Born from jets, this little brand refuses to die.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s always been pretty quirky. Most automobiles are made in Detroit, Stuttgart or Japan; this one came from\u2026Trollhattan? On the outside, it was all round and puffed up, which some folks found eccentric but others found just plain ugly. Instead of an uncomfortable hump down the middle of the back floor, this car offered the middle passenger equal legroom. How\u2019d they do that?\u00a0 With FRONT wheel drive! Weird!! There were curious safety features like a \u201croll cage\u201d and \u201cdiagonal braking.\u201d There was a hole that opened in the roof. Look at this, the whole back seat folds down flat.\u00a0 And \u2013 what\u2019s that? – my butt\u2019s getting hot!\u00a0 Heated seats? No way!\u00a0 And what\u2019s this funny gauge that\u2019s sort of bolted onto the dashboard that say\u2019s \u201cTurbo\u201d? And where the heck is the ignition??<\/p>\n
All these idiosyncrasies spring from the brand\u2019s origins; the first models were built on an airplane assembly line.\u00a0 In 1949, the Swedish Airplane Corporation created the \u201c92,\u201d a two-cylinder automobile which featured cockpit-style seating and instrumentation.\u00a0 The three-cylinder \u201c93\u201d arrived in 1955, followed by a wagon, the \u201c95,\u201d in 1959.\u00a0 Also in the 50\u2019s came the \u201c94,\u201d a sporty version which may be the funkiest car ever built and which came to be known as the \u201cSonnet.\u201d\u00a0 (Don\u2019t ask, just look that one up.)\u00a0 In 1969, the company merged with Scania Vehicle and launched the \u201c99,\u201d which featured a \u201ccombi coupe\u201d body design which would come to define the brand.\u00a0 This would in turn give birth to the \u201c900\u201d in 1978, which would eventually sell over 1 million vehicles.\u00a0 At every step in this evolution, the brand remained defiantly iconoclastic, which won it the undying love its customers, but which also severely limited its appeal.<\/p>\n
And then.\u00a0 In 1989 the company foolishly aligned with General Motors, giving GM a 50% stake in the company.\u00a0 This resulted in a new, more mainstream \u201c900\u201d in 1994 that increased sales but eroded the brand\u2019s reputation for innovation and quality.\u00a0 In 1997, on the 50th<\/sup> anniversary of the brand, GM jettisoned the car\u2019s classic styling and launched new sedan models built on Cadillac frames, and an SUV that looked like the Chevy that it was.\u00a0 This led to a decade of brand erosion, the failed launch of numerous new designs, the movement of manufacturing to an old Opel plant in Germany, and then, inevitably, complete failure.\u00a0 GM tried to sell the brand to seemingly every car company in the world, and then unloaded it to Spyker, a Dutch sports car manufacturer, in 2010.\u00a0 But Spyker couldn\u2019t save it either, and threw it into bankruptcy in 2011.<\/p>\n And just like that, Saab, the oddly awesome car created by airplane engineers, was dead.<\/p>\n Ah, but don\u2019t underestimate the power of the bizarre.\u00a0 You want kooky?\u00a0 Try this:\u00a0 a Japanese-Chinese joint venture called National Electric Vehicle Sweden.\u00a0 Over the past two years, the assets of Saab were reorganized and the company given a reboot.\u00a0 This week, something funny happened at that old plant in Trollhattan, Sweden.\u00a0 On Monday, December 1, new Saabs started rolling off the line for the first time in years.\u00a0 These first cars are throwbacks, gasoline powered models available only to a limited number of customers in Sweden.<\/p>\n But next will come an electric model, which will be built in Sweden, fitted out with battery technology in Japan, and then sold in China.\u00a0 The design is based on a concept car first presented in 2011, which beat competitors from brands like Alfa-Romeo and Jaguar.\u00a0 It integrates many traditional design elements, and features gull-wing doors reminiscent of a, um, fighter jet.<\/p>\n And what\u2019s the name of this potential savior of the brand?\u00a0 The Saab Phoenix.<\/p>\n The story isn\u2019t finished.\u00a0 Innovation and idiosyncrasy live on. The world\u2019s strangest car just might fly again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Born from jets, this little brand refuses to die. It\u2019s always been pretty quirky. Most automobiles are made in Detroit, Stuttgart or Japan; this one came from\u2026Trollhattan? On the outside, it was all round and puffed up, which some folks found eccentric but others found just plain ugly. Instead of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[21,215,241,501,644,945,1066,1193,1265],"class_list":["post-736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-8","tag-21","tag-cars","tag-china","tag-gm","tag-japan","tag-phoenix","tag-saab","tag-sweden","tag-trollhattan"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}