It’s Saturday evening here in Trollhattan and it’s been a wonderful day. I spent the afternoon with the family of one of my Saab colleagues in Vanersborg, where there is a festival on this weekend. The sky was bright blue, the sun shining. Their kids were having fun and laughing, we had good food and good conversation. What more could you want?
Well, this morning, hours before that wonderful afternoon, I had a special moment that started my day off just perfectly. It all happened during a Skype call with my wife back in Australia.
I should preface this story by stating that I love my wife very much and the fact that this little highlight from the morning involves my dog rather than her, shouldn’t cast any shadows across our relationship in any way whatsoever 🙂
It was evening back at home and I could hear our cocker spaniel (Charli, a girl) barking at the back door. She’d just eaten her dinner and wanted to come inside. I asked Trish if she could let her in so that I could say ‘Hi’ to her on Skype. I know what many of you are thinking, but the pet owners out there know that I’m not crazy.
Trish set the computer down on the sofa and went to the door. I sat waiting with no small amount of anticipation because the camera on the computer was pointing right at the spot where Charli always runs to when she first comes inside. Sure enough, 20 seconds later there’s a blurry black fluffball with a wagging tail at the other end of the sofa.
Whenever I’ve said hello to Charli on Skype in the past, she has recognised my voice without understanding where it’s coming from. More often than not, she immediately runs to the front door to see where I am. My boundless belief that I have the most intelligent dog in the world is dented momentarily, though it tends to return soon after – a process that I’m sure anyone with either pets or children is familiar with.
This time, however, whilst she looked towards the door, she didn’t run. I said hello again and she actually looked at the computer. Excited by this progress, I began some of that stupid talk that pet owners (and in a slightly different way, the parents of infants) tend to do and she kept on looking at the laptop at the other end of the sofa. Eventually, she even walked towards the computer and to my delight, a giant dog-nose filled my Skype video panel as she sniffed at it.
The penny had finally dropped!! My dog had just grown in intelligence once again!
It caused me some small amount of disappointment when she proceeded to walk around the back of the computer to see if I was hiding behind it. My hopes of her being the first canine Rhodes Scholar were dashed once more.
But the penny had indeed dropped. She had recognised me, even though all that was there in the room was a synthesized voice and a blurry small video image that she couldn’t really see. Somewhere in that tiny head of hers, some puppy-synapses had flashed and she’d finally recognised something that she knew all along.
Right now, though you’re mildly entertained, you’re probably wondering to yourself what the heck has all this got to do with Saab?
As well as covering the corporate stuff on this website, I’ve also been covering a little of my personal journey as an Australian Saab fan relocating to Sweden and getting to grips with life at Saab.
One of my personal quests was to buy a Saab in Sweden so that I could proudly park it in the mothership’s car park, as well as taking in the beautiful surrounds in one of Scandinavia’s finest.
One of the criteria for this quest was to pick up something that I couldn’t easily get back home in Australia. I’d have to say that I’ve failed on that account and will have to keep it in mind for another acquisition in the future. I’d really hoped for a Saab 99 Turbo, but they come up for sale so infrequently here and the examples in good condition command prices that were beyond my budget.
A compromise was therefore in order, and what a delicious compromise it’s turned out to be.
Acquired last Sunday with the help of one of my colleagues at Saab (thanks Ingvar!), this is my new (to me) Saab 900 S turbo. It was built in 1991 and has a low pressure turbo 16-valve engine making 145hp and around 200Nm of torque. It has a cloth interior, no electric anythings and no sunroof. Quite the humble car, then.
What it does have is a great engine and gearbox and in this land of salted snowy winter roads, very little rust. There’s just one wheel arch to be cleaned of metal cancer and repainted.
Those who know me and my motoring history will know that my cars don’t necessarily remain in the same condition as when acquired for very long. I’ll be seeking to do the rust repairs fairly shortly and then I’ll quite possibly call on one of Sweden’s tuning houses to add a little bit of ‘personality’. It won’t be a red rocket, but hopefully it’ll have enough juice to put some steam in your strides.
Saab got production underway Friday after a seven week halt and there was a real upbeat spirit about the place. For me, it was especially notable because it was the first time since I’ve been working in Sweden that we actually produced some cars. It was like the part of the soul of this place had checked out for a little while, but today it was back.
Production wasn’t scheduled to start until 10am so I got to work at my normal time and after a bit of email and site moderation, I ventured downstairs to the line. It turns out they’d done a small run around 8am just to make sure that everything would work OK, which it did.
These were the first two cars to roll off the line when things got underway again at 10am.
The second car you can see there is Victor Muller’s own Saab 9-3 Independence Edition Convertible, number 007 of 366 to be made for 2011. They’re not being made in numerical order, by the way, so if you’ve got number 365, don’t panic. It might already be made. Or not. But if not, then it will be soon.
I spent quite a lot of time running between the end of the factory line and the observation room just in front of it. Shoot some film as a car leaves the line. Back to computer to process some video. Back to shoot some film as a car leaves the line. Remember to plug the video camera into the power socket as the battery’s getting low. Back to shoot some film as a car leaves the line. Update the website. Upload the video.
Things ran like that for around an hour until the preparations for the press conference started. Saab’s VP Production and Purchasing, Gunnar Brunius, came down to the line to shoot some video for the official release marking the re-start of production. He was absolutely jumping out of skin, he was so excited. The factory is his baby and to see it humming again brought the man to life.
Various members of the executive team and their senior assistants starting making their way into the observation room, which doubles as a press center, in preparation for the press conference.
Of course, whilst Mr Pang from Pang Da and his senior executives were in Stockholm yesterday, there was a team from Pang Da at Saab doing their ‘due diligence’ work on the company. This is where they learn about the state of the business, find out the gritty details of what they’re getting involved in.
I chatted briefly with a few of the Saab guys and they were very impressed with the knowledge and attitude of the Pang Da team. The one thing that spoke volumes to me was the description of them being ‘product guys’. They were asking not just about the business, but they knew the right questions to ask about the product, which of course is the most important part of the business.
The #1 reason I got this job at Saab is because I’m a car guy who can write a little. I couldn’t do what I do here if I didn’t absolutely love the Saab company and its products, which I do. So when I hear that potential partners for this business are product-oriented people as much as they’re business-oriented people, it makes me excited for the future. Pang Da’s sales in China last year outpaced the entire Swedish vehicle market by two-to-one. Got that? That’s one dealer chain doubling the sales of an entire country. The potential for a small carmaker like Saab just boggles the mind.
The press conference happened and it all went well. The press seemed genuinely engaged and whilst they asked the same tough questions they’ve been asking for the last few weeks (and got the same basic answers) I got the feeling that they were pretty pleased to see things working again at Saab. I had a fair few run-ins with the Swedish press as a private publisher. One guy today asked how life is for me now that I’m on the inside and I told him it was great because I didn’t have to argue with him anymore 🙂 . I guess it’s a bit like the love-hate relationships that sports fans have with rival teams. Sometimes you don’t like having to deal with them, but they’re part of the fabric of life and the picture just wouldn’t be complete without them.
The factory staff were at lunch while the press conference was on. The press conference finished just in time for Mr Pang and Victor Muller to head out to the production line and see it in action – followed by a considerable press contingent, of course.
There was much talking, agreement, head nodding and a whole bunch of camera flashes as the press corps soaked up the photo opportunity. Another day in the glasshouse, I guess.
Mr Pang left shortly thereafter to tour other areas within Saab’s campus, whilst Victor Muller held court with the journalists present for around 45 minutes or so.
That was the end of the official function as far as the press were concerned. Mr Pang and his team still had plenty to see. The Pang Da due diligence team still had some things to be diligent about. With the formalities over, we could all relax for a few minutes.
It was in this afterglow of the press conference and the rest of the afternoon that a few magic moments happened for me. Sometimes you just see or hear people in unguarded moments and it brings out their true nature, what they really think and believe.
The first of these was in a brief conversation after all the press had left. It was just a small group with myself included. I’m still a little awestruck that I’m so accepted in these circles as a Saab person, but anyway….. Victor was talking and he said that he was constantly amazed by how people were willing to go into bat for this company.
I don’t know if there’s a way to misconstrue that comment, but let me provide some context for you. It wasn’t amazement in terms of being surprised. The comment was incredibly affectionate and humble. It was an acknowledgement of the fact that the people at Saab had done an incredible job in the last weeks to get things up and running again on the factory floor. It was a comment that recognised the dedication and attachment that people have towards this little car company.
We’re underdogs and we know it. Any press report about Saab usually includes a quote from ‘an industry analyst’ and those analysts must be lining up to provide a few thoughts and get their names in the papers. It’s a no-brainer for them to talk down Saab’s future prospects. We’re a relatively small company in a very big industry. The things they don’t count on are our tenacity and our capability. We’ve been reading and listening to the prophecies of doom for years and still, everyone I’ve met who works for this company loves what they do and company they do it for. There’s absolutely no doubt that people at Saab have embraced the Spyker motto Nulla tenaci invia est via.
The second magic moment was in a company-wide phone conference held by some of the senior executive team in the afternoon. One of the senior executives (I won’t mention who) referred to ‘the spirit of Saab’ several times. He wasn’t referring to the book by the same name – a copy of which would be given to every new Saab employee, if it were up to me. He was referring to the spirit of Saab itself: innovation, the road less travelled, energy, personality, being able to do things that people think you shouldn’t be able to do. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it mentioned this week, but I was sure glad to hear it. It’s something that I like to think I embraced a long time ago. I think most Saab fans feel the same way about themselves. And it’s reassuring to think that the senior leaders of the company have embraced it, too.
The spirit of Saab won’t save this company. Designing, building and selling great Saabs is the key to that. We’ve got the design part down pretty well now and today, we re-started the building phase of the process. Now we have to sell them and we have a lot of people to convince all over again – dealers, press, other stakeholders and of course, customers.
We make some absolutely brilliant cars and the future is only getting bigger and better in terms of our product range. But we still need people to buy them in order to survive. And that’s the next exciting challenge that we face.
I’ve written few times here about my own personal automotive situation. It’s an interesting conundrum for the devoted Saab fan living in Sweden – there are so many Saabs here that are hard to get elsewhere, and usually at pretty good prices, too. Which model to choose?
Adding to the dilemma is the fact that I absolutely hate not having a car. I bought my first ever car several months before my 18th birthday, the date when I was first eligible to sit my licence test. That little blue Holden Gemini (there, I admitted it) tortured me with daily invitations to see new, exotic places as it sat there in my driveway.
Surprisingly, I’ve grown somewhat accustomed to catching the bus to work in the morning, though missing the bus by a minute (which happened today) exposes the frustrations of public transportation. Not having a car also means that you can’t get to the bigger supermarkets outside of the city, you can’t get down to Ikea to pick up the one or two things that you need for your flat, and you can’t easily get around to visit friends in the area (which is even more important when you’re new in town).
My budget is 30,000 SEK, around A$5K and whilst there’s a fair bit on offer – I can theoretically pick up anything from a 9-5 SportCombi down depending on age – there’s only a few cars that are rare enough to pop up on my radar, which I think I’ve covered adequately in previous posts.
The one criterion of particular importance for me is to get something that’s a bit more difficult to get elsewhere, especially back home in Australia. As much as I love our Saab 9000 back at home, I’m not going to pick one of those up as my main personal car here (maybe I’ll reconsider that in winter). It’s got to be something that I’d find difficult, if not impossible, to access back at home. It doesn’t have to be a car that was never sold back home – I’m not looking for a 600, for example, as cool as it might be – but it should be an edition that was particular to Sweden, or one that is hard to get unless you’re here.
My first try was with a 1971 Saab 99. The silver-bumper models with the Triumph engines are very rare back at home. I spotted one for sale a few weeks ago and even structured some international travel around having the ability to go and inspect it. Sadly, it didn’t work out. There were some concerns about a leaking gasket and more importantly, concerns about the ability to fix it without stripping the head bolts.
It looked just like this one…..
I was devastated. I really loved that car and it looked even better in person that what it did in the photos – inside and out. It even had the seal of approval from Mrs Swade, who considered it “a cutie” and appreciated the fact that it would be more difficult for me to drive too fast in such a vehicle.
Last week I had a close encounter with one of my other most-wanted dream Saabs – an Acacia Green Saab 99 Turbo. It would have been a miracle had a purchase come about in this instance, but it was worth a try.
The car wasn’t actually up for sale. I just noticed it one day on the way to work and left a note on the windscreen the next day. To my surprise, the owner contacted me and we met the next day to take a look over the car and check out just how interested we both were in a deal. I was very interested, but it seems 99Turbos really are attracting a premium here in Sweden now and I didn’t have enough funds in the budget.
This is not the car, but it looks the same…
That was particularly disappointing for me as a 99 Turbo really was a priority on my list. I could spend more time and accumulate some more money, but there are other unique options for less and getting the 99T suddenly seems like a matter that would confer responsibilities that I’m not sure I could meet in terms of preservation, housing, etc.
A new option has popped up. I’ll be looking at it this Sunday, all going well. It’s turbocharged, it looks pretty darn good and best of all, the owner seems like an absolute Saab nut. He’s only selling it because he’s just bought a Saab 900 Aero with only 30,000km on the clock and needs to make room for it. It’s a limited edition and it’s well kitted out, even if the performance is a little less than what I usually go for.
Will I get it?
That, of course, depends on the condition of the car when I see it on the weekend. It seems to tick almost all of the boxes, though. From the description and photos that I’ve seen, it seems to be a very likely candidate. All I can do is cross my fingers, inspect the car and see what it’s like. Hopefully I’ll be in a position to share some photos with you on Sunday evening!
It would be a significant understatement to say that the last weeks have been challenging for Saab Automobile.
We are a car company. Designing and building distinctive cars according to a well honed, Swedish philosophy is what we do. And yet our production line – the beating heart of our company – has been idle for the last five weeks.
Though no-one’s fault but our own, we found ourselves in a cashflow crisis and unable to buy the parts we need to build our cars. This has hurt our dealers, our suppliers, our employees and many of our customers, a situation for which we are truly sorry. We want nothing more than to secure our financial position so that we can get to building cars again.
On May 3, we announced a deal with Hawtai Motor Group, a vehicle manufacturer from China. This deal would have included an ownership stake for Hawtai and significantly, an opportunity to develop Saab manufacturing in China, the new automotive frontier. This deal collapsed late last week due to an inability to secure the required regulatory approvals for it to proceed. This was a significant blow for us, however we persisted with partnership talks in China, which we see as an essential step in securing Saab’s future.
On May 16, we announced the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Pang Da Automobile Trade Co. Pang Da is the largest publicly traded sales and service distributor in the Chinese market, with over 1,100 outlets in China and Mongolia. The MoU includes strategic deals for distribution, branding and potential future joint ventures in manufacturing.
Perhaps even more importantly for our immediate future, Pang Da have placed an order for approximately 1,300 vehicles, with immediate payment to be made for these vehicles. A further order can be placed in the near term, subject to certain conditions.
This cash injection is important for Saab, not only as a vote of confidence in our brand portfolio, but also as a much-needed cash injection that will enable us to get our plant operational again.
With this and other cash injections in place, Saab Automobile will be well placed to initiate negotiations with our 1,200+ suppliers. These negotiations are intended to provide full payment for outstanding amounts at regular intervals and within a specified time period – and they are crucial to getting the supply chain moving, and our plant and our business operational once again.
Saab already has an order bank of nearly 5,000 vehicles for the Trollhättan factory. These are cars that are ordered and awaiting delivery to dealers and customers. These are cars that will see our cash position improve as soon as they leave the factory. We will also have the initial order from Pang Da to build, as well as the potential secondary order. These orders would take our order bank to well over 6,000 vehicles for our Swedish plant.
In addition, we are also pleased to report that orders of the new Saab 9-4x crossover vehicle are very strong, coming on the back of very favourable reviews from our recent Saab 9-4x press event in Washington DC. The Saab 9-4x is intended primarily for the North American market and US magazine, Winding Road, said “the driving dynamics of the 9-4x are positively brilliant”. The Saab 9-4x has also attracted praise from markets outside of North America. Robert Collin from Sweden’s Aftonbladet called it “the best Saab ever built”, noting the crucial role Saab played as the architects of the vehicle. The Saab 9-4x is indicative of the future for Saab Automobile. Dynamic. Exciting. Engaging.
In addition to the Saab 9-4x, the new Saab 9-3 Griffin range is the most fuel-efficient 9-3 range we’ve ever offered, featuring a diesel range specially developed to offer road tax advantages for a number of significant European markets. Our new 9-3 petrol engines offer the best combination of fuel efficiency and power in their class. We also have our new flagship Saab 9-5 Sedan and the all-new Saab 9-5 SportCombi coming later in 2011, which is going to deliver a new level of practicality to Saab 9-5 customers around the world.
Our vehicle range is constantly expanding and improving. More than that, we have new vehicles and groundbreaking innovations coming very soon, things that we believe will excite our customers everywhere. We are working on partnerships that will take us to new places, with new technologies to make driving safer, more enjoyable, more economical and more ecologically responsible.
The Saab Spirit that built this company remains strong and we cannot help but be excited by the future.
We thank you for your patience and we ask for your continued support.
Signed:
Kjell ac Bergström – Vice President Product Development Powertrain
Gunnar Brunius – Vice President Purchasing & Manufacturing
Mats Fägerhag – Vice President Vehicle Product Development
Matthias Seidl – Vice President Global Sales & Aftersales
A few people have asked me what it’s like to move from Australia to Sweden to do this job for Saab Automobile. The obvious answer for a Saab nut like me is that it’s a dream come true! The more considered answer, however, is that there’s a lot of things to adjust to and a lot of local ‘stuff’ to get your head around.
For example, what do you do when you get on a bus for the first time only to find out they don’t sell tickets on the bus? Get off and walk?
Inside Saab launched a few weeks ago and whilst we’ve still got a fair bit of work to do with the site’s layout and design (we’re aware of some of the issues with images, polls, etc and we’re working on them), we’re pretty happy with the type of content we’ve been able to provide so far.
The purpose of the site is primarily to provide the type of stories that only the company can tell, from the inside. We’ll be covering other stuff as well, of course, but the ‘inside angle’ is the one that only we can offer with the right amount of depth.
There are plans for several types of posts that we haven’t tackled here yet. We want to get some Q&A sessions going with key people at Saab, for example. We’s also like to get to know our current Saab owners better by learning what you drive and what brought you to the brand. And then there’s the Saab Museum…….
We have to acknowledge that there are certain things we can’t do here on Inside Saab. Minute-by-minute coverage of the recent Hawtai Motor Group deal, for example. Being a company that’s listed on a public stock exchange, there are certain limitations on what you can say when it comes to the business side of being in the car business.
There is a long way to go in the development of this website, and we’d like to know what you want from it. How can this site serve your needs better?
Greetings from Hong Kong! I’m on my way back to Australia for a week or so. It’ll be great to be home again.
We had a cold snap in Trollhattan just before I left. I had to walk to the bus stop amongst falling snow a few days ago. Snow!! In May!!?? I guess we’re not in Kansas anymore….
Anyhow, given that I’m now slightly out of touch with what’s going on there in Trollywood (until I get home, at least), I thought I’d share a few stories I’ve heard over the last week or so. Being in Saab’s home town, you get to meet a few people who have been around the company for a long, long time. Even if they don’t work there, they still seem to be part of the Saab family simply because they’ve got so much shared history with the company and its people.
I’ve met a few people like that recently. One of them I’d like to meet again, with my camera, so that I can take a few photos and share his story properly.
Others have shared a few short stories, which I’d like to pass on here because they made me laugh, made me smile, just made me feel good.
The first one comes from taxi driver yesterday. He’s been doing the corporate run between Trollhattan and Landvetter airport for too many years to remember and he told me a bunch of stories yesterday. The one I’d like to share is more like a quote than a story.
We were talking about the recent troubles at Saab and he said
“I tend to see Saab the same as I see my grandson. He never knew that he couldn’t swim, so he just went in and started swimming. Saab are the same. They can’t imagine that they can’t survive, so they just do.”
How true.
The second is another short snippet about the Saab 99 and the effects it had on people back in its day. I was at dinner a few nights ago and talking with a guy who I’d guess would be in his early-mid 50s now. He was a youngster in the late 1960s when the Saab 99 was released and his father was choosing between that and something new that Volvo had released at the time.
He chose the Saab and ended up getting a new one most years from the early 1970s onwards.
Around 1972, the family had their new 99 and they went on a trip from Sweden down to Austria and Germany. When they pulled into a service area in Germany to fill up the car and stretch their legs, everyone – everyone – in the service area came over to look at the Saab. They were particularly curious about one item. Everyone wanted to see…….
……..those fantastic new headlamp washers and wipers in action!
The car was a hit everywhere they went and I guess it cemented the Saab-buying habit in the family. A few years later, they bought a 99EMS and my friend had just got his driver’s licence. Naturally, he tried to borrow his father’s car whenever he could.
“It became very easy to offer the girls a lift in that car and have them accept……”
🙂
Saab – inspiring people and easing them into relationships since 1947………
For those who haven’t heard yet, Saab has secured short term financing in the order of EUR 59.1million to re-start production at the factory. We are also set to announce a strategic partnership with Hawtai Motor Group, from China. The nature of that partnership is yet to be revealed, however such an announcement can only bring positive benefits for Saab Automobile.
I was in a meeting this afternoon when the short term funding announcement was made and I can tell you that the dual feelings of relief and excitement in the offices at Saab was palpable.
As an enthusiast, I’ve commented several times to the effect that there was no way that I could imagine this company going down. As with the sale from General Motors, there was just too much excellent product in the pipeline – product that is now imminent – and too many interested parties for that to happen.
That’s not to say, however, that the company hasn’t been stretched in an almost unreal manner over the last few weeks.
The factory hasn’t produced a single vehicle since I’ve moved here to Sweden to commence work with Saab. That’s a difficult scenario both for the workers idling at home and the office staff trying to function as usual, making plans for when things get better. It would have been easy to take a doomsday type attitude in the last week, for people to drop their heads and lose some hope. All I’ve seen, however, are people 200% committed to making this company work.
A lot of people have asked me what got Saab into this situation and the honest truth is that I just don’t know. I wouldn’t tell you if I did – that’s a job for someone with greater responsibilities than mine – but I simply don’t.
What I do know is that all the people I’ve met who work for this company, love working for this company. And those are exactly the people we want. My colleague in Saab’s social media area left a more secure job at Ikea to work for Saab. I know guys back in Australia who have come from Mercedes Benz and BMW to work for Saab. People want this company to succeed and they want to be a part of it. Now we have to execute.
We know that the Saab community gets passionate about this brand and we have to be just as passionate about developing, selling and serving the best we can. We have to prove to our customers, our dealer network and most importantly, our suppliers, that we have what it takes to succeed.
We believe the range is in place. Sales of the 9-5, in prior and more ‘normal’ conditions, were growing slowly but surely and the key model for Europe, the SportCombi, is on its way. The Saab 9-4x is already receiving extremely encouraging reviews and more press is on the way next week after a short-lead press introduction in the United States. Finally, the 9-3 Griffin – like wind-up models before it – is the best iteration of the Saab 9-3 that we’ve ever made. It still looks absolutely fantastic and the addition of the new direct injection engine will give the model a new lease of life. And don’t forget the low-emission 9-3 diesels that free owners up from road taxes in a number of countries in Europe.
With the range in place, it will be time for us to execute. I know there are things that need work in my particular area of interest (the web) but I also know that upgrades in that area are coming very, very soon. I know that we have very creative people looking at the best ways to promote our vehicle range in a way that gives us great value for money and will offer the opportunity for great experiences for the public.
We need to play our part, and we will. We also need you to play your part. We have a good order book ready and waiting for the factory re-start, which is very encouraging. Of course, we’ve always got room for more 🙂 .
Thanks for your support and your interest in Saab already. This company just keeps on fighting and we couldn’t do it without you.
So, here I am, sitting in a hotel room in Trollhattan. That’s not a bad place to be on a beautiful Spring day in Sweden, but I’d rather be in a picture like this…..
I’m sort of living in Sweden and sort of not. I don’t have an address here and I’ll be heading back to Australia next week after five weeks away from home in Hobart. But then I’ll be back again, and that’s the way things will go for much of this year. Sweden sometimes, the US or Britain or ….. wherever…… at other times. But mostly here. And that means that after getting an address sorted, I’m going to need some wheels.
