks the article gives as examples look basically the same to me; I'll grant that the newer model tries to look more "badass", but the metaphor of it going to bomb a village is pretty silly. I guess it's a function of this being an extremely expensive object that was, for a long time, a status symbol. But I still can't see how people feel passionate about any of it -- again, excluding people like Jony Ive (who designs for a living) or own / desire models of car that are, in fact, vastly different (usually antiques or niche brands).

rootusrootus 5y ago
The second most expensive thing most people buy, they keep it years, and 'wear' it most every day as they go about their business. It's not surprising to me that people care about the way their car looks like they care about anything else closely associated with them.
- telchior 5y ago
  There's a lot there to care about: gas mileage, the maintenance schedule and reliability, the interior feel, and most of all, the feel of driving it. The exterior appearance is the least consequential, least differentiated and most boring aspect of a car. So it's also not crazy to think that, perhaps, people shouldn't care so much about it. And really, they don't -- from my observation, what people care most about is the brand of the hood ornament, with various post-hoc justifications about appearance after that fact.

calvinmorrison 5y ago

Well, finally an an area of expertise of mine. And with 215 comments already. What more to add? I drive my saabs every day. My daily driver is an old 900 turbo hatchback from the 80s. It's a constant work-in-progress as I fix it and it degrades from the beatings and many miles I give it. I drive my 60's saab on the weekend, rolling around town on a light footprint with a engine that was actually manufactured by Ford for skidsteers, and made its way into Saab because of emissions requirements. I sometimes drive my convertible, another 900 turbo, though mostly my mother gets the pleasure of using it. I don't often drive my 9000 Aero, even though it's the most comfortable and modern of my Saabs, it feels like a whale. A fast whale, but I don't drive it often. I recently acquired a base model 900 from the 90s... It has no turbo, no stick shift, no go-fast-parts. It's such a lovely around-towner I have been driving it any time I don't have to hit the highway. I love saab. I love 80's saab. I think it's close to my dream car. When I get older, I will spend the time manufacturing upgrades to this vehicle badly needed from the factory. Maybe a better transmission. An improved rear axle would be fantastic. Common failures I have started to meter out with 3D printed parts - and sourcing them from other manufactures. What you hear about parts is mostly rubbish. Saab made a car, bosch built everything else from the ECU and electrical sensors, to the waterpumps and brake pads. If you get smart you can find and make work crossover bits. Right now we're trying to locate some VW distributors that have a hall sensor built in for a 4 cylinder. They're fairly close (also Bosch) to the saab 900 (pre 90) distributors, and are still available. If I can make that work on my 900 - we have many more good years on the road. All in all... ask me anything about saab from the 60's to the 2000s. I've worked on them all and love them dearly.

QuarterReptile 5y ago
Your comment makes it seem like you mostly do work with new parts sourced cleverly, rather than my experience growing up. We had a 96 (?) 9000 with 397,000 miles when someone rear ended it to death, and we always went to saab graveyards for parts. So do you mostly avoid the graveyards?
- calvinmorrison 5y ago
  Mostly I do avoid them. I have stocked up on a lot of reman kits - or sourced or made my own. For my 96, which is a 1968, I sourced bearings like normal, and made gaskets by hand. A bit tedious but rewarding. For things like brake calipers, I reman those. When it comes to irreplacable parts that wear, I gave up on finding new ones for exorbitant sums. The ill fated 900 dashboard comes to mind, baking in the sun. You'll find collectors boasting how their is uncracked, but mine is as well - given 30 or so hours of using a plastic welder and a lot of sanding it even looks half decent. For 3D printed parts, Jordan Pagano and other have been doing it a lot longer than myself, though I have built out some vacuum manifold pieces that are NLA. In the end - I am more focused on replacing that plastic with something long term. In the case of the vacuum manifold - i took a leaf out of my Porsche 944's playbook and tapped in brass fittings, that don't leak and will never wear out! Another example is the key barrel system, which combines a reverse lockout, and starting functions, and the switch is NLA. I'm now getting ready to order a retrofit keyless fob system. The key barrel will be removed and replaced with a knob that requires no key - and since my door key barrels, and my replacement sets are wearing thin - I found a system that can also send a 12v trigger. That'll be my key going forward to lock and unlock the doors. upgrades people, upgrades... So, it's fun. It's really fun that saab used similar systems. the Jetronic, K-Jet and others are all over volvo, porsche, saab, bmw, of the 70s-80s-and-90s... Hell my 96 even has a Solex carb... That's not to say I haven't stripped a few 900s down. I must have a half dozen axles in my shop I rescued, cut up body panels and little pieces scattered - and a very good friend and addict who has about 20 of them in his backyard.

TristanBall 5y ago

Dad is/was a Saab guy, and for a long period my folks had matching terracotta Saab 900's. Not sure mum ever fully forgave him for that, she wasn't consulted!! I learned to drive in one, before buying my very own 1986 Mitsubishi Sigma. The Saab 900 weighs 18 bazillion tonnes, and is almost impossible to to roll or skid. The Sigma weighs about 4.2 grams, and will skid sideways if you close the door too hard. Driving on the winding country roads of my youth, some rapid adjustment of driving styles was required! I don't remember it being all that quirky tho.. I know you couldn't take the keys out of the ignition in any of the "on" positions, and I think the driver's side door could only be locked from the outside, making it hard to lock your keys in the car. Something similar with the lights, I think, it was very hard to leave any lights on accidentally overnight and run your battery flat And I think maybe reverse gear was an odd spot compared to other cars.. although it also made it very hard to accidentally (try to) put the car in reverse while shifting.. Given the tech level at the time tho, they were all pretty sensible solutions to issues that people had with other cars, even if they were all "operator error" problems.

hugh-avherald 5y ago

As usual, Jeremy Clarkson is insightful (no really), SAAB was a company full of genuine innovation and ill-disciplined management. Clarkson tells the story of General Motors, after taking over the company, giving them a car that they could sell under SAAB badges, just to get SAAB's bottom line back under control. SAAB instead changed everything, even the SatNav software, at immense cost.

danbr 5y ago

I suppose this is one of the many reasons why I’m on my third Saab (only have bought used Saabs). It’s easy for me since I’m able to repair pretty much anything myself, but I realize it won’t last forever. I’m worried when the time comes for the next car, I’m not sure what it’ll be…

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

cmrdporcupine 5y ago

Well, HN, thanks for making me feel guilty about the 84 Saab 900 SPG "project car" sitting mostly untouched in my garage for... oh... 6 years?