After my little Saab 9-3x featurettes yesterday, I received an email from site sponsors and Saab dealers, Mobil Forum in Dresden, Germany.
They were one of the first dealers in Germany to get a Saab 9-3x in stock and have shown it to a lot of customers, always with positive comments. As you know, though, sales are very tough due to the GFC and Saab's turbulent year, so all this positivity hadn't led to much movement in the bank account.
Anyway, Andre from Mobil Forum just told me about their first potential Saab 9-3x sale, as follows:
Last week I had a really positive meeting with a new customer. He came in to our showroom and we were talking about cars. He knew a lot about Saab and Volvo, because he is a fan of Swedish cars. But his company has always bought BMW.
So he came here with a BMW X3 3.0 Diesel (not really bad). He is driving about 70,000 km per year. He asked about the 9-3X Diesel with XWD. I had to say no, we couldn't get one, but I explained to him the positive side of the Bio Power model and maybe a gas-opportunity.
I gave him the car for a day. In the evening he came here and his reaction was great! He doesn't like the automatic, but that's no problem! If his company could give him the ok, he will order a new 9-3X 2.0T Bio Power with the Hirsch 240hp upgrade and a manual gearbox as well.
I know, to sell just one of these cars doesn't sound very spectacular, but in these times, we are very happy about this!!!
Congratulations Andre and I hope it comes through very soon.
What interests me a bit more about this, rather than just the sale, is the fact that it's a 'conquest sale' not only from a BMW driver, but also a small SUV driver.
This is exactly the segment that the 9-3x could really appeal to. Yes, the XWD/diesel combination would help if they could do it, but from all the information we've received, they can't. And probably 85% of people can do just fine with Diesel and FWD or the petrol/XWD combination.
As I've been saying, this really is a well thought out vehicle and it'll deserve every bit of interest it receives.
Just curious, what is the asking price for 9-3X 2.0T Bio Power in Germany in Euro?
...and is that competitive, you think?
And good to see that the 9-3x really attracts a small SUV driver... That car might be able to do it's share to the 100.000 cars per year but at least against those Audi allroad and so on the lack of XWD diesel might be a problem.
Quick look at saab.de suggests the BioPower XWD 9-3x starts at €41k.
X3 3.0d starts at €46k.
Wow, in Belgium we have to be happy with a pre-booked 30 minn test drive...
I understand this was one dealer only, but did not give a good feeling about Saab.
Btw, I got offer from Subaru to have a new OB for a day in the close future. Hard to resist the testdrive.
What's really great is the possibility of having an e85 capable vehicle that can also run in Natural Gas. I think LPG is around 40cents cheaper than Diesel or half the price of Petrol (Approx... so don't quote me) So now we have a class leading AWD application that can compete against diesel.
That's Big Big news if you ask me.
I have seen 9-3x in dealer and it is definately good looking car. Too small for me. basically FWD is enough for me, no need for XWD, but to car is too small, so I am waiting for NG9-5.