Category: Events

Updates from the 2011 Saab Owners Convention

The 2011 Saab owners Convention is well and truly underway and it’s been great to get some updates from people on the ground there.

Of course, our own girl-on-the-ground, Stephanie from SCNA is there and she’s been having a lot of fun, meeting a lot of attendees and getting a feel for what a Saab owners gathering is all about – great cars and great people.

She’s also been getting a good feel for life in the convertible lane…..

Following is a nice gallery of shots sent in by Stephanie, Steve C and Greg Abbott.

Steve C attended one of the tech sessions held earlier on Saturday. The session was held at Reinertsen Motos, a Saab dealer and one of the SOC sponsors.

Jack Lawrence of Motor Sports Service was the featured speaker talking about lessons learned from his illustrious racing career with building and maintaining race cars based on Saab Sonetts and 96s. These shots include Len Schrader’s vintage racing 96s. The red one is signed by Erik Carlsson. Len is Principal and co-owner of Reinertsen Motors, Denville NJ.

The photos from the tech session were taken by Paul Ostensen.

Greg Abbott has sent in some beautiful images, including some from the dyno session held at the SOC as well as the parts sale.

Stephanies shots include images from Tim Colbeck’s presentation on the opening night (which by all accounts, went very well) as well as some images of the cars being shown at the event. A personal favourite of mine is Ralph B’s white Saab Sonett II, which I was fortunate enough to take for a drive around this time last year. Another personal favourite is the Blue 1980 Saab 900, which I believe belongs to another friend of mine, though I haven’t driven that one (YET!)

Click an image to enlarge…. (order of appearance – Greg’s, Steph’s, Paul/Steve’s)

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Early arrivals at the Saab Owners Convention

People are starting to drift in to the Parsippany Hilton Hotel in New Jersey for the 2011 Saab Owners Convention.

Stephanie from Saab Cars NA is there and she recently tweeted the following:

Look what arrived today at the Owners Convention…..

A good friend of mine, Greg Abbott, has just driven from Minnesota to be there and he’s sent the following early images in via email (click to enlarge):

Custom built Saab 96 convertible….

Beautiful 99T badge shot…..

The goodie-bag given to attendees…..

Parking lot (there’s going to be a lot of wandering around in there over the next few days)…..

The Saab tent in the parking lot with a few of the heritage cars….

When I grow up I wanna…….

Early Saab Sonett dashboard…..

SOC (USA) – Make sure you say hi to Stephanie

I’m not going to make it to the Saab Owners Convention in New Jersey this weekend. I’m sure all the attendees are going to have a fantastic time and it’s disappointing that I can’t be there to share in it. I’ve been doing this Saaby stuff for more than six years now and I still haven’t managed to get to SOC yet – very sad.

We still want to share some stories from the SOC, however, which is why Stephanie from the Saab Cars North America office will be attending the event.

Stephanie’s going to have a flipcam with her to capture all the good stuff from the gathering. We’ll put the footage together and show it on our various channels shortly thereafter.

So if you’re attending SOC this year, keep an eye out for Stephanie and make sure you say hello. She’d love to talk to you, check out your Saab or lead you around a quick tour of our new Saab 9-5 and 9-4x to get your thoughts. She’ll be doing photos and video at the event, so if you want your car (or yourself) featured, Steph’s the one to talk to.

A final word on IntSaab 2011 (with gallery)

I had another extraordinary weekend last weekend, attending the 2011 IntSaab event in Finland. These big Saab meetings are so inspiring. The opportunity to break bread with a big group of long-term and hardcore Saab nuts is one that we should all take advantage of at least once. I’ve been very lucky to do events like these several times now, and it never ceases to amaze or inspire me.

Saab needs its core fan base. We need you to preserve the integrity and history of the brand. Of course, we need you to drive Saabs, both old and new, and as part of that it’s our job to make cars that both adhere to and advance the Saab brand in the future.

I want to thank the Saab Club of Finland for hosting an excellent event this year. The organising team and their volunteers made everything run as smooth as silk and you’ve given me a taste for IntSaab events that will linger and grow as we all wait for next year’s event at Spa, in Belgium.

Below is my final gallery of cars. Apologies if I haven’t got your car in there, but hopefully it’s been shown somewhere in the previous IntSaab 2011 postings.

Click to enlarge.

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Saab 9-5 previewed in Russia

Saab is going to be moving into two very important markets in the new future. Both China and Russia offer huge growth potential for our sales network and last weekend, our Russian importer, Armand Import, held two Saab 9-5 preview events. August 5 was for Saab fan clubs and another event was held for prospective customers on August 8.

I received the following report from Armand earlier today.

As a result of the events on the weekend, Armand collected over 200 completed surveys that will be used for customer profiling, segmentation, re-creation of the customer database and identification of customer preferences in terms of the vehicle trim levels and options offered.

Armand intentionally did not invite any automotive journalists to keep both events exclusive and private. The press will get their turn when the official sales commence. Some bloggers were invited, however, and have posted reviews of the event(s) on their private blogs (see smotra.ru and saablog.ru).

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The event on August 5th was held outdoors in front of Armand’s dealer center exclusively for the members of Saab fan clubs in Russia. Attendance was via preliminary registration only.

In a wise move, Armand chose to include the administrators of Saab clubs’ in all stages of the event planning so as to build relationships with the opinion leaders and ensure support on Saab forums, auto blogs and social media platforms.

A total of 167 clubs members registered for the event. Invitation and feedback was posted on major Saab clubs’ forums.

Every guest received a gift – T-shirt with Saab and Armand logo. Together with DFI Accessories, Armand arranged for the sale of original Saab accessories during the event with a 15% discount. Complimentary refreshments were served.

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The event on August 8th was held indoors from 11 am through 9 pm on the second floor of Armand’s dealer center for prospective buyers by preliminary registration only. A total of 129 prospective buyers registered for the event.

Again, every guest received a gift – Saab water bottle, baseball cap or pen. And again, Armand arranged for the sale of the original Saab accessories during the event with 15% discount.

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Thanks to members of the Saab Clubs in Russia and Drive.ru for use of the photos. More great photos here.

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More elaborate notes from IntSaab 2011 :-)

Yesterday we had some brief notes from IntSaab 2011. Today I have access to my photos, so it’s time for some more elaborate postings…..

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If I had to pick one highlight from IntSaab this year, it was meeting this guy for the first time. If you don’t recognise him by sight, then you’re just like I was. If you recognise his name but know little about his extraordinary life/career, then you’re just like I was.

It’s a situation that I hope to rectify soon, for all of us.

This is Simo Lampinen, one of the original Flying Finns. He drove Saabs in rallies throughout the 1960s and 70s with multiple wins and podium finishes in rallies all over Europe. He has spent his retirement from competitive rallying as an administrator and clerk for the WRC circuit (amongst others) and if you’ve not been hit by a car whilst attending a competitive rally stage, you can probably thank Simo for your safety.

Simo did a presentation at IntSaab about Saab rallying and his career with both the Swedish and Finnish Saab rally teams. I missed that presentation as we were still on the road, on our way up to the event. Simo was kind enough to give me a personal encore on Sunday morning and I can’t be more grateful.

Simo has just passed his 68th birthday and still has the energy of a child. He loves a good story and I’m planning to get together with him again to record his story, from his perspective, for sharing here in Inside Saab in the future.

Two of Simo’s competition cars, which are now privately owned, were on display at IntSaab and still get a run regularly.

I can’t let this article pass by without thanking Marco H, who is the man primarily responsible for bringing Simo’s name and career to a higher place in my consciousness. Much appreciated, mate.

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I also learned yet another way that the Saab 900 was ahead of its time – it has an iPhone holder built in……

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The Saab Performance Team did their thing, albeit on a slightly smaller scale, on Saturday. Three shows were held during the afternoon at the Nokian Tyre Warehouse, in Nokia.

Kenneth fielding a question as to why they use cars with an automatic transmission…..

I’ve got a lot of video editing to do, but hopefully we should have something to show from the event in the next few days….

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Most attendees at IntSaab saw the 9-4x for the first time at the Nokian Tyre Warehouse. It was unveiled at the end of the Performance Team show and then parked, and opened for inspection.

We also had it at the IntSaab hotel venue and it attracted people every time the doors (or other parts) were opened…..

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I didn’t see this Saab 96 custom job at the main IntSaab venue, but it showed up at the Nokian Tyre Warehouse on Saturday afternoon.

The car has had its rooline chopped and many of the panels have been fabricated from fibreglass to get the custom look. A Ford V6 engine (the ‘Essex’ V6, if I understood correctly) has been fitted in the car.

It probably won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but for the amount of work and dedication that’s gone into this, and for the superb quality result obtained, you have to respect it. Amazing stuff.

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If you’re lost whilst looking for next year’s IntSaab, which will be at Spa, in Belgium, then just look for the guy in the matte black Saab 96 and do as the sign says…..

The Belgians have hosted some wonderful Saab gatherings in the last few years and IntSaab 2012 will be a cracker, I’m sure.

I’ll be providing more details as soon as the whole package is ready for publication.

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Saabs at the Hemmings Sports and Exotic Car Show

If you’re into classic cars and you don’t read Hemmings, you should. It’s that simple. It’s not just that it’s the bible when it comes to collectible automobiles, but some of the editors there have a real affection for Swedish metal, and Saabs in particular, so ‘our’ cars receive some very nice coverage every now and then.

Last weekend, Hemmings held their sixth annual Sports and Exotic Car Show at the Saratoga Auto Museum in New York. Mark McCourt from Hemmings emailed me today to share some of the Saab Spirit from the show…..

I was very pleased that we had a good Saab turnout… we normally have one or two, but this year, including mine, we had six. Those included “Shelby,” the flat-nose Turbo belonging to Linnea K. Arte L’s famous Surface Friction Tester and Gary Stottler’s charming GT 850, which we awarded our “Favorite Swedish Car” were also there. Also, Ric D (from the Commemorative Edition Register) brought his ’93 Turbo Convertible daily driver and vintage Saab parts supplier Don L brought his custom 96 V-4.

Ric’s ‘vert, my ‘S’ and Arte’s SFT were in the non-judged “1987-newer” section, while Linnea’s, Gary’s and Don’s cars were in the judged category. Notice that Gary and Shari S were being interviewed on camera, and Don’s 96 was one car down… it’s hard to see, but two white Toyota Supras were interspersed between two white Saab 96s!

Click to enlarge….

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Brief notes from IntSaab 2011

The slow rate of entries from IntSaab was due to the vast amount of activity.

Right now I’m sitting on a ship, heading away from Turku, Finland, towards Stockholm. The Saab 9-4x is tucked away safely in the belly of this ship and will enjoy another run from Stockholm to Trollhattan tomorrow (It’s averaging 11L per 100km for those who are interested).

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Like the Saab Festival in Trollhattan, IntSaab is one of those significant activities that people should really try to be part of at least once if they can. The variety of cars and people and the depth of stories to be told is just amazing.

I’ve lost count of the number of people I met who bought their first Saab back in the 1960s or 70s. And some of the history on show was just magnificent. New cars, too, though lesser in number. We need to get some of those newer buyers a bit more engaged (which is a responsibility that lies with Saab as much as anyone else).

I’m sure that everyone who attended the event would join me in thanking the Saab Club of Finland for putting on a fantastic event. It can’t be easy to find a venue that can handle hundreds of cars as well as accommodating and feeding hundreds of people. The hotel at Ellivouri did both with aplomb and it made the event all the more enjoyable to have a real, central base for everything.

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Interest in the future of Saab was high amongst people at the event. Everyone wanted to know who the mysterious Americans were and how things were going back in Trollhattan. What was the future for Saab? Are we going to survive?

It was hard being unable to provide fuller answers, but the message I conveyed at IntSaab was the same as the message here and everywhere else when it comes to Saab matters.

The current issue is short-term. We still have to get through it (and we will) but when we do, the long-term future is very bright. And don’t believe everything you read in the papers.

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We brought along a Saab 9-4x for the event and the reception it received was outstanding. People were all over the vehicle from the first time we opened the doors.

The Saab 9-4x has been made primarily with the US market in mind, but it was really encouraging to hear a lot of people asking about when it would be available in Europe.

We stopped in at the few Saab dealerships on the way to IntSaab and they were really happy to see the 9-4x as well.

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Those dealer visits were all part of Saab’s wider contribution to the weekend. There wasn’t a whole lot that we could do with a small team, but I hope we managed to add something to the weekend.

In addition to bringing the Saab 9-4x, we also had Kenneth and Kent from the Saab Performance Team there. They put on a smaller, two-man show that kept the crowd entertained on Saturday afternoon. I’ll be putting together some video from this show (you can see the teaser here if you haven’t already done so).

We also had two Saab 9-5s for people to inspect, and Sauli Naski, who is one half of the in-country Saab Finland team, was on hand to take any questions about the local market.

It was great to be able to bring something from the company to add to the event. The organisers of IntSaab 2011 did such a fantastic job and of course, they do it so that people can share their enjoyment of the brand and the cars that we’ve made over the years. Coming along and adding a little bit of a presence/enjoyment from Trollhattan was a lot of fun, and the least that we could do.

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I’ll have more photos and stories from IntSaab when I get back to Trollhattan. Right now, my camera (and memory card) and safely locked inside the 9-4x, in the car deck of the ferry. That’s why you’re reading a lot of text right now and not seeing a lot of photos.

Again, thanks to all at IntSaab – both organisers and attendees. Have a great start to the new week and I’ll catch you all when I’m back in Trollhattan tomorrow.

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