SAAB stays swedish
June 28th 2009 07:17
In the 1970’s the biggest money earner in Sweden was ABBA. The warbling foursome was followed closely by Volvo and SAAB.
Time has passed and Benny and Bjorn now write musicals, Volvo is no more than an outpost of Ford and SAAB, after being cast out of the house of GM is now owned by Koenigsegg.
Yes, that’s right! Koenigsegg now own SAAB. Just what a maker of boutique sportscars wants with SAAB is beyond me but hey, this is the auto industry and stranger things have happened! Well maybe not!
So what is to become of SAAB under their control? Hopefully some of the Swedishness (if that makes sense) will be re-installed into the range. Certainly they will look at the 9-3 series as it is their main money-spinner and scratch their heads at this car.
The range is crying out for a small premium hatch to take on the Mini, Fiat 500 and the Alfa MiTo. To appeal to the fashionable owners that these cars are inevitably sold to, a reincarnation of the old 92 -96 range should be considered. Although only those of a certain age will remember that this car had an enviable rally history (it won the Monte Carlo more than once!) a decent level of performance and a modern do-over of that cars aerodynamic styling could supply a retro enough feeling!
Should Koenigeggs release a new 9-5, they should build a “Viggen” version. The hotshoe badge could utilise the all wheel drive system from the new Saab soft roader and combine it with the engine from the CCR, thus creating an Audi S6 quarto competitor.
Just imagine 4.7 litres of supercharged V8 developing god knows how many horsepower with all wheel drive on the ice and snow on the roads of the Nordic countries.
To enhance the feeling the driving experience, they could program the sat-nav to bark instructions at you in rally navigator mode – Crest –left- flat – easy right!!
Time has passed and Benny and Bjorn now write musicals, Volvo is no more than an outpost of Ford and SAAB, after being cast out of the house of GM is now owned by Koenigsegg.
Yes, that’s right! Koenigsegg now own SAAB. Just what a maker of boutique sportscars wants with SAAB is beyond me but hey, this is the auto industry and stranger things have happened! Well maybe not!
So what is to become of SAAB under their control? Hopefully some of the Swedishness (if that makes sense) will be re-installed into the range. Certainly they will look at the 9-3 series as it is their main money-spinner and scratch their heads at this car.
The range is crying out for a small premium hatch to take on the Mini, Fiat 500 and the Alfa MiTo. To appeal to the fashionable owners that these cars are inevitably sold to, a reincarnation of the old 92 -96 range should be considered. Although only those of a certain age will remember that this car had an enviable rally history (it won the Monte Carlo more than once!) a decent level of performance and a modern do-over of that cars aerodynamic styling could supply a retro enough feeling!
Should Koenigeggs release a new 9-5, they should build a “Viggen” version. The hotshoe badge could utilise the all wheel drive system from the new Saab soft roader and combine it with the engine from the CCR, thus creating an Audi S6 quarto competitor.
Just imagine 4.7 litres of supercharged V8 developing god knows how many horsepower with all wheel drive on the ice and snow on the roads of the Nordic countries.
To enhance the feeling the driving experience, they could program the sat-nav to bark instructions at you in rally navigator mode – Crest –left- flat – easy right!!
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