Some former Saab employees currently meet on Friday mornings at Innovatum, the engineering and technology hub that surrounds the Saab Museum. They get together for the social contact as well as to share some resources and advice as they make their individual trip through a collective post-Saab journey.
I’m leaving Sweden today, but before I jump on a plane that’ll eventually take me to Holland, I’ll fulfil an invitation to speak at this morning’s Innovatum meeting.
This is the text of that presentation.
——
When Michael first asked me to address you here today, it was an invitation that was very easy to accept. The chance to address one’s colleagues a final time before heading halfway around the world was one that I wasn’t going to miss.
For me, the simple opportunity to call each of you “colleagues” was one that I treasured. I can only wish it was something that lasted for longer than it has.
Michael has asked me to speak about Saabs United and this is appropriate because the journey I’ve taken that culminates in me speaking to you here today began with my website writings for Saabs United and its predecessor, Trollhattan Saab.
I started writing about Saab primarily because I loved the idea of writing in a public forum. When blogging software became more user-friendly and widely available, I searched for a topic to write about. The one thing I was passionate about, and knew something about, was Saab Automobile. That spark of interest quickly became a flame and I’m sure my wife will agree that the flame turned into a raging fire, pretty quickly.
Over the first four years, Trollhattan Saab gained a substantial audience and I was fortunate to have some wonderful experiences to share with them. I made my first pilgrimage to Trollhattan with some financial support from my readers in July 2007, attending the 60th Anniversary Saab Festival, which absolutely blew my mind.
I wrote this morning that I was feeling reassured about the future of the Saab Museum and I’m pleased to see those feelings have been vindicated. I was at O’Learys a few hours ago when word came through that the Saab Museum has been saved.
A consortium consisting of the Trollhattan Municipality, supported by Saab AB and the Wallenburg Foundation have won the day, securing the museum’s future and providing some small relief for the thousands of Saab fans who were worried about the museum’s collection being broken up.
This is a fantastic outcome, aligning Saab’s history with the city and the entities that shaped it over so many years. I truly believe it’s the best possible outcome we could have wished for.
The next steps I’d love to see:
Peter Backstrom and Ola Bolander secured to run the museum’s daily operations, as before.
A subscription model to enable friends of the museum to support it on an ongoing basis.
Maybe even an adopt-a-car scheme for people to assist with ongoing maintenance and care.
A great website for the museum to take it outside the city of Trollhattan. It’s crazy that the best known saab museum website was put together by an English enthusiast (G’day John!) independent of the museum itself.
I hope the museum collection is never vulnerable, ever again.
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.
Saab is like a patient who for a long time has bled to death. The brutal verdict is that the patient is dead, but the bleeding has not stopped. Such a large operation dies not die on its own. It takes time and costs to shut down this kind of business.
Their point being that the company is still leaking cash, even in bankruptcy, as it takes money to go through this process and of course, Saab has no income.
At least they had the good sense to do the press conference on a Saturday. I still expect more newspapers to run a similar headline in the coming 24 hours.
I’m as wary of spin as the next person, but there are ways of saying things, and then there are ways of saying things. The fact that The Local has snipped out this section for their headline won’t come as a surprise to anyone who has followed the news services around Saab for the last 10 months.
This is not a good headline for prospective buyers thinking of putting in bids for Saab this week.
The recent opening of bids for the sale of cars at the Saab Museum has touched a few nerves with a lot of people, me included.
I’ve been fortunate enough to spend quite a bit of time at the Saab Museum in the last four years or so and there’s always been something fascinating there to look at, discover for the first time, or re-discover.
My first visit to the Saab Museum was back in 2007, when I came to the Saab Festival in Trollhattan. This video was shot during that first visit and it shows several things: 1) my relative newbie status as a Saab fan at that time, and 2) the absolutely gorgeous Saab 900 SVO Concept, the car that would form the basis for the Saab 9-3 Viggen.
I didn’t place any bids for cars at the Saab Museum, but if I did, this would have been one of the cars I’d have loved to secure.
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.
——
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.
——
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.
——
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.
UPDATE: Now complete, with over 200 photos and GoogleTrans text into English for the 123 vehicles from the Saab Museum that are up for sale by public tender at the end of this week.
This is a really sad post to have to write. The cars from the Saab Museum are now up for sale by public tender and I guess this process is one of the first indicators we’ll get as to a potential new owner’s intentions for the brand. A corporate buyer looking to build on Saab’s existing brand attributes and presence should, at the very least, preserve the core of the museum collection for that purpose.
The cars have been documented (you can get your own copy here in PDF form) and offers to purchase any of the vehicles are to be submitted by Friday.
What a sad, sad occurrence for a Saab fan.
I’ve reproduced the contents of that PDF and translated the basics into English (via Google, hence they won’t always make sense). The bankruptcy administrators have taken photos of each car, mostly in poor light, and these are provided as well. The administrators have used their own coding system for documenting the vehicles, comprising the letters VM and a three digit number – and no, I don’t think that’s a tribute to Victor Muller 🙂
——
UrSaab – VM001
Color: Black Year: 1946 Chassis #: 92001 Registration #: HKP 798 Location: Museum Mileage: 8,502 Comments: The first Saab car, Ursaab, prototype built in Linköping 1946-1947, executable, partially restored and maintained over the years. Only been to Saab ownership. DKW engine, 2cyl about 18 hp, mech. Brakes, etc. Indutri / design / cultural history
——
Saab 92 – VM002
Color: Green Year: 1950 Chassis #: 192 Registration #: JFT588 Location: Museum Mileage: 6,870 Comments: This car has been driven, is worn, the right side is bad, needs bodywork restoration. Complete car.
As mentioned yesterday, Auto Motor and Sport magazine in Sweden have a special section on Saab their current edition (2/2012) and I was invited to provide an article for it.
As the magazine is in Swedish, I figured it would be good to provide the original English version for those of you not yet blessed with the ability to read/speak Swedish (like me).
I don’t know what they’ve used for a headline, so I’ll post it without one, below.
——
I officially became a Saab employee at the beginning of April 2011. In the week before I joined the company, we had a brief factory stoppage due to an unpaid account with our freight company. During my first week with Saab, we had some occasional production, and then a stoppage that continued almost uninterrupted until the company declared bankruptcy on December 19, 2011.
The opportunity to work for Saab was a dream come true after writing about them as an enthusiast for just over six years. The job itself was equal parts joy and frustration but I wouldn’t have traded this opportunity for anything in the world.
As I write this, there is still a window of opportunity for someone to step in and purchase Saab as a whole from the bankruptcy administrators. The alternative is for the company’s assets to be broken up and sold around the world. One option gives some hope for the brand, the other makes certain that we’ve seen the last of this innovative company from Western Sweden.
The sad part about this whole episode is that was all so avoidable. I won’t go into all the details here, but suffice to say that there were a lot of short-term, reactionary decisions made both inside and outside Saab. Decisions that could have been different if the people concerned had a longer-term outlook.
As you can now see in various places online (like here and here), some people at Saab are starting to receive letters telling them that they will cease to be employees as of [insert appropriate date].
The call that I sat in on yesterday, the one that brought me some acute heartbreak last night, was to do with that topic.
I received an email from a friend in Sweden overnight, who highlighted to me the lack of hope that that post conveyed for Saab’s future. Reading it back, I’d have to agree with him. I suppose the moment got the better of me.
Here’s part of my response to him this morning, suitable for reproducing here, too:
Perhaps I got a little too fatalistic at the end of that post. Of course, there is still hope for Saab to be sold as a whole entity and I hope that it is. I should have written that last section as being a risk of it all being lost, rather than it actually being lost.
My sadness was mainly about the fact that even if Saab is sold, the team I worked with has mostly moved on……So, maybe it’s not the end for Saab, but from a personal perspective, the bit of Saab that I worked closely with is very close to being completely disbanded.
I do, of course, retain hope that Saab can be sold as a whole unit, that we’ll still have a chance buy Saabs in the future. And yes, if that buyer came knocking on my door I’d love to talk to them about continuing to follow the journey that we started this year with Inside Saab. I still think the concept has tremendous merit.
But last night’s sadness was real and very personal, because it involved the people I’d got to know and really enjoyed working with. The hope that Saab can continue doesn’t take away the sadness that it won’t be with (mostly) the same people, nor does it temper the anger arising from the fact that we’re in this situation to begin with.
I sat in on a communal phone call with colleagues from Saab in Sweden this evening and it really was a heartbreaker. I won’t share the content of the call. It really is incidental to almost all who will be reading this and those who need to know will either have been listening, or will sit in on similar calls with their own people (if they haven’t already).
The big takeaway from the phone call was the real heartbreak of this whole situation. I’ve been back in Australia since early November and I didn’t realise how much I missed all of my workmates until this evening. Hearing their voices on the other end of the line really drove home the fact that we will most likely not be working together, ever again.
We had some incredible people in this group, people who had had great careers already with some big household-name companies. People who had left those companies to come and work with Saab Automobile. They made the move because they wanted the same thing I wanted – to be part of a great experience, doing great things with a great car company. We were free, we were unfettered. We were like Cosmo Kramer going commando….. “out there, baby, and loving every minute of it!”
We had a genuine chance, too. We had everything in place except for two of the things that we needed the most – adequate finance and cooperation from certain stakeholders. I guess if we had the first, we wouldn’t have needed the second so much. But even the second on its own could have helped to deliver the first.
These people, these fantastic, talented, wonderful people, will all land on their feet again, I’m sure. They’re too good to be left hanging in the breeze. It’s just that tonight, it’s really hurting to have to accept the idea that we won’t get the chance to execute the program that we were developing to promote the outstanding products we had coming down the pipeline. It hurts even more because it was all so avoidable.
I’ll be heading back to Sweden soon, to pack up some things and see as many people as I can. It’s going to be hard, but wonderful all at the same time.
Tonight’s one of those nights where you want to line up all the people responsible for this situation and give them a good, swift size 12 in the mid-section. What they’ve taken away is a tragedy for everyone involved – workers, colleagues, families, customers, dealers, the people of Trollhattan and others in the industrial sector in Western Sweden. It reaches further than you think and touches people deeper than you can imagine.
