I recently had the chance to chat with John Christiensen and a record an episode of his podcast: Saab In The Rearview Mirror.
John is an ex-SaabUSA employee who started in the mid-80s and racked up a full 39 years before retiring. If you’re doing your sums, then yeah, he stayed on after the bankruptcy to work with the Saab Parts operation that emerged from those ashes, a business that’s still going strong today.
In the podcast, John talks to old colleagues about their shared experiences in the company, and their shared love of the brand.
My episode was a little different, of course, as I never worked for SaabUSA. So we talked about Trollhattan Saab, Saabs United, how things got started, how they finished, and what happened thereafter.
It was a wonderful chat, and I have to thank good friend and Saab stalwart Pierre Belperron for putting John and I together.
I also need to make two quick apologies.
- I need to apologise to John as my audio is quite sub-par. I will definitely buy a proper microphone if I’m ever doing this again.
- I should have acknowledged the people who contributed so much to the site(s) over the years. Eggs, 1985Gripen, and my Guild council, Turbin and PT. The sites were better for your input and I should have remembered to acknowldge that.
I’d recommend watching it on Youtube (below), where you’ll get the benefit of various media visuals that John added. But it’s also available in audio-only format, which I think you’ll be able to find on your usual prominent podcasting channels.
Good day Steven.
Very pleased to see that John C was able to include you in the Rearview series of podcasts. I haven’t yet watched yours but will do shortly. John C was a tremendous resource for the Saab USA dealer network for all of those years and to the service points into the recent past, as you point out. Also easy going, polite, funny and extremely helpful. He had (has?) an encyclopedic knowledge of the parts system. I can’t imagine who they found to try to replace him.
Do you think you might find the time (or interest) in a visit to the US in the near future?
All the best,
John Libbos
Thanks John. It was a great chat. Very enjoyable.
There always interest in visiting, though I think that interest is dampened quite a bit by your current leadership there. I don’t think visiting is possible while a US government is inclined the way this one is. But that’s OK. Our timeline is a bit long-term, anyway.
Our next 18 months or so is taken up with Caro finishing work and us selling here and buying somewhere to the south.
A year or so after that, we’d like to do a decent Europe trip. And after that, I really hope we can plan something for North America. It’d be great to see everyone there again, and see the country more as a visitor, rather than in work mode. I hope we can do it.