Saab Archives - Page 9 of 12

A re-born Saab and price vs value

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There’s been an interesting discussion going on between some former Saab employees on one of the professional social networking sites. The discussion has focused one the things Saab could do to improve itself ~~if/~~when the company is purchased and re-launched some time in the future.

My main contribution was concerned with better utilisation of the talent within the company. Personally, I felt that we made too much use of agencies to do work that we could or should have done ourselves. It might have meant hiring some more specialist staff, but done wisely, I think it would have centered our work/thought processes, produced some more consistent results and ultimately, I think it would have saved us money.

A recent contribution to the discussion has mentioned the need for Saab to build better product and the challenges Saab will face in doing so now that many key staff have gone to other companies. I agree that the staffing issue is a big one – people are usually a company’s greatest resource and that was definitely the case at Saab.

Ignoring the staffing side of this problem for a moment, the product side does warrant some discussion because I think, and fear to some degree, that Saab’s demographic and product offering are going to have to shift upwards if the company is to become profitable and build a sustainable market for the future.

Under Spyker’s ownership, Saab reportedly had a business plan that could see the company become profitable with sales of as few as 100,000 to 120,000 vehicles. We never got to test that plan and Saab never got their breakeven point that low prior to December’s bankruptcy, so it’s hard to comment on the plan’s viability.

But what of the future?

Continue reading A re-born Saab and price vs value

A small ray of hope for Saab, thanks to Brightwell

For months now, we’ve heard GM spokesman James Cain come out and say things like this:

TT: Why did you not agree to meet them?

– We stand by our policy not to sell technology licenses to a new owner for Saab.

TT: Not in any way?

– No.

TT: Typically in business, everything has a price tag.

– Not in this case, says James Cain.

So…… They stand by this policy and from earlier in the original article at e24, they responded to Brightwell’s requests for discussions with a big, fat “not interested”.

Not according to Brightwell’s President, Alphan Manas.

We have to rely on a Googletrans from Manas’ own blog here, but it sounds very much like they reached some agreement with GM in relation to the 9-4x before GM demanded a $73million “tooling fee”. This was apparently an unexpected development and it’s quite possible that tactics like this are part of the reason that Brightwell dropped out of the race to acquire Saab.

Of course, it’s not the first GM has done something like this, either. Back in December 2009, GM halted negotiations with Spyker – quite suddenly – and announced that Saab was to be liquidated. Later they backflipped once more and ended up selling the company.

What does all this mean?

Not a lot, really. The changing of terms in business deals is commonplace and GM are as prone to it as anyone else. The fact that a Saab fan might find it distasteful doesn’t alter the fact that it happens (nor that PR people would ‘forget’ such things in public statements).

Perhaps the ‘tooling fee’ is a blessing in disguise for a Saab fan. If I’ve interpreted what Manas has written on his website correctly (a significant “if”, but I think I have), it means that GM might actually be willing to negotiate with a possible purchaser of Saab Automobile under the right circumstances. I’m sure they’ll charge a massive fee for such access, but it’s a glimmer of hope if ever I saw one. The 9-4x deserves to be produced for longer, and as a Saab, too.

Again, I have to stress that I’m relying on a web translation of Manas’ blog. I tried to get in touch with Manas via Twitter last week but got no response. The translation is all I’ve got to go by at the moment. If you know Turkish perhaps you can clarify things a little for everyone.

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Thanks to Gregg for the tip.

Who I’d like to see as Saab’s new owner

Thanks to all who voted in the Who would you like to see as Saab’s new owner poll and shared some thoughts via comments.

The outcome was interesting, to say the least. The three known players had very different results, with Mahindra getting 64% of the vote, Youngman just 15% and the Sino/Japanese electric consortium just 2% of the vote. Any unknown potential suitors gathered the remaining 19% of the vote.

So Mahindra are the popular winner.

Who do I think should become Saab’s new owner? Let me break down my answer into two separate parts for you.

Continue reading Who I’d like to see as Saab’s new owner

Poll: Who would you like to see as Saab’s new owner?

Bids for the purchase of Saab Automobile are due by April 10th, which means it’s crunch time in Trollhattan. Who would you rather see as Saab’s new owner?

I was going to introduce this poll with an overview of the three ‘known’ parties that are reported to be interested in purchasing Saab Automobile. According to all the reports, they are:

Youngman – Chinese company with fingers in several pies, wanting to expand into passenger cars
Mahindra – Indian company with fingers in several pies. Owns one passenger car brand already but does more with commercial vehicles.
Unidentified Sino-Japanese consortium looking to build electric vehicles.

I’ll leave my thoughts on each party aside, for the moment. Right now, I’m more interested in seeing what you think of the potential bidders.

Vote below. Comments are open if you’d like to elaborate.

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On the road – Saab 9000 Aero

I noted with some interest that British journo and Saab fan, Graeme Lambert, has just taken a Saab 9000 Aero as a long-term test vehicle. Nice move! Being a fan of practical classics, I’m looking forward to reading his thoughts.

A few weeks ago, I caught up with a friend of mine in Victoria – a 9000 Aero owner named Nathan. In fact, Nathan was the guy who provided my first ever Saab driving experience in his 1986 Saab 9000 Turbo. That car’s gone now, but his current 9000 Aero is an absolute cracker of a car and while I was visiting, we took it out for a spin (of course!).

I should preface this by saying that despite having spent plenty of time in different Saabs, and countless hours in the Saab 9000 (we’ve had two CS’s over the last 7 years or so), I’ve never spent much time in the Saab 9000 Aero. In fact, the only time I can recall is a short ride through Melbourne’s city streets in a pristine automatic model (thanks, Dan!).

So aside from all the other reasons I enjoyed catching up with Nathan, the chance to spend some quality time in the Saab that former designer chief Bjorn Envall said was Saab’s best ever vehicle was one I was very excited about.

I’m pleased to say it was a fair bit of a revelation, too.

As mentioned, I’m quite accustomed with the Saab 9000. I’ve been driving our CS models for years now and I’ve loved them both. They eat up highway miles rapaciously, they’re comfortable, can swallow a whale and have proved to be very reliable. The CS is not a sporting car, though. Not by a long shot. Whilst it will move reasonably quickly when provoked, it’s more inclined to wallow around a corner rather than turn through it. Judge the weight transfer correctly and it can be a fun car to drive, but it always feels like the big, comfortable, floaty car that is.

As I learned a few weeks ago, the Aero – especially Nathan’s Aero – is a completely different beast.

I don’t know how much you’ll be able to tell from the video, below, but this car is blazingly quick. I imagine the regular Aero is quick, too, but this one is brutal. I spent quite a bit of time being pushed back into the most comfortable seats ever to feature in a motor car.

What amazed me more than the speed, though, was how utterly stable it was through the corners. Floaty, comfy 9000 CS’s – be gone! This Aero was hunkered down; it actually felt like it was crouching and shifting it’s weight like one of those sidecar racers – very deliberate and precise. Nothing we threw at this car could get it out of shape. We had sections of road (not in the video) that were in very poor condition due to roadworks and the car simply continued to inspire confidence the whole time.

Pure Saab? Not with all those Abbott bits bolted on. But they’re bolted on to what is undoubtedly a superb base. The 9000 Aero is an outstanding vehicle and one that I look forward to spending a bit more time in (like this Easter weekend, for example!).

And for those who were wondering about the output of Nathan’s car – it hasn’t been on a dyno for quite a while, but he says it’s currently making upwards of 340hp and well over 500Nm of torque. It really is super-quick and handles like a much smaller car – a testament to some very committed ownership and a company’s expertise.

Pardon the rattly camera casing and the idle chatter. Just enjoy the car…..

Electric cars should not be Saab’s immediate future (or anyone else’s)

News reports state that there’s a new bidder in the hunt for Saab Automobile’s bankrupt estate. Apparently it’s a consortium of Chinese and Japanese investors who are looking to build electric cars. Is it just me, or has this got disaster written all over it?

I retain some hope that Saab can be sold to a buyer who wants to make Saabs. Personally speaking, if that company is to be chosen from Mahindra, Youngman, or this Sino-Japanese consortium, then my vote goes to Mahindra. They are a genuine international industrial company who I think have a realistic feel for what’s actually involved in the car industry and can see a role for Saab in their portfolio. Unfortunately, though, realism hasn’t played a prominent role in the fate of Saab for some time.

Reports coming through (covered on SU today) seem to indicate that the Swedish government are neck-deep in talks regarding this electric car proposition. This isn’t overly surprising as the government in Sweden seems fixated on outcomes that either confirm or deliver political messages. Electric cars present a nice, happy, ‘green’ picture that’s very Swedish, even if it’s not overly realistic.

Continue reading Electric cars should not be Saab’s immediate future (or anyone else’s)

Remembering the Saab Support Convoys of 2010

I’ve had this information hanging around on another domain for some time, but feared it would drop off the web and never be seen again (long story).

Soooo…… I figured it was high time to get the Saab Support Convoy logs from January 2010 here on Swadeology. It was a wonderful campaign and one that I was very proud to be involved in, hence my desire to keep a record intact.

If you go to the menu at the top of the website, you’ll see a button called “SOC 2010”. Hover on that one and several regional options will appear. Hover on one of those and a selection of locations within that region will appear.

If you’d like to re-live one of the good times, please check them out.

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The last Saabs to land in the United States

Kudos to the guys from foundourownroad.com for getting these photos of a batch of Saabs held up on the docks in the US.

These are the last Saabs to arrive there and once they hit the auction houses, they will be the last Saabs sold there (save for a buyer for the company being announced and production being resumed – either way, they’re the last Saabs ever into the US or the last for a very long time).

Many more photos and thoughts by the photographers at the link above.

Saabworld has the story in some more depth. The cars were held due to a dispute between an ailing Saab Cars North America and Ally Financial (formerly GMAC and a big part of the financial equation when it comes to dealer financing).

Saabworld is also saying that Ally Financial has won the legal argument, though I don’t seem to be able to find a story to that effect online at the moment.

All the arguments aside, it’s a sad postscript to a very bad 2011.

Thanks to Greg Abbott for the tip!

My own little piece of Saab Museum history

The Saab Museum in Trollhattan is re-opening this weekend. Hurrah!!!

I figured it might be a good time to share this little story. My own bit of mischievous Saab Spirit in action….

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I went back to Sweden in January. My main aim was to clean up my flat, sell my car, and most importantly, catch up with friends and former colleagues from Saab.

On my last day in Sweden, I spent some time at the Nova restaurant, next to the Saab museum, giving a presentation to some of the Saab workers who gather there each Friday morning. Peter Backstrom also presented at this meeting. It was pitched as a battle of the heavyweights 🙂

Between the meeting and getting my taxi to Landvetter airport, I spent a final hour or so at the Saab Museum. It was only a matter of days at that point, since the announcement that the Saab Museum had been saved thanks to a deal done between the City of Trollhattan, Saab AB and the Wallenburgs.

As a result, there were a few items at the museum that were no longer needed.

I’d already packed away my Saabs United Award trophy, which I wanted to bring home for a little while, but I couldn’t resist securing a few of these other small momentos to carry with me.

These are kept in my wallet. If you don’t recognise them, these are two of the stickers that Sweden’s state debt collectors, Kronofogden, placed on a few of the cars at the Saab Museum. Any car with a sticker on it was earmarked for liquidation in order to reclaim debts being managed by Kronofogden. As the museum was now secured, the stickers were no longer necessary.

One of them was liberated from the window of the Saab 9x Concept Car. I can’t remember the other one, but I think it might have been from a Saab Sonett III.

It’s just a little momento from my time at Saab and a reminder of all that went so horribly wrong back in 2011.

Bob Lutz on Saab

This is a long one. 3000 words. Settle in.

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I got a Kindle for Christmas.

The first book I bought was one that was difficult to get in bookshops here in Australia: Bob Lutz’s Car Guys and Beancounters. Bob Lutz, for those who are unfamiliar, was one of GM’s Vice Presidents during much of the time when they owned Saab Automobile. He was responsible for lifting the overall quality in both manufacturing and design and if you consider GM to have had any sort of renaissance over the last 10 years, Mr Lutz is the man you can thank.

Lutz is a controversial figure, which is why GM loved to wheel him out at any big announcements. He was always good for a quote, so the press loved him, too.

I’ve got mixed feelings about Bob Lutz. On the one hand, there’s a lot that he says that makes sense. The opening of this book contrasts his thoughts on quality with those of some of Ford’s beancounters when he was working there in the late 1970’s. Ford had huge problems at the time with camshafts in their four cylinder engines, with many of them failing just after vehicles had passed their 12,000 mile warranty. Lutz investigated, approved the marginal costs needed to make more durable camshafts and was subsequently lambasted by the beancounters, who enjoyed booking profits on the service work associated with the failures. They estimated the improvement in the camshaft quality cost Ford roughly $50million. To the beancounters’ eyes, these customers were a captive market, with no choice other than to replace the failed camshafts (and associated damage from failures). Lutz correctly argued that the customers’ choice would be made when it came time to replace the vehicle, and the choice wouldn’t be another Ford.

That’s the good Bob Lutz. Make the product better for the benefit of both the company and the customer.

The Bob Lutz I don’t like is the one who cancelled nearly all of Saab’s proposed model range in the few years after GM took 100% ownership of Saab. My understanding is that the Saab 9-3, for example, had 5 different body styles in the works when it was being developed. Saab eventually got just 3 of these to market, but even then the SportCombi took three years to arrive (after the sedan). The planned small crossover version was cancelled as it was thought no-one would like the idea of a smaller SUV ……… right.

This article is going to show you more of the bad Lutz. It’s not necessarily intended that way. My intention was simply to share the quotes referring to Saab that appear in his book. As it happens, those quotes don’t paint him in a good light if you’re a Saab fan.

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Quote 1

….General Motors embarked on a series of initiatives to overcome both the perception and reality of the growing import threat. Some of these taxed the comprehension of rational minds at the time, such as the creation of Saturn, an all-new auto company, making a new kind of car with a new and more productive relationship with the UAW. Another was a mind-boggilingly bold move into China with, of all brands, Buick. There was a series of alliances with various Japanese brands and – after GM was jilted in its quest for Jaguar – the purchase of the decidedly weird Swedish brand Saab. As we shall see, many of these initiatives were ill-advised and ultimately failed. Some were successful, but not enough.

OK, that’s not so bad, I guess. Some might even take a description of Saab being “weird” as a compliment. I don’t think Bob meant it that way, though.

Continue reading Bob Lutz on Saab