For those who love shopping, especially in the US, today is Black Friday. It’s the day after Thanksgiving, the traditional start to the Christmas shopping season and more recently, the season for an internet shopping bonanza.
For those who do love to shop, I thought I’d help you see the day in with a fanfare, provided by the Saab Black Turbo Orchestra.
I love a good exhaust note……..
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And a note to self……
I’ve got to get some seat time in a Turbo X. I’ve only driven it once and the more I see them, the more I want one. It’s truly an outstanding machine.
It’s a little unusual for me to do a Saabosphere in the middle of the week, but there were a few good things out there worth sharing.
Via Saabworld, here’s a great video from Autoweek.nl. They travelled to Trollhattan recently to have a chat with some Saab employees, as well as some of the locals. Their interviews gauged feelings about the recently announced Memorandum of Understanding with Youngman and Pang Da. It should be noted that the interviews were conducted before General Motors made their preliminary announcement of not supporting the deal.
The video is mostly in Dutch, however the interviews are conducted in English.
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Is it time for another poll?
Auto Express have also written a story about the Saab/Youngman/Pang Da deal, with their focus being on future Saab models.
They claim an image of the Saab 9-3 replacement vehicle in the story, however it should be noted that it’s not an official image and not one that we have any comment on. All images claimed or shown by magazines should be viewed as their own. We’ll show ours when we’re good and ready 🙂
Seriously, if you’re within reasonable distance of Saab of North Olmsted and you haven’t submitted an application for Week 4 of this competition, you’re missing out on what is possibly your best opportunity to win a new Saab of your choice.
All it will take is a week’s hard work, showing the car around and getting your friends and connections to share the vehicle as well.
The author, Arild, has achieved fuel consumption figures under 5 liters per 100km. That’s 47mpg for you folks in the USA and 56mpg for folks in the UK.
That’s pretty darn good for a car with that much space. Sure beats the carrying capacity of a Yaris.
For this week, however, here’s a quick run down of some key Saaby stories on the web.
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Life with Saab has what I think is a good outsider analysis of what’s expected to be happening today at Saab. I wish there were more to give, but ‘radio silence’ is the buzzword right now and as always, I’m a good soldier.
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There is some news buzz floating around the web about salaries at Saab. I can pass on that money has been received under the government guarantee applicable for companies in reconstruction. This doesn’t cover the full month of October, however, and calculations are being made to distribute the funds equitably, which will be done ASAP. Arrears will also be made up as soon as funds are available.
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Just Saab, a dealership with two outlets in Ohio, USA, recently participated in an autocross day with a number of their customers.
Saabs United has the full story at that link, with pictures.
The results are here (Saab’s in a separate class). You’ll be amazed at how the 9-4x performed in the Saab group!
Sad for us, as we used to have a wonderful co-operation with them at motor shows, getting people to take photos of the Saab stand with the Xperia phones.
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And finally, a video mashup put together by Saablime that we’ve been liking for a while now.
Bookmark this page. You’re going to want to come back to it, trust me.
The following video series was posted on Youtube a few days ago. Whilst it’s called “Saab History 1946-2006” it seems to cover the earliest days, then skip forward directly to the development of the Saab 900.
I’m pretty sure that this is a production sponsored by Saab a few years ago. In fact, I’m sure I have a copy of it on VHS tape and purchased from the Saab Museum back in 2007. So if you feel like you’ve seen it before, you might have this tape gathering dust somewhere in your living room, too.
Regardless, it’s a good series to watch. There is a lot of footage that you most likely haven’t seen before, as well as photographs and illustrations that are quite rare.
There are 12 episodes, between 5 and 10 minutes in length, which is why you should bookmark the page. Episode 9 appears to be missing at the moment, but that shouldn’t detract from your enjoyment. Watch one, then come back and watch another. The development of the Saab 9000 is quite comprehensive, for example, and will warrant a few viewings simply so you can appreciate all that goes into vehicle development.
Enjoy.
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Part 1 – Saab’s beginnings as an automotive manufacturer.
For those who are relying on news reports as to what happened yesterday, you can see the full press conference plus questions for yourselves in the video, below.
Re-posted – I put this one up on site late last week but it wasn’t really the best time for everyone to see it. So here it goes for another run!
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Kenneth Backlund and Kent Andersson from the Saab Performance Team put on a two-man precision driving show at the recent IntSaab 2011 event, held in Finland.
I made this video last year, whilst at the launch for the new Saab 9-5 in Sweden. We were at Volvo’s test track, which Saab had hired for the launch. I stumbled upon the video today as I was tidying up my hard drive and it reminded me of just how incredibly good the XWD system is.
You’ll need to be patient with this one. It’s around 9.5 minutes long and it shows a few different things. I think your patience will be rewarded, however, with an exhibition of just how incredibly intelligent and effective Saab’s XWD really is.
The video starts off looking at Drivesense, the switchable vehicle setting that debuted in the Saab 9-5. Drivesense changes the steering, suspension and throttle response settings according to selections made by the driver: comfort, sport or intelligent. In the video, a display is connected to show how intelligent mode varies the inputs according to conditions (and how it delays those variations if required – e.g. not changing steering settings whilst you’re cornering).
Later on (at around 5:30 in the video), there are some amazing displays of grip thanks to the Saab XWD system. Consider the conditions (very wet), the speed and the way that Stefan is pulling the steering wheel. The car just never got out of control. Absolutely amazing.
Following is a video from the historic class, the flat-out version of the rally that doesn’t feature quite so many Saabs, but does feature a lot of action.
Enjoy your viewing.
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My apologies to a few of the Saab drivers that I missed. My camera was running so low on battery power towards the end that I was turning it off between cars. Sometimes it didn’t start up again quickly enough. There were at least two Saabs that I missed – a 99T and one or more 96’s.
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Going to the Midnight Sun Rally was a ton of fun. You’d need to be well organised to get to spectator points on a number of different stages, but once you’re there it really is like old-time racing.
People spill out and walk along the track in between cars. They’re gathered on the hills, some of them having picnics.
And then there’s the driving, which as you can see is pretty exciting stuff. Many of Sweden’s top drivers were there, including Kenneth Backlund from the Saab Performance Team, former Saab champ Stig Blomqvist as well as eventual winner, Kenny Bräck.
If you have an opportunity to get along to one of these historic rallies in the future, I recommend that you do. You’ll see some outstanding machinery, some ace driving and you’ll have a whole lot of fun doing it.
