SAAB goes under

[Sean486]

Originally Posted by Green1995SVX

I'm probably going to get flamed for this, but I just love Saabs. I love the styling. I love the way they look, and they are actually very reliable cars. There are some exceptions to this as there are with models from any manufacturer. Saab's creativity and quality were stifled by GM, for sure. I truly feel that if it were not for GM, Saab would be alive and well right now.

Pre-GM Saabs are fun, well built cars that inspire the same fierce loyalty that our cars do. The turbo models from the late 90s are still great bargains and make good daily drivers if you can find one with under 125K. On one had I am pissed that GM screwed up that deal to save Saab but on the other hand, I would rather have a strong GM. After all we US Citizens own a piece of it.

[SubaruJawn]

i honestly cannot say anything good or bad about Saab, never driven one never been in one.

styling looks layed back to me, if your into comfortable styling then Saab your Serta Mattress.

[bwb3]

Heard today that all current SAAB waranties in the U.S. are void.
Gene

[92snowmachine]

finally god has heard the prayers of a lowly mechanic swearing from under the hood of a crappy saab

[Green1995SVX]

This is a picture of the Saab I used to own. It's a 2001 9-3 Viggen. It was a blast to drive, and was very reliable.

[LarryIII]

I was very sad to learn that SAAB filed for bakruptcy.
I have owned 2 SAABs. The first one was a 1967 Monte Carlo V-4 (model 96)with a stage 2 tune kit and a 4-speed tranny. It ate Rambler sixes for breakfast.

My second one was a 1970 model 99. It had an inline 4 cyl. engine which was one half of a Triumph Stag V-8. The engine had early Bosch electronic fuel injection. It also had a borg Warner 3-speed auto tranny which slowed it down considerably.

Both cars were solidly built and very reliable.

[wdb]

Originally Posted by LarryIII

I was very sad to learn that SAAB filed for bakruptcy.
I have owned 2 SAABs. The first one was a 1967 Monte Carlo V-4 (model 96)with a stage 2 tune kit and a 4-speed tranny. It ate Rambler sixes for breakfast.

I had a '67 Saab 95 (the wagon version of the 96). It was so ugly it was beautiful. 4-speed on the column. It had a freewheel, which was way cool. And it had a whole bunch of elegant and clever engineering stuff such as windows that pivoted up/down instead of sliding. As much as I liked that car it was, sadly, anything but reliable. I went through two transmissions, a common failure point for the cars. It also had a rash of electrical woes, as has every car I have ever owned with (German) Bosch electrics.

I'll miss SAAB, but it's been a long time since they built anything truly innovative. Too much GM influence, as others have noted. Too many rebadged Opels, not enough Sonnets.

[icingdeath88]

Originally Posted by wdb

It had a freewheel, which was way cool.

What is a freewheel?

[subeman90]

From Wiki (since I didn't know what it was either):
"In mechanical or automotive engineering, a freewheel or overrunning clutch is a device in a transmission that disengages the driveshaft from the driven shaft when the driven shaft rotates faster than the driveshaft. An overdrive is sometimes mistakenly called a freewheel, but is otherwise unrelated.

The condition of a driven shaft spinning faster than its driveshaft exists in most bicycles when the rider holds his or her feet still, no longer pushing the pedals. In a fixed-gear bicycle, without a freewheel, the rear wheel would drive the pedals around.

An analogous condition exists in an automobile with a manual transmission going down hill or any situation where the driver takes his foot off the gas pedal, closing the throttle; the wheels want to drive the engine, possibly at a higher RPM. In a two-stroke engine this can be a catastrophic situation: as many two stroke engines depend on a fuel/oil mixture for lubrication, a shortage of fuel to the engine would result in a shortage of oil in the cylinders, and the pistons would seize after a very short time causing extensive engine damage. Saab used a freewheel system in their two-stroke models for this reason and maintained it in the Saab 96 V4 and early Saab 99 for better fuel efficiency."

[icingdeath88]

Interesting stuff. Learn something new every day.

[oab_au]

Also called a 'oneway clutch' or sprague clutch, the same as the one in the rear of the auto.

Harvey.

[wdb]

Best analogy is the bicycle. When you press on the gas (pedal the bike), the freewheels pawls engage and the engine (your pedaling force) drives the car forward. When you lift off the gas (stop pedaling), the engine (you) returns to idle and the car coasts as if the transmission were in neutral.

[HMacmillian]

I liked the older Saabs, so many cars seem interchangeable these days. Especially with all the rebranding (Not that the newer Saabs weren't rebadge jobs, but at least they looked diffrent). I had been hoping that Spyker or someone could have saved them and kept them as a quirky brand that didn't sell huge numbers but was profitable none the less. I will miss it, some day I will annoy my children with stories of the good old days before the market collapse and carpoclypse when cars were much better than they at that point in time in the future (I will be using a rather selective memory but why not?).

[thumper_svx]

Originally Posted by HMacmillian

I will miss it, some day I will annoy my children with stories of the good old days before the market collapse and carpoclypse when cars were much better than they at that point in time in the future (I will be using a rather selective memory but why not?).

One of the great parts about getting older is that you can be extremely selective about what you remember, and then people will just quietly blame it on senility. It's awesome like that

Seriously, I'll miss Saab. I sold my original 1995 SVX to buy a 1996 Saab 900 Turbo. I loved that car to death, and having more interior space than a Ford Explorer once the seats were folded down didn't hurt in the slightest. It also had a wonderful turbo whistle that made for screaming dashes to three digits... and because of that it actually did feel a lot faster than it really was.

The other thing I loved about it was when driving it, it always felt solid. I often said that other cars felt like they were built, the Saab felt like it was carved from a solid lump of granite. There really was no other car that felt that way to me except for my current BMW 135i... but that may be just because it's still under 2500 miles on the clock

[subeman90]

so how dead is Saab? Is it close the doors forever in Troll-ville or is it just "reorganization"? Just wondering?