Inside Saab Archives - Page 3 of 9

Custom Saab: Saab 9000 Transporter

The observant ones amongst you would have noticed a rather unusual looking Saab 9000 in some recent photos from the dealership tour in Germany.

Here’s one of them. And what’s that there in the back? A yellow Saab 9000?

A reader from the USA noticed this 9000 and wrote to me asking for some more information about it. I figured it might be good to feature it here on the website.

The car is actually a Saab 9000 converted to be a vehicle transporter. The Saab Museum has a few of these vehicles, converted by a Swedish company. This 9000 was built according to the same plans, but the job began with it’s first owner, a former Saab dealer in Germany.

The car is now owned by Autohaus Lafrentz GmbH, a Saab service partner in Kiel, Germany. I recently received the following information from Markus LaFrentz:

The car is a model year 1988 Saab 9000 CD 2.0Turbo with 163 Hp and a manual transmission. The car had had an accident in the rear end, so it was cut in two pieces and became the ideal candidate for this transporter conversion.

The previous owner nearly finished the car, but then his business came into some trouble and his company went bankrupt. My dad than helped him a little and bought all his cars from stock with the precondition to get the transporter also. He accepted the offer from my dad and we then got all his cars and “his baby”. The car has now driven nearly 180,000km.

In late 2009 we started a restoration job on the car and made some upgrades. The car has now the look of a 1994 CS. We also made the transport area a little wider and we added some nice Hella LED backlights for better visibility. The restoration took us nearly 10 months because it was only done when we had some free time for the repair job. We have had the car since 1993 and we have done a lot of transportation with it.

I don’t really know how long it took to build the car originally, but I think it was a long time and an even more expensive job than the guy first thougt. The biggest problem was to get the approval from the German authorities.

As far as we know, it is the only existing one in Germany.

Click to enlarge any of the images from the gallery below. My thanks to Markus for the background information.

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Video: Making a Saab 100K Mosaic

Got your Saab 100K mosaic yet?

It was hard work printing, then pasting all those photos on to the paper, color matching them, etc. Paper cuts galore! But we got there eventually 🙂

Here’s a time-lapse:

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Thanks again for submitting your images. I hope you enjoyed the mosaics and please feel free to spread the word!

And I hope you watched the video right through to the end 🙂

Poll – Leaked Saab image

By now, may of you would have seen the image below, which first appeared in a Swedish newspaper yesterday and has since gone all around the web.

The image should have been redacted by the body that passed the document on to the newspaper, however this was overlooked. An apology has been offered and accepted. Thankfully for us, the image is small and of insufficient detail to give too much away, but we can say that it was from a Saab document and that’s all we’ll give away at this time.

So…. seeing as you’ve had your sneaky peek, let’s go to the polls. Hot or Not?

Have your vote, and comments are open.

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[poll id=”10″]

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Regarding the Creditors Meeting

Earlier today I wrote an article here at Inside Saab that may have left the impression that a vote would be taken at the creditors meeting underway today at the district court in Vanersborg.

That impression would be incorrect.

I’ve received some information internally that spells out the following, which should help those interested in the process Saab is currently involved in:

The main purpose of the creditors meeting is to give the creditors influence over the proceedings, i.e. if the proceedings shall be allowed to continue and also the conduct of the reorganisation. The judge leads the meeting. Normally the judge starts by explaining the purpose of the meeting and then leads the meeting. The judge then leaves the word to the administrator.

During the meeting a preliminary reorganisation plan will be presented and the creditors will be allowed to ask questions and express their view of the reorganisation. The meeting is only for arguments and no voting will take place.

During the meeting there will also be a possibility to appoint a creditors’ committee. The reason is often that the creditors want more insight into the reorganisation work.

After the proceedings the Court will rule for a cease or a continuation of the reorganisation process. This can take up to two weeks.

So now we’re all better informed…..

At the end of the world…..

Could this be the northernmost Saab ….. (cue Clarkson voice) ….. in the world?

Arjan Bronkhorst is a professional photographer – and a Saab fan – so when he spotted an early model Saab 900 abandoned in Spitsbergen he just had to get a shot of it.

Link: Arjan Bronkhorst Photography.

Make sure you click to see this one enlarged.

If you’re like me, you might be asking “Where the heck is Spitsbergen?” Well, if you thought Sweden was pretty far north, think again…..

Forgive me, but I’m doing my work from Wikipedia here. Spitsbergen is part of Norway and lies at 78° north. The Saab might be abandoned by virtue of the fact the place (apparently) has no roads, with snowmobiles, boats and aircraft being used to ferry people around. The island is around 39,000 sq km and is home to a few small permanent communities and a population of polar bears and reindeer.

78° north. That’s why I’m wondering if this could be the northernmost Saab in existence. I guess there could be another Saab further north on the island itself, or something in northern Greenland.

For mine, though, that’s the most extreme Saab graveyard I’ve heard about. My thanks to Arjan for capturing the serenity in pixels and allowing me to share it on site.

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A thought on Saab marketing and service

From the people I talk to, I know there’s a lot of interest in Saab’s marketing and advertising. As a prelude to our Q&A part 2, where one of the questions related to this, I can foreshadow the answer by saying that the marketing plan we will follow won’t be a shock and awe saturation TV campaign. Put simply – it costs a kings ransom and just won’t have that sort of money. We’ll have to be smarter.

I’m not posting this article to have a crack at people who think we should do this. It’s a natural thought, especially if you live in parts of the world where massive campaigns are the normal thing. All I want to do here is get people used to the fact that we will have to do things different.

Again, not having a personal crack, but the following was written in comments by Bryan S:

BUMP UP THE MARKETING. Im sorry to say, but i havent seen SAAB “try” to sell any of their cars since being pulled from the hole, that they fell back in. SAAB needs to shove its product to the consumers face, and over do it. Start making commericals and ads…. alot of them, something sassy, informative, something targeting the 25-60yr old crowd. You know why other brands are doing so well? AD’s AD’s AD’s.

As I said, it’s a normal thought in a culture where companies do this sort of thing as a matter of routine.

The problem is, we’re not in the same situation as most companies and we just won’t have the budget for massive TV-based campaigns.

Another commenter, named Tom, responded as follows and I couldn’t help but nod my head.

OK, Bryan. Since I work for a small, humble family owned dealer in New England and we aren’t advertising, I thought I’d start a direct marketing campaign, starting here with you!. I hope this will get you up and bring you into our Saab dealership.

-I can’t offer flashy, in your face advertising.
-I can’t overdo things, like the cars I sell and drive, I tend to be understated.
-I can’t be gaudy and trendy but rather timeless with an understated cutting edginess (again, like the cars I sell and drive).

Here’s what I can do….

-I can offer a product, a Saab vehicle, that arguably represents the most car for your money compared to everything else on the market even though we don’t like to be compared to anything else on the market. (our cars, our style and our views are rather unique)
-I can make the case for my statement above
-I can offer extraordinary service, before, during and after the purchase
-I can promise you’ll be treated with decency and respect.
-I can offer an individualized sales process tailored to you.
-I can work on your terms and at your pace without pressuring you.
-I can offer as much product information as you can handle.
-I can promise easy, stress free pricing.
-I can’t offer BS

We WILL be advertising and marketing the Saab brand and Saab vehicles. It’s not as if we’re not going to do marketing at all. But I think you’ll find that what we will concentrate on is more personal than a big, broad scattergun approach. And, accounting is another big thing I need to focus on. You know, accounting for your marketing agency is crucial when the budget is an issue.

Tom’s writing, above, is typical of how we’re going to rely on our dealerships to do a lot of person-to-person promotion for us. We will need to package our vehicles appropriately, arm our dealers with the appropriate knowledge and passion, and reach the right people to drive them into dealerships and make the connection.

I don’t know Tom, or the name of his dealership, but if you can find him, he sounds like the sort of guy you might want to deal with.

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And again, Bryan, I can understand where you’re coming from and you’re not alone in your thoughts. I’ve heard similar pleas from people all around the world for several years now. I’ve only used your comment here because it prompted the response from Tom in the same thread.

What you’ve suggested is actually quite accurate and if we can do what you suggest, I’m sure we will. BUT……..Nothing I know about our potential budgets indicates that that will be possible at a re-launch. The dollar amount involved is mind-boggling and you’re paying for a lot of eyes connected to brains that just won’t register what they’re seeing.

We need to be a lot more targeted and personal than that. And we need to make sure the experience is as good as possible, so that you as a customer will tell others about it.

A tall order, but that’s what we’re facing.

What our design chief did in his previous job….

I saw this earlier today and just had to share…..

Our design chief, Jason Castriota, has done some very cool things in the past. This very exclusive, one-off Lancia Stratos is one of them. Yes, this car was done by the same guy who’s leading the design team working on your future Saab 9-3 replacement.

Doesn’t that get you just a little bit excited?

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I know it might seem a little unusual to be talking about a Lancia here, but I guess you could say this is more a post about passion.

If there’s one thing I hear consistently from Saab fans around the world it’s that many of them feel the cars lost some of their individuality – things that people can get passionate about – in recent times.

Saab is a small company and we have to be passionate about what we do in order to keep on moving. We also need to build vehicles that you can get passionate about as a customer, in order to keep you interested in what we do.

If you know anything about our Chairman, you’ll know that he’s passionate about this company. I guess that’s why he wanted to get Jason Castriota involved as soon as the two met a few years ago.

This Lancia Stratos was a one-off project, but it met with universal praise and pleas for the Fiat group to seek mass production of the design. Such is the passion that evocative design can inspire in people.

We’re looking forward to the future to see what sort of magic Jason and the Saab design team have come up with for the Saab 9-3 replacement

Fan Week – Some Saab appreciation in a new found land

I know we have some Saab fans in Canada as I’ve met a few of them in my travels. There’s a small but hardcore group out in the Pacific Northwest and I can well remember the large group from Toronto that got together for a support convoy there last year, even getting some significant news coverage at the time.

I don’t know much about the Saab presence in some of the less prominent provinces, however.

I got this email from Newfoundland over the weekend, and it showed me that there’s definitely some dedicated Saab support there. It’s always great to hear from people for the first time, and especially when they’re from places where you didn’t know there were pockets of support for Saab. The support that we get from you folks, even in these hardest of times, is outstanding, and much appreciated.

The writer is Robert B:

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Hi Steven,

I thought it was about time I took pen in hand and express what Saab has meant to me.

I too am from a land down under, the island of Newfoundland, off the east coast of Canada. I have driven my Saab since it rolled out of the box in 2003. It’s been through searing heat, arctic blasts and everything mother nature can dish out. And it still looks like new out there in the full moon tonight, and it still puts a smile on my face 8 years into my Saab life.

Over the past few years, I’ve watched the drama, the endings and near endings, and the new beginnings. At the end of the day, I want everyone there to know that there are many people cheering on the efforts to get that production line rolling again, getting the dedicated, ultra-loyal workers back doing what they do best, and in getting that new 9-3 out and other new models back onto the streets of Trollhattan and Newfoundland.

So thanks to the people who built my Saab and my sincere thanks to the people who are trying to breathe new life into the sails. From where I sit tonight, there seems to be a ray of light on my bonnet.

I am waiting for the griffin to take flight again, and I want to simply say thanks to the wonderful craftsmen and women who shared their talents and passion, so I could smile through every mile I’ve driven in my Saab. So thank you to Steven, to SU, and to VM and all the others, who have done so much to keep the dream alive. Believe me, it’s worth every minute of work. There are many people standing behind you.

All the best to all.

Robert B
Topsail
Newfoundland

Fan Week – get your Saab images ready!

G’day everyone,

I’m sure there’ll be some significant news this week and we’ll cover it as it happens. But I also wanted to share a little of what you’re doing in the Saab world – ie. our customers, our fans.

There have been quite a few events on recently, and I’ve received a couple of personal emails from people that I’d like to share, too.

We’re closing in on an important milestone on our Saab Facebook page – 100,000 fans – and we’d like to do something special to celebrate that as well. If you’ve not joined the party on Facebook, log in and ‘Like’ us.

We’d like you to be part of these celebrations, too. We’d like you to get your camera out, or trawl through your hard drive and send us images of your Saab. We’ll be putting together a downloadable mosaic image featuring as many of your photos as we can.

Get your photos ready. We’ll put out a call for them during the next week and we need HEAPS of them.

I want my Saab!

This hurts, but it also puts a smile on your face.

One of our dealers in Holland, Jaap T, sent this to me earlier today. He has a wonderful repeat client, one who even extended his lease in the hope of acquiring a new Saab 9-5 SportCombi. It hurts us to know that we haven’t been able to build it for him.

With his lease already extended once, he recently bit the bullet and acquired a vehicle from another brand, though his wife was still missing the Saab quite a lot and decided to take some small cosmetic matters into her own hands as a reminder of what mattered most…..

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We have the best customers!

I can’t say how much it hurts that we’re keeping them waiting.

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