Saab Chronicles Part 5
I’m not alone. That’s what I have realized the past few months. I’m not alone in liking “classic” Saabs. I thought that this Saab 900 thing I had going was just a bit off kilter and that I would need to explain myself to all those who would take one look at my 16 year old heap and turn up their noses. Instead I run into giddy excitement from most; often times accompanied by stories of Saabs past (yes, “Saab stories”). I guess strange little cars like the old 900, VW Beetle and Rabbit, Fiat X1/9, Datsun 510, BMW 2002—the list goes on—can illicit emotions that vanilla cars like Camrys and Accords and Tauruses—and that list, unfortunately, goes on even longer—just can’t.
It’s a shame that Saab has been neglected for so long by GM because there obviously still is some left over brand equity, or plain old nostalgia, in it. And when GM’s radar needle did finally sweep across their adopted Swedish step child, the only thought they had was to badge engineer a small car and an SUV while the two core products received only mild facelifts to their aging skins.
The Saab Aero X dream car that GM has been previewing indicates that at least some internal fondness for the brand exists and though it may only be a wild design exercise it does provide hope for the faithful that Saab will not be neglected completely. Frankly the “kappa” platform based 9X show car of a few years ago excited me even more because it was not only closer to being production capable, it captured a bit of the old 900 idiosyncratic charm in its design.
If I were product planning king for a day at GM, I would immediately put into place a basic three car strategy at Saab: small, medium and large. A small sporty car similar to the 9x that I would call the 90, a new more expressively styled small sedan/coupe/wagon (all hatchbacks) called the 900, and finally a larger midsized 4 door coupe/sedan/wagon, aka 9000. No SUVs or big engines needed. Saabs should be uniquely functional, efficiently sized and powered, and sporty.