Category: Cars

This is a very special post. I’ve done a lot of things in life that I never thought I’d do, largely thanks to my work revolving around Saab Automobile. I’ve travelled quite a bit, covered some wonderful motor shows and other events, I’ve worked in Sweden for Saab and most importantly, I’ve met some absolutely wonderful people all around the world.

Maybe all of that would have happened anyway, but it didn’t all just “happen”. It happened primarily because a friend of mine bought a Saab back in the 1990’s. That guy was Nathan.

In the beginning, there was Rachel. We met in our early 20s at a college in Melbourne and were part of a group of friends who did a LOT of stuff together. From the car races to the bakery at morning tea to hanging out at Philip Island, it was a great time. Rachel’s family had a farm in Gippsland, in Victoria’s south-east and we’d visit there occasionally, too. It was at the farm that I first met Nathan, Rachel’s brother.

Nathan’s a few years younger than me and I was in my early 20’s at the time, so it came as a fairly big surprise to see him roll up one day in a 1986 Saab 9000 Turbo. The car would have only been 5 or 6 years old and worth a fair bit of money in early 1990’s dollars. European cars seemed to run in the family, though. Rachel had a Peugeot and Mum, Judy, had a Volvo 760 Turbo.

Nathan’s 9000 was the first Saab I ever rode in myself and the first Saab I drove. I’ve written about the experience once before, a post called The Damascus Road (at 200 km/h). We had an absolute blast in that car and for a kid who was only used to old Holdens and Fords, the Saab was a revelation. That car was so much of a revelation, in fact, that it shaped much of my adulthood and those driving experiences carry a fair bit of responsibility for the fact that you’re reading these words on your computer screen right now.

Time marches on. I moved to Tasmania in 1995 and haven’t seen much of Nathan since then. I’d heard that he moved to South Australia and had done a few other things with his life, as we all tend to do. Just before I moved to Tassie back in the mid-1990’s, Nathan had been tempted to trade his 9000 on a Toyota Rav4. I was with him at the time and talked him out of it. Because of that, though, I didn’t have any high expectations for him staying with Saab for very long thereafter.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

Continue reading My Saab journey started with a guy named Nathan and a Saab 9000 Turbo

We have a little email group here in Australia and every day we address certain issues confronting the motoring world. It’s a tough job, but someone has to sort these things out.

Right now, we’re trying to find one of our people a new vehicle. There are set criteria in place, of course, and it’s been fun to see the suggestions being thrown around.

One of the models that came up in discussion was the Audi A3/S3 and I have to confess I teed off on it. It’s fair to say I’m not a fan.

My main argument lies with the A3 (as distinguished from the S3), which I see as little more than a gussied up Volkswagen Golf. Recent models are a little more distinctive, but the A3’s I see mostly here in Hobart are around 5 years old, like the one to the right, and whenever I see one, as I did on the way home from work tonight, the only thing I can think is “What a knob!”

The A3 of this era comes across to me as an old-school GM attempt to squeeze more money out of a small platform without really trying that hard. It’s bland beyond belief and at the price you’d pay for a new one (back when they were new) you would have been much more entertained with a Golf GTI. The GTI is a much more genuine car, too, with all of its hot hatch heritage intact. All Audi can do is try to dress that heritage in some fancier clothes.

The A3 of this era is a cash grab, plain and simple, and as such is a car for those with more money than sense.

The A3 of today looks a little more distinctive, but still plays in a segment that the Golf basically owns – the compact five door hatch market. You can pay as much as A$60,000 for a new A3 here in Australia (the ‘kick me’ sign for your back comes free). Why anyone would do that when you can get, once again, a Golf GTI for $15,000 less is beyond me. Sure, the Audi might have a nicer interior, but it’s not as if it’s awe inspiring and the GTI’s interior is poor by comparison.

The S3 is a little more compelling. It’s got a more powerful engine, more aggressive styling and again, a theoretically more sporty interior. But is the interior comparison that compelling in favour of the S3?

S3 above, GTI below……

If you think the A3 is expensive, then how about around A$80,000 for an Audi S3? You can get a 2012 model DSG Golf GTI for around $30,000 less, not to mention plenty of other hot hatches that will deliver plenty of motoring thrills, even if they’re missing the cachet afforded to the four-ringed badge right now.

Make no mistake, Audi make some wonderful motor cars. They are very close to out-Teutonic-ing the other storied German brands right now. It’s just that when it comes to the A3/S3 range, I reckon they’re laughing all the way to the bank and if you’ve bought one, they’re not laughing with you.

My final argument – why on earth would you spend $80,000 on an Audi S3, a performance oriented compact luxury vehicle, when you could spend the same money and get any of these (none of which, I might add, match the criteria for a new car that started this whole discussion, but still……).

All of those cars make a much more compelling argument for me at that price. More class, better fun, better re-sale, better in pretty much every way except carrying capacity.

IMHO, the Audi A3/S3 is for knobs. What say you?

The Alfa and I are back at home so it’s time to give you the run down on the car and the thought process that led me to buy it.

The Car – a brief history.

I thought it was a 1984 model, but it turns out my GTV6 was actually built in April of 1985. I’ve managed to get in touch with the car’s long-term owner, who had it from around 1990 to some time in 2008/9.

Click any of the images to enlarge.

Apparently the car started life as a dealer demo model, then it was leased on behalf a lady owner as her company vehicle. My contact, the long-term owner named Ross H, subsequently purchased it around 1990 with 89,000kms on the clock. To quote Ross, “It was the first one I saw, but after I had looked at about 20 more and it was still the best I’d seen, I went back and bought it – even though I didn’t really want a red one.”

Ross drove it to work for a few years – he was a race engineer at Gibson Motorsport after spending several years with Nissan’s motorsport team here in Australia. Concerned about the mileage he was putting on it, he bought a 4-cylinder Alfetta to wear out and garaged the V6. Ross then prepped and raced the car at Targa Tasmania in the early 1990’s.

Around 2002, the engine in the GTV6 was getting a bit tired, so it was removed and put to one side while a replacement V6 from an Alfa 75 was installed. A few years later, and just prior to a working trip to Asia, the original engine was torn down and rebuilt, a no-compromises restoration that Ross did with a view to driving and keeping the car on his return to Australia. The car had a lot of other work performed under Ross’ ownership as well (see below), all designed to make it the best a ‘stock’ GTV6 could be for an automotive engineer with a motorsport background.

Ross’ trip to Asia turned out to be a more permanent move than expected. I got a lot of this history from him early last week and he’s still there.

Ross sold the car a few years ago to the guy I bought it from last week. Upon learning the history of the car, I was really surprised that the owner didn’t make more of it in his advertising. He complained that he hadn’t had much interest. I think talking more about the vehicle’s very impressive history would have helped a lot. Prior to contacting Ross, I first heard about it from one of his colleagues, Doug G, via a posting on the AROCA website. Learning the vehicle’s history convinced me to look further and finally, to have confidence in buying the car.

Continue reading 1985 Alfa Romeo GTV6 – what and why

Next to 99% of the automotive market, the Ferrari 599 is a svelte work of pure automotive pornography.

Put it next to a Koenigsegg Agera and a Pagani Zonda, however, and it looks like Mama Cass posing next to Twiggy.

I guess the upside for the Fezza is that next to the hypercars in this video, it does come across as being somewhere remotely close to cheap affordable.

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Earlier this morning, waiting to get off the boat…..

For the sceptics out there, I’ve done around 1,000kms in this car since picking it up on Friday night. It hasn’t miss a beat. In fact, it’s only got more addictive. And everything works, even the original radio (though it sounds like crap).

And here’s me (and Charli) about 30 minutes after getting home. The boat was rockin and rollin just a little too much to get a decent night’s sleep. 300kms or so later, I was out.

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