I’ve got to admit I’m quite partial to the original Saab Sonett III colour palette. The bright citrus type colours from the early 1970’s suited the Sonett to a ‘T’ so I always have to have a good hard look when someone does something non-standard.
I didn’t like the black Sonett that got auctioned in Europe a few months ago. But then, Coggs’ metallic red Sonett looks the absolute dog’s bollocks. So if you’re going to go non-standard then make sure you choose wisely because it can make or break the car.
The seller has owned the car for 2 years and it was the owner prior to him/her that did the paint job. The car is finished in a nice BMW silver from the 1980’s and as much as I find most silver cars a tad boring (purely because they’re everywhere) I have to say that the silver sets this Sonett off quite nicely indeed.
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I’m pleased they left the blackout section at the back. Some people paint this instead of leaving black, which is how it should be. My only remaining wish is that they’d blacked-out the engine cover on the hood. It just doesn’t look quite right without it.
Other than that, it’s a job well done.
The seller claims to have re-done the gearbox and clutch, upgraded the ignition, added a new intake and new Weber carb as well as a major refurbishment of the interior.
It looks good and he says it goes good, too.
Sonetts are climbing in price and at the time of writing, bids are at $9,200 with the reserve still waiting to be reached. Bidding closes in just over 4 days from now.
I’d say the price is about fair right now if the condition is as claimed. It’ll be interesting to see what the reserve is set at. With 20 bids already in the can and 4 days left to run, I’m sure we’ll see this one sell.
Petrolicious makes some of my favourite online car films. You can imagine the anticipation, then, when I saw that this week’s film featured a Saab Sonett II.
And it’s not any old Saab Sonett II (if there is such a thing). It’s a two-stroke Saab Sonett II, which is among the rarest of Swedes.
Here’s the film….
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To be honest, I was a little disappointed with this. Not with the car or the owner, of course, but with Petrolicious. They set such high standards, but I can’t help but feel they fell short with this one.
The film’s too dark, for starters. There’s not enough of that glorious two stroke sound and is it just me, or was there another Sonett II sitting in Mr Roberts’ garage?!? There’s a story, right there.
For those who haven’t heard a Saab two-stroke in full flight, try this….
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Congratulations to Glenn Roberts on having his absolutely wonderful Sonett featured on Petrolicious. Your car is magnificent and your story is the envy of many a Saab fan.
I just wish Petrolicious had done a little more with it.
I’ve been watching Sonett III prices for a while now. Quite a few of them are reaching five-figures these days, but there are usually some available for four figures if you look around.
In fact, here’s a chart plotting the advertised sale prices for Sonetts, from SaabSonett.org. As you can see, there’s a growth trend apparent but still plenty of availability under $10K (depending on condition, of course)
The car is a 1972 Sonett. In the plus column is a specially fitted leather interior, a California history before being exported to Europe, and low mileage at just 56,000 miles. The gearbox was rebuilt just a few years ago, too.
Downside: I’m not sure who made the decision to paint the car black – a non-original Sonett colour – but whoever you are, I wish you hadn’t. I don’t mind Sonetts being re-painted in something other than a factory colour. My mate Jim Coggs has a Sonett III in metallic red and it looks magnificent. But I’m not sold on this black paint job.
This Sonett’s going to be auctioned on February 6.
The sale price is going to be very interesting because there’s no reserve, so the car will sell. What’s really interesting is the expected sales range as forecast by Bonhams, which is between €20,000 – 25,000.
That’s H.U.G.E.
As you can see from the price chart, at the top, that would pretty much top all Sonett ads in the last four years. And all for a car painted in a non-standard colour for the model. I know Bonhams want to talk up the value a little to try and drive the price up, and the sale IS happening in Europe, where Sonetts are pretty rare, but still……
The re-trimmed interior works in the car’s favour but I’m not sure that Behermans ownership adds anything to the value, but maybe it does.
I know we’ve got a few Sonett owners who check in here. What do you think of the way this car’s been finished and what do you think it might be worth?
And what’s it going to mean for the value of your car if this one goes for a price within the Bonham’s estimated range?
There have been plenty of Saab stories doing the rounds in the last few days and despite the current climate surrounding the company, the overwhelming majority of them have made for some very pleasant reading.
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I’ve got two Must Read stories for you this week.
The first is a quick writeup about Bud Clark on Car and Driver. US Saabers, especially those in California, may be familiar with Bud Clark. Sonett owners and enthusiasts will be familiar with the name, too. If you’re not familiar, consider this your chance to get acquainted.
Bud is one Saab person I’ve not had the pleasure of meeting personally yet. The first time I heard his name was in relation to his turbocharged Saab Sonett. Those last three words should give you an idea of the character and the Car and Driver article comes across wonderfully well.
You can see videos of Bud’s Sonett on Youtube. And if having a turbocharged Sonett isn’t cool enough already, it’s also fitted with Inca wheels, which looks absolutely perfect.
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The second must read article is actually in Swedish, so you might have to get Google Translate working to read it.
This SvD article profiles an American Saab-owing couple, who recently travelled to Trollhattan on holiday and actually attended the Saabs United Octoberfest event on October 1. SvD sent a reporter to their home in New York to see some more of their collection and speak to them about their passion for the brand.
For me, there are two stories here. The first is the couple themselves, whose support for Saab is steadfast (they just bought a 9-4x to support the company and have nine other Saabs between them). The second is SvD sending a reporter to the US to get the story, which is a commendable commitment of funds for a Saab good-news story, from a newspaper that I’ve been fairly angry at from time to time.
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The Local has a post that would make for some interesting debate in the future – What is a Swedish Car, anyway?
There is still a small amount of xenophobia floating around a potential Saab sale. And yet Saab haven’t been Swedish-owned for over 10 years. Volvo are in the same boat. And both are still considered as Swedish companies.
As I said, we’ll save this one for the future, but it’s an interesting thought piece.
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What’s a 1992 Saab worth?
$150 a week to this particular owner, who is renting is Saab out to strangers as part of an experiment in Collaborative Consumption. He’s also renting out his guitar, an air mattress and his dog!
It’s not a Saab based article at all but still makes for some interesting and entertaining reading.
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Spontaneous grass-roots support at it’s best. We’ve been watching this silently for a week now and done nothing to promote it, nor do we intend to, but it’s being talked about publicly now and as a Saab fan and enthusiast, I have to acknowledge it.
We have the best fans in the world. And the best behaved, I’m proud to say. Your support is appreciated, but the way you carry yourselves with dignity and respect is appreciated even more.
Readers of this website will know that I’ve been talking about why their is so much belief here in what we do. It’s why we continue to fight for this company’s future when the “experts” out there tell us we should give up. But it’s not about tough circumstances, it’s about the product and the future.
It’s not just me talking about it, either. A couple of Saab people from our engineering department have taken it upon themselves to write to the biggest paper in Gothenburg. Their letter has been published and you can read an English translation of it at Life With Saab (enthusiast site).
The separation from GM gave many of us the necessary confidence in the future to complete a number of the future-oriented development projects. Our loyalty can be simply explained by the fact that we want to see the car in which we put so much energy also drive out on the roads. We want the picky consumers to experience the driving characteristics we have developed.
One of our most active enthusiast websites, Saabs United, is hosting a weekend gathering here in Trollhattan, along with companion gatherings in a number of cities around the world.
Informal gatherings will take place on Friday night with the full program of events happening on Saturday, October 1st.
09:00 – Event opens at ANA
09:10 – Welcome speech by Tim Rokka, Joachim Lind, Manfred Lenherr and Fredrik Bengtsson
09:20 – Cars for test-drive arrive
09:30 – Test Drive of original Saab Cars and Hirsch Tuned Saab Cars begins
09:30 – Car Show begins
09:30 – Boot-sale begins
10:00 – Test Drives begins (test-drive hirsch / maptun software in your own car!)
11:00 – Presentation of MapTun Performance by Fredrik Bengtsson
12:00 – Presentation of SAAB 9-3 e-Power
13:00 – Presentation of Hirsch Performance by Manfred Lenherr
15:00 – Test-Track closes
16:00 – ANA Closes
18:00 – Dinner event starts
19:00 – Presentation of SUHRT & Saab History (Jörgen Trued is the host with several interesting guests!)
23:30 – Thank you and good night!
I’ll be there. Ex-Saab Finnish rally champion Simo Lampinen will be there, too, amongst a host of others.
I hope you’ll be there, too.
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And speaking of rally champions, we have the best former Saab works drivers still winning trophies 🙂
It was nice to see a particular Saab Sonett pop up on Flickr today. I’d actually received some photos of the same car via email just a few days before.
It’s owned by a guy I’ve not met in person, but have corresponded with quite a bit over the years. It’s one of the very few Saab Sonetts that have made their way into my native homeland, in Australia.
The car is owned by Stephen B and last weekend he and his wife Wendy broke out some 1970s clothing and took their 1970s Saab to the “Bay to Birdwood Classic”.
The Bay to Birdwood is one of the bigger drive-and-concours events in the world, including over 1,800 vehicles. And Stephen tells me that whilst there were quite a few Volvos in attendance (including a P1800 that finished Top-10 in the concours), there was only one Saab – his.
I wrote about Bertil’s experience at Bonneville Speed Week last week. Bertil set a new record in the J-PRO class in his two-stroke Saab 96. Bertil wasn’t the only person running a Saab at Bonneville this year. He wasn’t the only guy to set a new land speed record in a Saab, either.
Tom Donney was there, too, with his two-stroke Saab Sonett II. Tom’s name will be familiar to many. He’s collected classic Saabs for years and runs a specialist transmission workshop and vehicle sales operation from his base in Fort Dodge, Iowa. And if you’re good with names, you might remember that Jay Leno bought the Saab 92 in his famed car collection from a guy named Tom Donney. Yeah, same guy.
Tom caught the Bonneville Bug last year, when he went to speed week as an observer and saw a number of Saabs on the salt. Tired of some frustrating outcomes in dirt racing, Tom and his team figured it was time to get their name in the record books. I can highly recommend you read Tom’s 2010 Bonneville background piece, before proceeding on to this year’s run, below.
Tom’s Sonett was running in the J-GT class. Here’s his story, in his own words and pictures.
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Bonneville 2011
Our team – myself, Steve Davis and Verlyn Gregerson – set out to break a old records set by Dick Cartron and his team in 1963 & 1964…..and to establish a new Land Speed Record in a two stroke Saab….. Dick set a personal best time of 103.560mph in 1963, and a Land Speed Record 105.453mph in 1964.
We arrived Friday am and began the long task of getting our car, a part 1967/1968 Saab Sonett II, loaded with a 750cc two stroke motor, (our car must run as a 1968 to met the required 500 car production) through the safety inspections so we could run on the Salt Flats. We worked on the car till Sunday afternoon and finally had all in order and made a required “Rookie” run to be sure me and the car was safe for the Salt.
We made two runs Sunday late afternoon that were about 95+ MPH and from there we started to dial in our Saab two stroke.
The current, 2011 Land Speed Record we were chasing was 96.683mph and was bumped to 96.877 on Sunday by a 1959 Deutsch Bonnet named Bone Evil! with a 2 cylinder 750cc motor
We met the owner, Mark Brinker and his crew and we all decided….NOW WE HAVE A RACE! They were a good team from Houston Texas.
On our first run Monday morning we ran a blistering 100.458mph which surpassed the old record of 96.683mph, which landed us with a date with History the next morning for our second “backup” run. At Bonneville you must run “down and back”, on two separate days, then if your average of the two runs exceeds the existing record, you now own a new record.
On Tuesday AM we ran a conservative run of 97.479 to give us the new land speed record of 98.968MPH.
Right: Tom with the new 98mph record…..
But success never sleeps. We quickly swapped out the cylinder head to an experimental one we made with a much higher compression ratio and pealed off a run of 101.653mph later that morning! Back to impound and a new attempt to “bump” our record on Wednesday am.
Wednesday AM we made so more mods and smoked all the old records by going 109.574,mph for a new land speed record of 105.613mph!
More mods and back on the track…..next run that afternoon gave us a run of 108.671mph! Another recorded beater was in order for Thursday am for our “backup” run.
Thursday AM we ran 106.215mph and said good enough……we now had set the land speed record THREE times! And our last one was 107.443mph.
Right: 109 mph in a two-stroke Sonett…..
We spent the rest of Thursday swapping out playing with a larger “prototype motor” and got up to 112.538mph for a max speed. With that we packed and headed home with our green little Saab and with all the goals we had set out to accomplish.
On a final note, Lots of people came up to me to say they loved the Saab that we had, and Saab as a company, and that they wished Saab well. People always ask me which is the “Best Saab Ever Made”? My answer is always the same…..”the last one off the assembly line!”
Today, as back in 1963 and 1967, Saab makes a great car…..go out and buy one and do what they are meant to do…..BE DRIVEN!”
