If you are a
car fan and were paying attention to the news this past January, you were most
likely saddened by the announcement that the Swedish car manufacturer Saab had
filed for bankruptcy. As a result, production stopped and Saab seemed to be
dead.
Up until
1989, Saab (known as Saab-Scania at the time) was an independent automobile
manufacturer operating out of Trollhättan, Sweden. It was founded after World
War II, when the Saab AB airplane company was losing money due to a particular drop
in demand for jetfighters. Their first prototype was known as Ursaab, a small
two-door, two-seater coupe that had a top speed of 65 miles per hour, a
two-stroke engine that would break down from lack of oil unless constant
pressure was applied on the throttle, and one available paint color: green. In
fact, almost all early Saabs were only available in green. Their early years
weren’t very good.
From
1969-1989, Saab flourished and became one of the most popular car manufacturers
in the world. It was in this time period that they decided to make safety their
number one priority and held the highest expectations for their cars. One
excellent example of this was the 9000. Saab made a deal with Fiat to take the
Lancia Thema and put the Saab badge on it. But when Saab crash-tested the Lancia,
they were not impressed, despite the fact that Lancia thought the Thema was
very safe. Saab made the necessary modifications to assure the 9000 could
survive a collision with almost anything.
Even though
Saab accomplished all this, their biggest achievement was the 99 Turbo.
Introduced in 1978, this amazing car sparked the 1980’s turbo craze. Though
Chevrolet, BMW, and Porsche turbocharged a car before Saab, the 99 Turbo was
one of Saab’s best selling cars. It was also their most famous car by a wide
margin and it drew in a lot of new customers. Not only that, it performed well.
It accelerates from 0-60 faster than a modern Mini Cooper or Fiat 500. It also
has a much higher top speed.
In 1989,
General Motors invested $600 million in Saab, purchasing half the company. In
2000, they bought the remaining Saab shares. In between 2000 and 2010, General
Motors often gave cars from other brands to Saab and told them to base their
next model on that car. Saab deliberately ignored them. The 93 was supposed to
be based on the Vauxhall Vectra, but Saab made a lot more changes than GM
wanted. They changed the wheelbase, airbags, tires, body, and they developed
their own new navigation system. All these changes made the 93 an amazing car.
It was safe, luxurious, good looking, everything the Vectra wasn’t.
Unfortunately, developing a whole car from scratch is expensive, and in 2010 GM
pulled the plug.
GM’s shares
were sold to a small Dutch car company called Spyker. The owner insisted that
Saab’s next model, the 95, needed to go on sale immediately. That meant Saab
was unable to test and develop it to their liking, and it was flawed. It didn’t
sell, and Saab filed for bankruptcy in December of 2011.
Saab hasn’t
had the money to produce a car since, but several companies from India, China, Japan,
and Switzerland were on the verge of buying shares. But, on June 13, 2012, National
Electric Vehicle Sweden AB, a division of NEVIS, bought Saab. NEVIS is a
combination of Hong Kong’s National Modern Energy Holdings and Japan’s Sun
Investment. Their first model will probably be an electric replacement to the
93, coming out next year.
This piece
of news may not seem like a big deal. But what many people don’t understand is
that Saab was and will continue to be one of the most important car
manufacturers in the world. Most cars today are built cheaply to save the
company money. The result is a car that doesn’t cost much but doesn’t deliver.
It will be unreliable and poorly made. Saab was the one company that set high
standards that were met with every car they made. They made sure that every
customer who bought one would get their money’s worth, and that they would be
safe if they ever crashed their car. The car market would suffer a huge loss if
they stopped production entirely. I’m looking forward to what they dream up for
2014.
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