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Saab Automobile

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SAAB Automobile AB
Company typeSubsidiary of GM
IndustryManufacturing
Founded1949
HeadquartersTrollhättan, Sweden
Key people
Carl-Peter Forster — Chairman
ProductsAutomobiles
Revenueunknown
Number of employees
5,503 (2005)
Websitewww.saab.com
This article is about a line of automobiles. For the aircraft manufacturer, see Saab.

Saab is a line of automobiles manufactured by Saab Automobile AB, currently a subsidiary of the General Motors Corporation, which began production in 1949. Once producing vehicles exclusively in Sweden, the current Saab Automobile model lineup now includes a vehicle produced in the USA. Saab is the exclusive automobile Royal Warrant Holder appointed by H.M. the King of Sweden [1].

Company history

Until 1990 the company was owned by SAAB, an acronym for "Svenska Aeroplan Aktie(B)olaget" (The Swedish Aeroplane Company), which also included SAAB Aerospace and truck manufacturer Scania. After World War II the company's main market for military aircraft declined and after considering other options SAAB decided to move into the passenger car market with Gunnar Ljungström in charge of design. The first car, the Saab 92 was a streamlined steel bodied saloon with a 2 stroke engine driving the front wheels and independent suspension all round. Showing their aviation background the car had, at 0.32, the best drag coefficient of any production car in the world at the time. The 92 name was used as it was the 92nd Saab design, the previous 91 had been aircraft.

Four stroke engines were introduced with the Saab 95 and 96 in 1966 which used a V-4 unit bought in from Ford followed by the Saab 99 of 1967 with a Triumph based engine. This gained an optional turbocharger in 1977. In February 1970, Saab built their 500,000th car. An agreement was reached with Fiat in 1978 to develop a new car platform which became the 1984 Saab 9000 and shared its structure with the Fiat Croma and Alfa Romeo 164.

By the late 1980s Saab were producing more cars than they were selling and in 1989 had 40,000 units in stock. The Arlöv plant was closed but heavy financial losses continued. Talks were opened with Fiat, Mazda and Ford and in January 1990 Saab-Scania moved their passenger vehicle operation to a new company Saab Automobile AB.

General Motors bought half of Saab Automobile on 15th March, 1990 for USD600 million, with an option to acquire the entire company within a decade. David J Herman became president with Stig Göran Larsson as vice president. Before exercising the option to buy the entire company, GM shared its ownership of Saab Automobile with Investor AB, the main owner of Saab.

Losses continued and the Malmö plant was closed in 1991. A new Saab 900 was launched in 1993 based on the Opel Vectra and in 1995 Saab declared a profit for the first time since 1988.

In March 2005, it was announced that GM would move the production of the next-generation Saab 9-3 from Trollhättan to their Opel plant in Rüsselsheim, Germany. Current models are the 9-3 and 9-5, both of which are manufactured in Trollhättan, Sweden and the Saab 9-7X (aka Trollblazer) SUV, manufactured in Moraine, Ohio. The Saab 9-2X (aka saabaru), a rebadged Subaru Impreza and manufactured in Japan, was discontinued after the 2006 model year.

Competition history

1974 SAAB 96 V4

Some of the early cars such as the two-strokers, V4s and Saab 99 were quite successful in rally sport, notably the 96 in the 1960s RAC Rally and Monte Carlo Rally, driven by Erik Carlsson.

  • 1950 two Saab 92s (chassis numbers 7 and 8) enter the Monte Carlo Rally. The two cars are manned by Rolf Mellde and K G Svedberg in one and Greta Molander and Margaretha von Essen in the second. Greta Molander comes in 55th overall, 5th in her class and 2nd in the Ladies Class. In Rikspokalen in November, Rolf Mellde wins and Saab becomes the best marque team with Mellde, Svedberg and Greta Molander, who also wins the Ladies Class.
  • 1952 Greta Molander and Helga Lundberg win the Ladies Cup in the Monte Carlo Rally.
  • 1953 Rolf Mellde wins the Swedish Rally Championship.
  • 1955 he lands on the roof, but still manages to win Rikspokalen in a Saab 92.
  • 1956 Bob Wehman and Louis Braun win the Great American Mountain Rally. Rolf Mellde comes in sixth and another Saab 93 in seventh place.
  • 1959 two Saab 93 are entered in the 24 Hours at Le Mans. The one driven by Sture Nottorp and Gunnar Bengtsson come in 12th overall and second in its class. The same year Erik Carlsson wins the Midnight Sun Rally.
  • 1960 Erik Carlsson wins the RAC Rally and Saab start competing in Formula Junior with the Saab Formula Junior.
  • 1961 Erik Carlsson enters the Monte Carlo Rally in a Saab 95 and finishes fourth, and wins the RAC rally for the second successive year.
  • 1962 Erik Carlsson and Gunnar Häggbom win the Monte Carlo Rally, and completes a hat-trick of RAC rally wins.
  • 1963 Erik Carlsson again wins the Monte Carlo Rally, this time with Gunnar Palm as co-driver. They also finish second in the Spa-Sofia-Liège Marathon de la Route.
  • 1968 Simo Lampinen wins the RAC Rally in a Saab 96V4.
  • 1971 Stig Blomqvist wins the Swedish and RAC Rallies in a Saab 96V4. Erik Carlsson retires from rallying and become Saab ambassador.
  • 1976 Stig Blomqvist wins the Belgian Boucles de Spa Rally in a Saab 99 EMS.
  • 1977 Stig Blomqvist wins the Swedish Rally in a Saab 99 EMS.
  • 1979 Stig Blomqvist wins the Swedish Rally in a Saab 99 Turbo. The first time a turbocharged car wins a World Championship rally.
  • 1980 Saab withdraws from all competition activities because of the high cost, because it has become impossible to win with standard cars and being a small manufacturer SAAB could not afford to build special a "Homologation Special" like the Ford RS200 and Lancia Stratos and also because competition cars had evolved so they had too little in common with production cars to be of value to their development. Some people from the competition department branch out and start Trollspeed aimed at producing competition upgrades for Saabs.
  • 2000 Saab returned to competition by sponsoring Swede Team Motor who compete with a Saab 9-3 Aero SportSedan, a Saab 9-3 Combi Coupe and a 1964 two-stroke Saab 96. The return to competition was to attract students to the auto-mechanic educations. The students get to work on the race cars before, during and after races to expand the students' knowledge and quality awareness.

Innovations

  • In 1958, the GT 750 was the first car fitted with headrests as standard.
  • In 1962, Saab became the first volume maker to offer diagonally-split dual brake circuits.
  • In 1970, Saab introduced a 'world-first' - headlamp wipers and washers.
  • In 1971, heated front seats were also introduced that year, the first time in the world that they were fitted as standard.
  • In 1971, Saab developed the impact-absorbing, self-repairing bumper.
  • In 1972 Saab introduced the concept of side-impact protection bars.
  • In 1977, Saab was the first manufacturer to put turbochargers in mass production cars.
  • In 1978, another 'world-first' was the passenger compartment air filter.
  • In 1980, Saab introduced Automatic Performance Control (APC).
  • In 1983 they introduced the 16-valve turbocharged engine and introduced asbestos-free brake pads.
  • In 1985 SAAB pioneered direct ignition, which eliminates the distributor and spark plug wires.
  • In 1986, the Saab 9000 became the first front-wheel drive car to offer ABS.
  • In 1990, the 'light-pressure' turbo was introduced.
  • In 1991, Saab is the first manufacturer to offer CFC-free air-conditioning.
  • In 1992, Saab unveil the 'Trionic' ignition, with a 32-bit micro-processor.
  • In 1993 came the 'Sensonic clutch' and the 'Black Panel', later to be called the 'Night Panel'.
  • In 1993, Saab developed 'Safeseat' rear passenger protection.
  • In 1995, Saab presented asymmetric turbo-charging of a V6, at the Motor Show in Frankfurt, Germany.
  • In 1996, Saab introduce the SAHR (Saab Active Head Restraint) for the seats.
  • In 1997, Saab fit ventilated front seats and an air conditioned glovebox to their new 9-5, both world-firsts in a passenger car.

Trivia

  • Saab cars are subjected to the moose test (aka elk test).
  • The first Saab, Saab 92, was hand-hammered into shape by using a support that consisted of an oak stump placed on top of a pile of horse-dung. Using the horse-dung support, the craftsman could get the correct response.
  • All modern Saabs (except the 9000 and 9-2X) have a floor-mounted ignition. Saab believes this is a safer position in case of an accident. The driver's knee often jerks upward in a collision; the compact and dense ignition module on the steering column of many other cars has shattered many kneecaps. Second, the floor-mounted position yields more space, allowing modern Saabs to have a metal bar that rotates over and up into the ignition when the key is turned to the "Lock" position. This makes Saabs very challenging to hotwire. Last of all, the ignition is located on the floor because, in the airplanes that inspired Saab automobiles, the throttle controls were all located on the floor. Originally Saabs also had the key located on the right side of the steering column, but when they changed from a column shifter to a floor shifter, the ignition key followed along, except in the Sonett III and 9000.
  • In 1986 the Saab Long Run took place. Three standard Saab 9000 Turbos set 2 world records and 21 international records at the Talladega Superspeedway in Talladega, Alabama, USA. 100,000 km (62,137 miles) were covered with an average speed of 213.299 km/h (132.537 mph) and 50,000 miles (80,467 km) with an average speed of 213.686 km/h (132.778 mph).
  • In 1987, Saab created a TV advertisement called "Saab suite" (subtitled Ballet in 3 acts for 8 SAAB 9000 Turbos). In the film, stunt drivers show incredible driving with stock cars, such as one-wheeled burnouts, bumper-to-bumper driving through a slalom, cars slaloming from opposite directions on the same course, two-wheel driving, sliding in full speed, and jumping over passing cars—all on a closed airport runway with classical music playing in the background. Click Here to view the video.
Saab Performance Team at Linköping, in 1997 (Saab 91 Safirs in background)
  • To commemorate its 40th anniversary, Saab formed a Performance Team in 1987, which laid on exhibitions of automobile acrobatics and formation driving. Initially this was done with Saab 9000s, as above, then later models, such as the Saab 900 (NG) were used. All of the team's members have previously competed in rallies, but what's unusual is that all 5 Performance Team members hold regular jobs at Saab: there are two engineers, a quality controller, a technician and the head of Saab's photo studio. The picture shows these vehicles on display at the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of the Saab Aircraft Company, at Linköping, in 1997.
  • Dating back to 1937, Svenska Aeroplan AB (SAAB) created airplanes, introducing their first car, the Saab 92001, in 1947. Currently, Saab AB is separate from Saab Automobile (which is owned by General Motors), and is probably best known for its Saab 37 Viggen (the Viggen badge would be shared by a 9-3). This has led to the current ad campaign, "Born From Jets," evoking the days when Saab produced both aircraft and automobiles.
  • In early December 2006, a Wisconsin traveling salesman donated his 1989 Saab 900 SPG (Special Performance Group) to the Wisconsin Automotive Museum after amassing 1,001,385 miles on the original factory engine. This mileage was verified by Saab. [2]

Criticism of GM's management of Saab

In 1990 GM purchased half of Saab (and bought the other half ten years later) in what is now seen as an impulse buy. Saab loyalists have long criticised GM's badge engineering of Saab products. This criticism reached a fever-pitch with the introduction of the Subaru Impreza-derived 9-2X (derisively called the "Saabaru" by American critics) and the GMT360 platform (Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GMC Envoy, et al.)-derived 9-7X SUV. Until massive incentives created impressive demand, the 9-2X sold very poorly, with Saab barely managing to sell a few thousand of them. Even those weren't enough to save the 9-2X, as it was discontinued after the 2006 model year. There was very little in the way of marketing for either the 9-2X or 9-7X. Also, true Saab fans preferred the front wheel drive and good fuel economy that their cars were capable of.

The Saab brand overall has not been a money-maker for GM, with total losses from 1990-2005 supposedly exceeding US$2 billion[citation needed], showing black digits only two of these years. The said losses are all the more daunting because Saab, in 2005, posted record unit sales in Europe, its core market. These losses led GM's most vocal investor, Kirk Kerkorian, to renew his call for GM to cut its losses and dump the Swedish brand. However, there were no suitors interested in acquiring the brand, and the attempted sell-off never took place. In late March 2006, it was reported that Mr. Kerkorian revised his position and now is "of neutral opinion" towards the Saab brand (he had also voiced criticism of GM's Hummer brand).

Models

Historical models

1975 Saab 96
1978 Saab 99
1992 Classic Saab 900 convertible
  • Saab Historical Aircraft models listed

Current models

1997 Saab 9-5 V6 at Linköping, Sweden, on the occasion of SAAB's Diamond Jubilee
  • Saab current Aircraft models listed

Experimental vehicles and prototypes

Saab 92001 Ursaab
Saab 9X Concept Vehicle

Popular songs inspired by Saabs:

Album artwork featuring Saabs:

Films with footage of Saabs (see also IMCDB):

Television series with footage of Saabs:

Novels mentioning Saabs:

Other:

  • A Hewlett-Packard CPU-support chip features a Saab 900 Turbo 16 Cabriolet.[5][6]
  • The Australian band 78 Saab derived its name from the Saab marque.

See also

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Saab vehicles.
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