Places Archives - Swadeology

Brexit schmexit! It’s time for Swexit.

I’m sad to report that in the next few months I will leave my employment at Koenigsegg Automotive. I will leave Sweden. And Europe.

I’ll really miss my colleagues at Koenigsegg. We’ve done some amazing things together. World record things. Breaking-the-mold things. My first day at work we broke the 0-300-0 km/h record with the One:1. A few months earlier we’d broken the lap record at Suzuka Circuit. A few months later we broke the lap record at Spa. We took the 0-400-0 record by six seconds just three weeks after Bugatti set it. A month later we sliced an extra three seconds from it while setting four world top speed records. Bugatti’s struggled to sell their Chirons ever since.

A month ago we launched our new car. The Jesko. A few weeks later I had the time of my life doing the first outdoor photoshoot with it with a couple of workmates.

It’s going to be very hard to leave that sort of thing behind.

The good news, though…… I’m very pleased to report that I’ll soon head home to Australia!

To Adelaide, to be more precise – the city of churches. And morons (it’s a Victorian thing. A football thing. You wouldn’t understand).

And I’m super-excited to report that I’m taking up a position at Brabham Automotive, doing basically the same thing I do at Koenigsegg.

If you’re not familiar with Brabham, check out the website for the basics. Put simply, they have a 70-year heritage rooted in racing. They’ve recently built a record-breaking track car and will turn that into a road car.

Check out this video of the BT62 setting a new closed-wheel lap record at Mount Panorama in February this year.

They’re also going back into racing with the ultimate goal being a run in WEC’s GTE class in 2021/22, including LeMans!

It’s an exciting proposition. Brabham is a fledgling brand for road cars and we’ll have a massive challenge on our hands to establish the name, but I can’t wait to join the team in Adelaide and get cracking.

My good friend Pete recently wrote: “I can’t wait to see the blog post explaining this one.”

Fair call.

Why am I leaving what’s been one of the most rewarding jobs – no, it’s THE most rewarding job – I’ve ever had?

The main reason is pretty simple – family and friends. My network’s pretty well spread and few of them are in Adelaide. I’ll still have to travel a bit to get to see the people closest to me, but at least I won’t have a week’s jetlag to deal with when I do it. I miss my people.

Also, there’s just a basic need to return somewhere that feels like home.

I’m looking forward to being able to read the newspaper. To read signs in shop windows. To watch the news and actually understand what people are saying. To talk shit about the footy with people who know what it is. To maybe get involved in a community. I might even (finally) get politically active and volunteer.

The small things that turn an existence into a life.

On the Swedish side, I just don’t fit in here. I freely admit that much of that is my own fault. I’ve never learned the language, which is key to settling in anywhere and being truly accepted by the locals. But even if I had learned to talk with a mouthful of marbles (which is still what Swedish sounds like to me), I’m not sure I’d have fit in here.

There are aspects of Swedish life that I really love.

For one, it’s a society that cares and they put that caring into action with smart stuff like free education, cheap healthcare and plenty of parental leave. That’s like catnip to a bleeding heart lefty like me. I don’t even mind paying the exorbitant taxes you pay here, mostly because I can see what I’m paying for. Australia could learn a lot from Sweden. From Scandinavia as a whole, actually. A lot of countries could.

There are very few assholes here, if you’ll pardon my vernacular. People are mindful. It’s a wonderful thing. I see very little, if any, road rage. The place is just not as tense as Australia (which is a modern phenomenon I blame mostly on Rupert Murdoch – Australia used to be the most relaxed place on Earth. It’s not anymore).

All that politeness, mindfulness and good forward planning has its downsides, though.

Sweden, to me, is a place that’s missing an edge. Lagom is good, but you can be too lagom. People here enjoy high average standards, which is wonderful in its own way. But it also means that Sweden avoids the lows that give a place proper grit and the highs that make a place soar. I miss that edge.

I’ll have given Sweden four years of my life by the time I leave. It’s been absolutely grand, but it’s also enough. I will say goodbye to friends here with distinct and sincere sadness, but say goodbye I will.

And then I’ll go ‘home’ where there’s family, friends, short winters, useful daylight hours, amazing landscapes, cheap petrol, and where all the critters are trying to kill you.

Hmmm. The critters. There’s a good chance I’ll be back.

Sweden Diary – Day 4 of my visit to Trollhattan

Yesterday was a busy day and a very enjoyable one. I’ll write more detailed notes on the visits at a later date, but there’s a summary below.

I guess the dominant feeling from this visit, aside from the happiness at being back here and seeing colleagues and friends again, is one of sadness. I’m coming to a better understanding of the personal loss that I’ll have in my own life by not being able to pursue my career with Saab here in Sweden. This job would have been fantastic and that’s a significant loss in itself, but more than that, there’s the friendships and experiences that I won’t get to build and share with people here.

Life back in Australia will be great, I know, but I’m really going to miss everything that Sweden had to offer PJ and I in terms of opportunities, experiences and friends. I guess it’s also making me more determined to make sure we do things back in Australia so we can live the way we want to, rather than the way circumstances might seem to dictate we have to.

Anyway, to yesterday’s activities…..

Visit with e-AAM

I called in on e-AAM to visit with Peter Johansson, a bloke I first met a few years ago back in Australia and the company’s vehicle integration manager. Peter’s the guy who made sure the XWD system that first appeared in the Saab 9-3 back in 2008 worked so well – the perfect guy to lead the vehicle integration efforts for e-AAM’s new eXWD system.

Their work has been affected by what’s happened to Saab, of course, but they continue to make progress and eXWD should indeed see life as a production component with interest from several companies already being nurtured. It shouldn’t be that far away, either.

When Peter’s not developing tomorrow’s technologies at the office, he’s in his private workshop building the car he’ll probably race from this summer in Sweden. We visited the workshop, too, and it was an amazing experience.

Peter’s the third generation of his family to work at Saab. His grandfather was one of the original 16 or so engineers who were there at the start of Saab’s automotive operations. His father, Sigge (who passed away very recently), was a legendary engineer at Saab and did some amazing things in the home workshop as well. Stuff like this:

That’s part of a compressor system (supercharger) for a Saab V4. Imagine that poking out the hood of your Saab 96 or Sonett 🙂

There’s plenty more from that visit, but that’ll do for now.

Museum Visit

I also called into the Saab Museum to collect the award that Saab gave me a few years ago.

I’ve always preferred the idea of the award staying with the museum, but with the recent threat to the museum’s continued existence, I thought I’d take the opportunity to bring it home. I can always return it to the museum if things work out OK.

On that front, I feel a bit more confident about the museum’s future after chats with people here in Trollhattan. There were a lot of bids for individual vehicles (the reports of around 500 bids are accurate, from what I hear) but also some bids for the entire museum operation, which is encouraging.

I guess the question for the bankruptcy administrators is do they risk scraping together a little more money from individual sales – with some bidders probably possibly having thrown ‘hail mary’ bids and the possibility of non-payment – or do they make what I’d see as the sensible decision and take a whole-of-operation bid that would not only protect the heritage and value of the collection, but also provide them with funds in one easy-to-administer and easy-to-collect transaction.

TTELA interview

The local newspaper, TTELA, got in touch with me and asked for a pow-wow, so I talked with them yesterday. Anna-Karin from TTELA was a trooper – the photographer wanted an outside photo so we did the interview as we walked the streets of Trollhattan, with her trying to write as we walked. Her hands must have come very close to freezing and falling off the end of her arms.

I don’t know when that interview will be published, but probably in the next day or so.

Dinner

Meals are always a highlight of this visit as they’re a chance to catch up with colleagues and friends. Last night was Mamma Mia’s lasagne and it was great, as always. The occasion also saw me sell my little red 900 and it’s great to know that it’s gone to a good home here in Trollhattan. I had some great times with that little car. Whilst it wasn’t worth much in financial terms, it was worth everything in terms of the freedom it gave me as a foreigner here in Sweden, and the fun times I had driving it around the countryside.

Sweden Diary – Day 2 of my visit to Trollhattan

I guess it’s appropriate to diarise this trip, eh?

I didn’t do a Day 1 diary, but for those who’d like to know, I visited Polestar and then got on a train to Trollhattan. That’s about it (more on Polestar later, but that’s it for now).

To be honest, most of Day 2 was pretty boring. I watched a few videos and tried to figure out how I’m going to pack all the stuff I have to take home into two suitcases. I went shopping, ate some food and got ready for the evening’s entertainment.

There are two reasons why such a quiet program was OK for me. Reason #1 is the jetlag, which tends to zap your enthusiasm for movement. Reason #2 is because no matter what I would have done today, the star attraction of the day was actually the weather.

I live about as far south as you can live in Australia. Hobart is 100kms or so from the southern-most town in the country. Even though we’re that far south, we don’t see snow very often at all. I’m actually petrified with the idea of living in a snowy climate. I wouldn’t know how to cope with all that shovelling, all that slippery stuff.

Today, it snowed in Trollhattan and I know now why the Swedes tend to welcome the snow in winter – because it gives some beauty to brighten up the cold temperatures that are going to be there anyway.

Today we were treated to a light, all-day snowfall that put the sort of picture-perfect white blanket over everything, the sort of postcard snowy image that we southerners think of when we think snowfall. It was enough to put 5cm or so of cover over everything, but not so heavy as to be a pain in terms of movement around the city. People were still walking their dogs and driving to the shops, but they were doing it amongst a prettier picture.

Speaking of which, here’s one from this evening:

Just beautiful. My wife’s quite accustomed to living with snow as she grew up in Canada. Still, I bet she would have enjoyed this today and I wish she was here to see it.

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I waited like everyone else with a Saaby state-of-mind on events from Gothenburg today. Earlier in the week, the administrators in charge of Saab’s bankruptcy procedures announced a press conference in Gothenburg for this afternoon. Given that they haven’t said much up to now, there was a fair bit of anticipation around this happening. What would be announced? Would they sell Saab whole? And if so, who would they sell it to?

They needn’t have bothered. I get the feeling that they called the PC in response to some growing criticism that they hadn’t said much so far. They didn’t say much today, either. Essentially, they’re still looking to sell Saab whole (which we kinda knew, but is good to hear) and they have parties that are interested in buying the company whole, which we also knew. So their attempt to salve the PR needs of the people and the press didn’t really achieve its purpose, IMHO.

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The main attraction this evening was a get together with some friends here for some car racing and some man-food. The racing was done on simulators at a place called Buddys. Let’s just say I finished Top-5 and leave it at that, shall we 😉

The food was great. It was my first O’Learys Classic Ribs of this visit, but I’m sure it won’t be my last. The food was only made better by the company and we all enjoyed some laughs.

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I guess it’s different to come here to Trollhattan in the winter time. The place still functions, it just does things a little different when the snow is around.

The big change I’m looking to see during this visit is how things feel here with Saab being inoperative and under permanent threat. That’s something you can’t gauge from one day’s weather-watching. I guess it’ll hit home the most if and when I get to call in to Saab’s HQ during the week. I still have to return my keycard and my phone, so I’ll try to set up an appointment time when someone I know will be there. It’s going to be eerie, but that’s where we’re at right now, I guess.

I miss home very much, but it’s good to be back and the opportunity of catching up with more and more people this week, for the last time in many instances, is one I’ll treasure. I do love this place and the people I worked with here. It’s going to be very sad to leave it behind in a few days and know that I, personally, am not likely to be back for some considerable time.