I spent 40 minutes on the phone with NEVS last night and am busy typing up the results at the moment. In the meantime…….
The most interesting car in the world for me right now is nearly complete. The Sonabusa – a Saab Sonett III mated to a Suzuki Hayabusa engine and modified to rear-wheel-drive – is the work of Albany Speed Shop in the US.
Darryl got the Sonabusa out for a quick drive today and the good news for us: he took a camera with him 🙂
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You’ve probably already heard about Hurricane Sandy’s most famous automotive victims – a bunch of Fiskers that caught fire after one of them short-circuited. That was the headline story. The sad fact is that estimates say approximately 250,000 cars may have been wiped out by Sandy.
Inundated. Washed away. Crushed. Whatever.
I heard a sad story last week, especially sad for a Saab fan, about the loss during Hurricane Sandy of one of the few 9-4x’s ever made. I checked in with a friend from Saab North America and found that there were only 467 Saab 9-4x’s made for the 2011 model year. The 9-4x is one rare bird. Now, in the post-Sandy world, there’s at least one less.
ADDED NOTE: I neglected to mention that this 9-4x is #58 of those 467 built. Not just a rare bird, but an early bird, too.
A friend in the US who works in the motoring press – a Saab fan, naturally – ended up with a 9-4x in his extended family when his Uncle and Aunt bought one. They weren’t Saab owners prior to the 9-4x, but they’d heard plenty about them thanks to the other Saab-owning members of the family. When it came time for them to buy a new car in February this year they were keen on the idea of an SUV. They tried the 9-4x and the Saab-apocalypse price made the deal irresistible.
They bought this Zodiac Black 9-4x for $27.5K plus a $700 shipping charge (the vehicle had to come cross country from Minnesota). They bought a six-year warranty through their dealer, bringing the total cost to $30K. Even with that warranty charge, it was a great deal. The MSRP was more than $38K new, with the car fitted with XWD, power package and full leather. It was a Saab ‘evaluation’ car with 3000 miles on the odometer.
Now, with just 12,000 miles on the clock, their 9-4x was claimed by Hurricane Sandy. Salt water inundated the car and it was declared a total loss late last week.
A very sad ending for one rare example of a model that never got the chance it deserved.
With the extended family….
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The Australian car industry nearly croaked last week.
Autodom, a parts supplier to all three local manufacturers, went into administration and were only saved by Ford and Holden coming together to bail them out. Toyota sat on the sidelines as they already had an adequate reserve of spares and didn’t feel compelled to intervene, a move that I’m sure won’t be forgotten in the future.
As I was reading this recap of what happened, there was one part of the story that resonated with regards to NEVS and their possible plans to rebuild the petrol driven Saab 9-3 (a plan that’s caused me even more confusion than their regular plans to build EV’s in Sweden and sell them in China).
It has been revealed this week that Holden and Ford may have been forced to shut down for up to 18 months if it were not for their swift response…..
….Industry insiders report that 18 months is the time it would have taken for the car makers move their tooling equipment out of the old factories and refit them into new ones and then undergo the battery of engineering tests required to ensure the equipment meets their standards.
That’s an 18 month shutdown for a company that makes hinges and other minor bits and pieces.
Now imagine re-designing an older car like the Saab 9-3 to meet new pedestrian safety rules as well as re-engineering it to take a new powertrain. There’s all sorts of re-tooling, re-supplying and factory organisation to be done with that, too.
My concerns with NEVS remain as follows:
The Australian case shows just how delicate the balance can be in the car industry, and just how long it can take to get something designed, tested and out to market. Those suggesting that NEVS can just “get an engine from XXXX” need to fully consider the business case that has to be made for whatever option NEVS might choose.
The BMW/Mini option, for example, was going to be massively expensive. It was a path that Saab took with a massive lump in its throat because it was going to substantially push the market price of the 9-3 replacement upwards. It was considered worthwhile, however because Saab had to go upmarket in order to survive as a small manufacturer. The BMW name added sufficient currency to justify the cost for Saab in 2010 because it was a long-term strategy they were embarking on, but would it make the same sense in 2013 with NEVS heading in a vastly different EV direction?
The old joke of “losing $$ on each car but making it up in volume” was/is just a joke. You can’t do that in real life. NEVS must have an ocean of cash behind them because right now, the path they’re treading just doesn’t make economic sense.
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To those who’ll feel inclined to criticise me for not appearing to support a new Saab venture, please understand this: It’s not that I don’t support them. I simply don’t understand them. I make no claims to knowing it all, but I’ve gained an understanding of what’s involved in this industry and just how hard it is to exist in it. Even revered boutique brands with outstanding products like Aston Martin are threatened constantly with being sold off to bigger players.
Why?
Because it’ll be damn hard to be a small player in the car business in 2012 and beyond. The only reason Saab was a saleable commodity back in 2009/10 was because it had three new products either ready for release or in the pipeline. Trying to start from next-to-nothing in a high cost country just doesn’t make sense with the little information NEVS has provided.
I wholeheartedly support the idea of Saab activity in Trollhattan, but I’m also an experienced realist who’s covered Saab for 6 years and worked for them for one. I understand the brand and the markets well enough to know that this is going to be a mighty uphill struggle and that the route currently being considered just doesn’t make enough sense to be real. I just hope they’ve got a massive rabbit they can pull out of their hat.
I only ask questions because I want it to make sense, for me and for the friends of mine who might be investing themselves in the idea of a new Saab product.
Unfortunately, NEVS don’t seem to want to answer. Their PR guy hasn’t even responded to my email with an acknowledgement that he received it.
The Swedish government has long been on my $h1tlist when it comes to Saab dealings. They like to position themselves as friends of the Swedish automotive industry with measures such as the automotive aid they offered back around 2008/9, which no-one took up because the repayment requirements were absolutely ridiculous.
The truth, however, when it comes to Saab, is that they couldn’t wait to see the back of it. They dragged their feet on the Koenigsegg deal, leading the consortium to pull out of the deal. They ignored findings from their own Debt Office about Saab’s proposed property deal.
Today, Swedish Radio have a story from a report into Saab’s bankruptcy where Guy Lofalk tried to do a backdoor deal to sell Saab for just $1 million to Volvo’s parent company, Geely. And the kicker is that the Swedish government, guarantors for Saab’s financial commitments to the EIB at the time, were apparently happy to go along with it.
FYI, it’s estimated that NEVS eventually paid around $274million for Saab, so Geely would have been getting quite the discount.
According to the report, Geely Chairman Li Shufu actually met with Swedish Finance Minister, Hans Lindblad to discuss the transaction, but Saab weren’t invited. The Ministry doesn’t deny a meeting took place but have declined to divulge the subject. In case you forgot, this was the future of a major Swedish-based, publicly traded industrial business they were discussing, without anyone from the business itself actually, you know, being there.
You might also remember that the Chinese government had a major role to play in any transaction involving a Chinese buyer. Hawtai previously had their hopes to buy into Saab dashed when the Chinese government made it very clear that Youngman was their preferred buyer. They had been given the right to act first and such a right is not just handed around. The fact that neither Lofalk or the Swedish Finance Ministry knew this just shows how off base they really were.
May the fleas of a thousand camels infest all their armpits.
I haven’t seen my old boss – Saab’s former Chairman and CEO, Victor Muller – since around October 2011. We’ve shared a few quick emails and phone calls since then, but that’s about all.
Prompted by a phone call with another former Saab colleague earlier this week, I decided to give Victor a call and see what’s going on. In doing so I found a Victor Muller who was as driven as ever, as busy as ever, but much more at peace with himself and the world.
There was a lot to recover from, too; much more than the very public battle to try and save Saab Automobile.
Victor lost his father and his sister during the fight to save Saab in 2011. These were the intensely personal parts of his “year from hell”, the parts that few people knew about until after the drama had unfolded. There were health issues, too, such as an emergency operation on his gall bladder in 2010, a procedure that he was still recovering from when I had my informal job interview with him, along with Jan-Ake Jonsson, at the LA Auto Show in November that year.
“For the first 8 months of my daughter’s life, I never saw her” he mentions. She was born in February 2011, just weeks before the factory shutdown that eventually led to Saab’s bankruptcy. He’s now spending his time mostly between the family home on Mallorca and Spyker’s HQ in Holland. That same daughter, now 18 months, is finally getting to know her Dad.
Saab’s dramas still cut deep with Victor but as sad as he is to have seen the company fall, the personal relief at getting his life back is palpable when you speak to him. When I raised the topic of Saab’s new ownership under NEVS, Victor is pleased for Trollhattan and for former employees who might have the opportunity to work at Stallbacka again. Like me, however, he seems lost when it comes to understanding how it is that NEVS are going to do what they plan to do.
“I haven’t come across anyone who is able to explain to me what NEVS does and how they’ll do it, but I’m sure someone, one day, will be able to explain it to me”, he says.
Victor is still dealing with fallout from his time with Saab. There is the ongoing taxation case brought by the Swedish government….
I will fight that to the highest court
….. and the case against General Motors:
We will lodge our defence against their motion to dismiss on November 9 and it will carry on from there.
Most of his time now, however, is spent rebuilding Spyker, the sports car business that nearly went down with Saab.
When I worked for Saab, I made a number of videos that were posted to a special Inside Saab channel as part of Saab’s official Youtube channel. NEVS will most likely remove those videos in due course so I’m posting copies to my own channel as well (where I’ve got the original on my hard drive, at least).
I filmed and photographed this crash test of the 2012 Saab 9-5 SportCombi just a few weeks before I left Sweden for the last time. I don’t know for sure, but it’s quite possibly the last crash test Saab did in their lab prior to the bankruptcy.
The test was a EuroNCAP-equivalent 65km/h front offset test with four ‘occupants’ inside the car. Saab would have known the results via computer modelling before they tested this car, but they still had to do the physical test to confirm the results. You don’t want any unknown gremlins causing surprises at the EuroNCAP labs.
As you can see, the 9-5 SportCombi would have well and truly upheld Saab’s legacy for safety.
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If you want to see a little bit more about Saab’s crash test facility, this video from the Inside Saab series we started is a good primer.
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There were ten films in that series but we only got to show three of them due to the production stoppage. The news atmosphere was pretty toxic around that time and it wasn’t considered a wise move to continue showing these ‘feel good’ videos while things were so negative. We planned to resume the series when production started on a sustainable footing, but we all know what happened there.
It’s a shame the rest of the series won’t be seen as they were all quite good. They were made by a small media company based mostly in Stockholm but with connections to Trollhattan and those guys controlled the access to the films.
Just a quick note to let any interested parties know that I’m selling a few Saab 99 bits on Ebay.
I’ve got three items up there right now, with a few more to be listed over the coming weeks.
On sale right now:
The items are located in Melbourne. They’re spare parts I picked up when I bought the red 99T three door a few years ago.
Happy bidding!
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GM have given an initial response to Spyker’s $3billion lawsuit and in doing so, have pretty much confirmed what many of us might have thought.
You might remember back in 2009, when Saab were being sold, that GM withdrew from negotiations at one point, supposedly because of concerns with Vladimir Antonov being part of the Spyker bid.
Shortly thereafter, Vladimir Antonov left the Spyker group and Spyker re-submitted their bid, one that they stated met GM’s needs completely. There was no reason not to proceed with the sale. The price had been agreed, their concerns had been met. And yet, GM still called negotiations off and placed Saab in liquidation just before Christmas (a move that was not only completely unnecessary, but one that made the job of re-starting Saab that much harder in 2010). Thankfully, Spyker didn’t give up and the spotlight was on GM to find a way to get some sort of return for one of the four brands the government forced them to either sell or close as part of their bailout.
Fast forward to 2011 and once again, Saab is in trouble. GM have a decision to make and Spyker claim to have submitted a proposal to them that would safeguard their concerns and satisfy any objections they might have.
That deal was to save the Saab company and get Youngman in as an investor.
GM played hardball, saying that they had to protect the interests of their shareholders and that they wouldn’t allow Saab to continue producing the 9-5 and 9-4x if the deal progressed. Those statements pretty much scuppered the deal; Youngman got cold feet, pulled out and forced Saab into bankruptcy.
GM’s objections, based on protecting shareholder value, could have only been based on either protection of IP or protection from competition.
Protection from competition is a joke. Saab would never have been a competitive threat to GM.
Spyker’s deal would have quarantined GM’s intellectual property whilst bringing Youngman in to finance the ongoing development of the Phoenix platform. As soon as Saab didn’t need GM’s technology anymore, they would have jettisoned it safe from competitive eyes.
GM’s words in response to Spyker’s claims are telling. From Reuters:
In its response on Friday, GM dismissed the idea that its technology would not be shared with the other investors under the proposed Spyker deal.
“Putting aside whether this argument is factually wrong, it misses the point,” GM said, adding that it had the right to terminate its technology license and supply agreements with Saab if there was a change in control of Saab with[out] GM’s prior consent.
“This right was clear and absolute, and did not depend on how GM’s technology purportedly was being handled,” GM said.
GM’s technology could indeed have been quarantined and they know it. Just because Youngman could walk into a factory and see a Saab being built does not mean they could replicate it. That requires a level of information and expertise that definitely could have been protected.
But that’s not the important bit here.
In GM’s own words, they had the right to terminate irrespective of how their technology might be protected. They claim that that right was clear and absolute and they would have exercised it – simply because they could.
They wanted Saab off their desk and this was how they could do it. Pure and simple. It had nothing to do with shareholder value, but everything to do with convenience.
There are rights, and then there’s doing what’s right.
Personally speaking, I don’t think Spyker are going to be successful with their lawsuit. I hope they are, but I don’t think they will be. As a Saab fan and former employee, I’m just glad we’re getting a brief glimpse into the hive-mind of GM, a chance to see the lies from that time exposed for what they were – needless fear-mongering.
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Can you imagine the funky lines of the Saab Sonett III propelled along at lightning speed by a Suzuki Hayabusa engine?
Now this is my kinda hybrid!!!!!
It’s called Sonabusa and the build continues at Albany Speed Shop, owned and operated by former New Salem Saab proprietor, Darryl Carl.
From Darryl:
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Todays update is good:
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Did someone say they wanted to hear that Hayabusa engine?
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I can’t wait to see some finished video of this car in action. I’ve driven a Sonett and it’s bundles of fun but this is in a whole other league. If they can maintain the fun-to-drive nature of the Sonett’s lightweight frame and keep the whole thing controllable, then this Sonabusa is going to be a mega-Saab.
Rock on, Darryl!
Via Polk, via Autoblog:
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I’m sure this tells us a myriad of valuable information but having looked it over just once, I’m not sure what that information is. Given the criteria, it must be a pretty small sample size so I’m not sure it tells us that much, to be honest.
The Polk Disposal Loyalty Methodology tracks owners selling vehicles within six months of buying a new one.
Update: More information from Polk’s website:
This methodology measures actual vehicle replacement within household garages. The basic premise is that every time a new vehicle is added to a household garage, Polk looks for the disposal of an existing vehicle in the garage occurring within six months of the new vehicle acquisition.
That’s a bit clearer. I think it’s still going to be a reasonably small sample, but be that as it may…….
Saab tried to position themselves as ‘entry-level premium’ and it seems 34.4% of people agreed, moving either upwards or sideways in terms of brand perception after selling their Saab. The majority of people, however, moved ‘down’ from there, into one of Honda, Volkswagen, Chevrolet (shame!), Ford, Subaru, Nissan or Buick and I think that’s the bigger story here.
Note: 20.6% of their sample isn’t actually represented here. Presumably they moved to other brands in numbers too small to add to the graph and still have it make visual sense.
Saab didn’t do enough to justify their vehicles as actually belonging in the segment they aimed for. The driving dynamics weren’t up to it and the interiors most definitely weren’t up to it. The errors made, and the stubborn determination of certain people to stick to a certain pricing strategy in the post-GM era are writ large in this graph, even with the small sample size.
Have you moved on to another brand? If so, which one?
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For what it’s worth, I now have an Alfa Romeo and a Subaru at home. I didn’t buy a new Saab in that time, however, so apparently my movements or thoughts don’t count.
