The Saab of Doom

Here’s a Saab 900S Cabrio that was spotted the other day in downtown Minneapolis.  Street parking is not really it’s thing… or rather, not really its driver’s thing, if you couldn’t tell from the 2.5 foot span of space between it and the curb.  I think sometimes people figure the bicycle lane will serve as a buffer between their cars and moving traffic, so they get really close or actually into the bike lane between the parking lane and the traffic lane without realizing that a cyclist can knock off a side view mirror just as easily as a car can.   
This Saab is probably a 1994-1998 model year 900S, and while it may seem innocuous enough just to look at it, some people think this car signaled the beginning of the end for Saab. 

Saab began as a Swedish aerospace company that specialized in defense.  In the 1940’s Saab started up their automobile division.  The 900, which Saab made from the late 70’s up until 1993 is the typical odd-duck that probably springs to mind when somebody says Saab.  It featured a slanted rear end and a windshield that wrapped around a bit to provide an exceptional range of view.  Some commercials liked to play up the whole “We’re a Jet company” angle, but really, the only carryover is the windshield, which is kind of like the glass of a cockpit. 

Anyway, the 900 was a quirky car in that its engine was mounted backwards from how its peers of the day did it, and also slanted at an angle.  The transmission sat below the engine, and the hood hinged at the front on this front wheel drive, front engine car.  That bunch of strange managed to keep people interested and buying Saabs for a good long while.  Back in 1990, General Motors bought controlling interest in Saab, and then 10 years later, bought the rest.

So it was that in 1994, GM’s influence took over and spurred the choice to change the strange and install a 2.3L inline 4 cylinder engine (good for right around 150 HP) under the hood facing the way God intended.  While they were at it, they flipped the hood hinge position the more traditional rear-hinge set up.  Outwardly, though, the car looked pretty much as it always had.

These changes did cause an initial boost in sales, but some Saab purists just weren’t having it.  The car was actually improved in terms of safety ratings and performance, but that quirkiness that had drawn people to the vehicle to begin with was starting to slip away.  With later improvements and revamping of the 900/900s that became known as the 9-3, the car got better and better -on paper, anyway, at the same time as it got less and less interesting.  The magic had been drained from the brand, and buyers began to shop other brands, ultimately leading to GM selling Saab in 2010, but then refusing to let the new buyer turn around and sell its designs to a Chinese company for fear that the lax piracy law enforcement in China would result in theft of their ideas and designs, and harm GM‘s sales there (because by 2010, Saab was little more than a hollowed out Swedish shell stuffed with GM parts).  It was a mess. 

So here you have it, the 900S, the first example of GM’s meddling with a car that was loved for its quirks and oddities.  It may have seemed like a good idea at the time, but it left the world with no more Saabs.