Saab have announced they will be offering anyone that buys the manufacturers new 9-5 a “Loyalty Bonus”.
Saab have not yet announced the terms or what the bonus will be and in what form but the firm are obviously expecting a big uptake, as the the flagship factory in Sweden is producing over 250 cars per day.
The new model is expected to go on sale in North America in the next few weeks so any announcement regarding the bonus will be made shortly.
It is an interesting initiative by Saab as many other sectors reward customers for their loyalty but the car industry has never really got involved. This is strange as car owners are some of the most loyal.
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In response to the rumours going around that Saab may or may not be producing a new small car a Facebook group has been set up to convince the Swedish manufacturer to go ahead with the project.
The group which is allowing users to discuss the Saab91/92 has over 1,500 members already.
Members have submitted renderings of what they think the car should look like and with the recent takeover by Spyker it is likely the car may take some sort of concept car look, like the picture above.
Rumours are also rife that any new small city car will have engines supplied and designed by German manufacturer BMW.
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The latest Saab is the first the Swedish company have produced since being taken over by specialist sports car designers Spyker.
The car looks like a classic Saab and delivers what you would expect but with a cutting edge technological feel, which can only help reinforce the brand’s already high safety values.
The new ownership which has been backed by the Swedish Government and European Investment Bank is due to increase production figures up to 90,000 by the end of the year, currently numbers stand at around 50,000. The increase will mean that Saab will be producing on average over 300 cars a day form their Trollhatten plant.
The functions that give the Saab the technological feel include an aircraft style display unit (HUD) and an advanced parking assistance program. Other extras available include a hard drive style entertainment system that allows you to store music for journeys.
The safety options which Saab prides itself on also include roof-rail airbags which deploy from behind door posts and offer protection to passengers in what Saab term “severe” incidents.
Six models are available in the new range including three customisable chassis depending on powertrain, Saab have predicted that the highest seller in the range will be 160ps diesel. It’s not hard to understand getting 42.6mpg without any problems and giving a calming sense of quiet even when travelling in the higher speeds.
The words of Dutchman Victor Muller on his companies purchase of the Swedish carmakers.
Spyker purchased struggling Saab back in January for a little under £50 million and with the final payment of £15 million being made this month Mr Muller set out his plans for Saab saying:
"We think we have a very rare opportunity to buy into an iconic brand."
The purchase which has been paid for by loans also brought approval of a £370 million loan from the European Investment Bank which will be invested directly into Saab.
Despite this both companies are struggling to make money and Saab being in the Swedish equivalent bankruptcy both companies believe that they can bring ideas to each other and kick-start sales. Mr Muller insisted that jobs will not be at risk due to the takeover insisting:
"We will be hiring rather than firing."
Interestingly though the purchase of Saab comes with a little know extra, probably a big selling point and that is the intellectual ownership of the new 9-5 model which it was thought had been sold to Chinese car manufacturers Beijing Automotives.
Mr Muller hopes the company will be able to take the name ‘Saab Spyker Automobiles’ but permission must first be obtained from other subsidiaries such as Saab Aerospace and Saab Scania the truck maker.
Cars made in Sweden have certain things in common. First they tend to take safety more seriously than many other car manufacturers and second because of the extreme weather condition in the country, they make cars that will last. So it should be no surprise that there are no shortage of old calls Saabs still being driven today, either as everyday transport or as a weekend car. Sometime though locating Saab Classic car parts can be a bit of strain as no one wants to break these old cars when they do come to their end of their lives. So you will find Saab specialist in the UK who will focus purely on this one make of car. Of course do a bit of research and look for Swedish websites and straight away you will get more choice, but incur the cots of delivery from Sweden.
There are a huge barrage of micro businesses that may have that Saab classic part but don’t go anywhere near the internet. These are the Auto Jumble guys who most weekend will set up a stand somewhere in the UK, with their van full of classic car parts. These tend to be quality rather than quantity. In better words there probably is that guy that has the right Saab Classic Car Part, but you may have to go some serious amount of Auto Jumbles before you find the right guy with the right part. The internet though looks like the future for classic car parts, where suppliers can either advertise the stock they own, or at least quote on requests that come through the website for Saab classic car parts, or any other make for that matter.
Many choose to lease a Saab as a company car (why not) but now as we know CO2 emmissions are a critcal part of paying company car tax when you choose a company car rather than buying one, so Saab have created an easy to use Car Tax calculator for Saab business customers. It ask you to choose a Saab then model variant tp help you uinderstand the full cost of owning a comaony car with Saab. By adding on optional extras you get the full retail price of the Saab and co2 emmeiion output which allows a reletily accurate company tax liabilty figure for your leased Saab, as a business owner or employee. Buying or leasing a new a car should be easy with all the information pu there in fron tof you, Saab are getting it right, you should give it a try then consider the 3 day test drive.
This is how Top Gear compared the Saab Aero back in 2004 to a jet fighter just like Saab did back then in its TV ads. The point was they could not find anything similar in the car production compared to the aeroplane production from the fact that general Motors owned Saab at that point and that Volvo made the engines within Saab fighters. However once the race against the fighter was over and the Saab aero 95 review started for real, we started to see why so many owners choose Saab as their preferred car choice over German makes such as BMW and Mercedes.
Watch the video and enjoy this classic top gear review
The official Saab website has an interesting history lesson from the first car made in 1947 through to modern times. It was named the 92001 URSaab and unlike unbelievably looks similar to their modern day cars, certainly the shape is similar.
What this history lesson does not tell you is that Saab started as an Aircraft manufacturing company and in fact Saab stands for Swedish Aeroplane Limited which was started in 1937 according to wikipedia.
Although Saab still makes planes, it is focused around the military market rather than commercial, although it has made structures for Boeing and Airbus.
However ot is the motor production that SAAB is known for by the masses and is currently owned by Spyker after being bout off General Motors, where there were often crossovers between European Opal cars and Saab.
We love all things SAAB, so when this website became available we decided it was time to talk about SAAB some more from production to history, to car lease and more. We will be researching information on Saab from other sources as well as Saab themselves, lets see how things go from here.
There will not be news everyday, but as and when we will update new and old Saab information.
