With saab now totally burried it seems the classic saab 900 will never get a true successor.
I was thinking of buying a 900i, 3doors, but fuel-prices have risen so much it seems to stupid now..shame.
Have you ever driven one, or do you think there is a modern day alternative, do share.
When I was a kid
... my dad had an old blue model 93 like this one. It was a 3 cylinder and very unusual compared to what most of our friends and neighbors were driving. This was in '71 or 72. You could get into the trunk though the back seat which I loved to do of course. Just suddenly disappear.
The 99's were tanks
and the last series that was truly utilitarian, especially the "EMS". SAAB, like Volvo, seemed to lose their ways when they compromised their philosophies and courted the American luxury market, IMO.
The 900 series were still somewhat okay, but quirky. My parent's lasted pretty well.
The '84 99 GLE(?) that I knew was surprisingly terrible in the snow without four winter tires mounted, though, and locating the ignition key switch down between the seats was a stroke of dumb that they couldn't seem to let go of, either.
Ignition lock location
was allegedly so that all the things the driver did when starting the car -- buckle seatbelt, disengage handbrake, turn key -- would be together in one place.
I guess they didn't care that the very next thing that a driver does -- put hands on the wheel -- happens up at dashboard level where other manufacturers locate the ignition lock.
The next thing the passenger does
is dump a cup of coffee in it. Coffee with lots of sugar and cream. Thereby ensuring that every crumb, bit of lint, and grain of sand ends up in there, too.
Don't get me wrong, however. I loved that 99. The ingnition location was just another one of those minor annoyances caused by the inability of different cultures to relate.
The 99 in its original
form was no doubt the best-looking -- because purest, nearest to the designers' intent -- of the breed. Thus it ever was. The oddly flat roofline and corresponding up-curved belt- and rockerpanel-lines were notable, somehow recalling boat-building practice ? The light ochre-tan paint color suited this image best, perhaps.
But it warms my heart to see the 93 photo above. I owned two of these in succession, in the mid-sixties, the first in grey with the rear-hinged doors, the second in the blue seen above. Plywood floor panels, upholstery in a striped fabric that looked a lot like classic mattress ticking . . .
How I loved those little cars. Built like a tank (I once backed smartly into a parking-lot pole and did virtually no damage at all to the bumper -- wish I could say the same for my new '68 Beetle) -- and light and snappy. The free-wheeling was a unique part of the drivetrain. Starting was by key and pull-handle located at the lower edge of the dashboard, engaging the starter to the flywheel in a kinesthetic tour-de-force.
Whose car is that in the photo -- and when was it taken, Pegboard ? (That radiator grille is cast alloy, I might note. There's a seasonal window-shade mounted next to the radiator, controlled from the cabin, to aid in winter warm-up . . .)
On second look . . .
The 99 doesn't seem as smart and fresh as it did 40 years ago. Should I wonder ? Big windows and clean lines are nothing new any more, I guess. Now when was the last time you saw a NSU Ro-80 ?
Maybe the same story . . . I recall when the glass in the Merc SLR 230 or the BMW 1600 looked huge. Then the rest of the world caught up.
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