SOTW - When green Saabs were really......green

Can you remember a time when car companies used to make cars that were 'green' regardless of their fuel economy?

Back in the mid 1970s this was as green as a Saab got. Regardless of its color, it was possibly 'greener' than most other cars due to Saab's great little four cylinder engines.

This car belongs to Phil D and it belonged to his father before that. It's got less than 60,000 miles on the clock and has only recently been "re-kermitted", which looks sensational. I think that's done via a kermittment ceremony :-)

Sorry.

Initial thoughts were that this might have been a show car, from Earls Court back in 1975. Phil's recently noted that the lack of a hatch might count against it, however.

Regardless, its great to see these old-timers still on the road and looking so fresh.

10 Comments

Tompa | May 31, 2009 9:05 PM | Reply

Un Grenouille-vert Saab quatre vingt dix neuf automatique. Chouette!

Spelling somewhat right? :-)

Robin M | May 31, 2009 9:14 PM | Reply

Green is a good colour, 2 out of the 3 Saabs that won prizes at Swedish day UK were green.

Karen | May 31, 2009 9:51 PM | Reply

Maybe Saab should do a Special Edition Heritage Green, using the same original green of the very first Saabs but for E85 engine models? It was something to do with surplus (dark forest) green paint from the Saab airplanes. Use what you have...

Just say no to Lemon Yellow? :)

none | May 31, 2009 10:07 PM | Reply

maybe a custom color?

joachim | May 31, 2009 11:42 PM | Reply

i have exactly the same car with the same color.. the color is called "opal green".

Mag-X | June 1, 2009 2:30 AM | Reply

Saab really should start using real colors again. If I see another boring silver 9-3SS with grey leather, I'll eat a baby.

Peter | June 1, 2009 5:29 AM | Reply

The lack of hatch does not count against it so much as the lack of a manual transmission does.

The Saab 99 is where a new Saab should pore over when trying to inject Saabiness into any future models.

900_S | June 1, 2009 9:14 AM | Reply

I find it interesting that the modern Saabs aren't as fuel efficient as their predecessors. I mean, I'm happy they're getting all the power and whatnot out of them, but I guess I just assumed they would have better fuel efficiency too. Does anyone know if Saturn got to use any of the Saab engines or other Saab technology? Saturns seem to have been more fuel efficient than Saabs for a little while... That makes me suspicious.

Haha, I agree with Mag-X about the colors, and Peter about the manual transmissions.

Batnes | June 2, 2009 6:07 PM | Reply

Nice car indeed! My first car was a 1976 SAAB 99 GL two door sedan in this exact colour. Outside it was as green as Kermit, inside it was as brown as a brownie :^) I "tuned" it little bit, putting on a double carburettor manifold, two cute Zenith-Stromberg carburettors which made it less green when not in sync, but a wee bit more powerful and economic when I got it to the shop and tuned in perfectly. Also a neat function was the "rally position" of the window wiper control - full speed on wipers and window flushing running continously - great if you got a bucketload of shit on your windscreen during a special stage. Alltogether a great car which made me a SAAB-fundamentalist - but it rusted alright, you could hear it rusting in the night while parked outside our home... scroischhh, scroischhhh, scroischhhh....