Saab History
Saab History
Most anyone knows that Saab is the Swedish car company with elegant styling and designs having a high focus on safety inovations. Saab is short for for Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget. Saab is the exclusive vehicle royal warrant holder as appointed by the King of Sweden. It was originally a division, established in 1944, from the Swedish Aeroplan company.
Initially known as Project 92, the purpose was to create a passenger car which resulted in the Saab 92001. The car exhibited the corporation’s roots in aviation having a drag coefficient of.30, the best of any automobile at the time. The 92 was completely redesigned and engineered in ‘55 and was renamed the 93. The 1st Saab performance auto was produced in that same decade. The Saab 96 was the 1st vehicle to get exported outside the country and proved to be very popular. The ‘68 Saab 99 was the first fresh automobile in 19-years and had many innovations which came to define Saab cars for decades; e.g. wrap-around windshield, side impact door beams and headlight washers, etc.
The Saab History
In ‘69 Saab merged with Scania-Vabis AB to become Saab-Scania AB. The millionth Saab car was manufactured in ‘76. In ‘78 Saab came to an agreement to collectively create a brand new platform which led to the Saab 9000 sister to the Alfa Romeo 164 and became Saab’s first luxury automobile. The Saab 900 was also produced around this time which demonstrated to become top selling model with almost one million manufactured.
In 1989 Saab had been restructured into an separate organization with General Motors and Investor AB each owning half. Saab earned a profit in 1995 for the 1st time in seven years with the new 900 released in 1994 due to GM’s investment. In 2000 General Motors purchase the remaining shares of Saab making it a wholly owned subsidiary of GM. Under GM’s direction the 9-3 and 9-2x were produced though neither proved a success in the United states market.
GM put the Saab brand under review in December ‘08 because of economic problems with it’s overall business and pulled support out leaving Saab in bankruptcy. After many talks and negotiations with a range of prospective buyers, Saab had been bought by Spyker in ‘10 has become named Saab Spyker Automobiles.
Saab introduced many innovations throughout the years for example the first car equipped with seatbelts as standard equipment, headlight wipers with washers, heated front seats, turbo charged engines, passenger compartment air filter like the HEPA type, divided field of vision side mirror, asbestos-free brake pads, 16-valve turbo charged engine, direct-ignition, CFC free air-conditioning, active head-restraints and variable compression engine.
Saab’s brand has an unique image around the globe, therefore Saab owners are a little unique in their own right. You either love em or hate one long-time enthusiast says. Once you drive one you might not go back to owning a typical mass produced vehicle again. Very practical, dependable, fun to drive, get combination of performance and fuel economy. Best of luck to Saab’s new owners in the future.
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