Following on from rumours of its development last year and a bit of uncertainty as to whether or not this project would actually get off the ground, the Dealer Sport team finally unveilied their Saab 9-3 BioPower entry into the 2009 Swedish Touring Car Championship.
The team displayed the car yesterday at the Saab Museum in Trollhattan:
TTELA covered the story, and Dippen has provided a quick translation of that article:
Saab and racing have gone hand in hand for many years and the interest is big.
- “What can be more suitable than to show the car here in Trollhättan”, says Jan Warnestad ,the chief for the Dealer Sport Saab Performance team.
A lot of invited people took the chance to see the new Saab 9-3 that will compete in the STCC series this year.
This is a project that was kept in secrecy before the unveiling in 2008 at Mantorp Park.
- “We started the project in March 2008 and we kept silent about it”, says Warnestad
The car has been built in Trollhättan at the prototype workshop but it is nowdays located at Dealer Sport Saab Performance in Karlstad. Now there will be more tests before the premiere
Jan Warnestad has sold Opel in Karlstad since 1977 and knows what racing means for a car dealer.
- “In 1980 Anders Kulläng won the Swedish Rally in a Opel Ascona, that got me interested in racing”
29 years later he is team chief for the new Saab team.
- Thoughts about building a Saab 9-3 has been for a long time, but it took some
time for the idea to become reality.
In the new car there is something in common between Saab and Opel. The STCC-Saab has a lot of technical parts from the Opel Astra that Tommy Rustad drove in 2007.
The Dealer Sport has a website, available in both Swedish and English, and located at www.saabperformance.se
Here’s a rundown on theior car, taken from that website. The STCC series starts on May 2nd with a meeting at Mantorp Park. I’ll cover whatever news comes out of it.
Good luck to the Dealer Sport team!!!
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{ 13 comments }
Very uplifting to read. Nice car.
That is just sweet – 275 hp 4 cyl engine. Wow – drool…help I’m drowning
Why are they selling Opels? Come on – I want a Swede, not that continental trash
Can they follow it up with a ~250hp 2.0T FWD “homologation special” flavored 9-3? With an LSD and a proper suspension I’m sure that would be a hit with the press.
That 9-3 is smoking Hot! Wow… See Saab should definitely go more in the direction of an affordable upscale tuner market with the 9-3. Not all of their models but just with the 9-3 in particular. I think it would garner a much wider base in the future for the brand.
you’d of thought they would use XWD, to try to show it off to the public.
I’m with you Jono.
While I’m thankful for any kind of sporting news — especially in these trying times — this is underwhelming.
Sure, the car looks great. But I thought XWD was the “killer app”.
i think this is awesome to see Saab on STCC. Saab needs this in this trying times. i hope them good luck at Mantorp park
People! dont forget about JL Racing :
http://www.jlracing.net
I wonder how far Saab could take the 2.0 block with Direct Injection and twin turbos…
Wow, why can’t I buy a 2.0T with 275HP?
They keep changing the outside style of the cars but
I say change the inside and include the a 2.0T like
this and I’m down to my local dealer to buy one.
Oh, wait they have the 2.8 V6 to make that HP…but it must be heavier?
Ok, how about this motor, revised interior materials, hatchback, less weight. Put a 900 badge on it and it should be a good comeback.
That is the sex!!!
the turbo x should have looked like that…
To all of you complaining about the lack of XWD, did you take a second to remember that in most european touring car classes the cars are FWD-only?
Now the perfect showcase for Saab and XWD would have been a WRC campaign using a 2.0T XWD 9-3, and that’s only going to get more viable in the future thanks to all of the builders pulling out of the WRC. I’d be very surprised if they don’t change the rules to make it much cheaper to run a WRC campaign sometime soon.
Barring that, even something simple like Paris-Dakar would be a great showcase for XWD.
Alex, I’m not sure how broad that FWD requirement is: The last two winners of the STCC (2007, 2008) were RWD BMWs.
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Paris-Dakar: Yes!
Now that would be an XWD showcase. Assuming the car finished
is it 2wd then?
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