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This is the second report from Till72, who attended the Hirsch Performance open day last weekend on SU’s behalf.

Thanks again to Till for some excellent reportage.

Related: A look around at the Hirsch collection of Saabs

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As part of the open day we had the chance to get some insights on a tour through the Hirsch Performance facilities and to learn how they develop and test their products.

This steering wheel is a new product for the 9-3 that is to be launched in about a month. Hirsch basically took the original Saab part and stripped it down to components responsible for safety and functionality. Those components are kept, just the form of the wheel is changed a bit by using a bit more foam here and a bit less there and by applying a nice leather surface. You get an aftermarket replacement that still uses the same connectors, airbag and switches and offers the same safety as the original part does. I had it in my hands and it felt that good that I might buy it once it’s available.

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Here’s a quick initial entry from Till72, our man on the ground at St Gallen over the weekend, where he attended the Hirsch Performance open day.

Till has a number of things to share from the day, but here’s his initial report, showing a look around just some of the cars living at Hirsch’s headqarters.

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One highlight at the Hirsch Performance open day were the cars from Rene Hirsch’s collection shown in the workshop. Of course all cars were in amazing condition making you dream a bit…

The car Peter Backstrom was especially fond of is the yellow 900 Aero convertible. It was sold and cusomized according to one customers wishes but even though a deposit was paid in advance, the customer never picked up his car. The guys at Hirsch used it as a show car and the visitors getting in and out made the front seats look a bit more used than you’d expect from a car that has only 2300 km on the clock.

Peter told me that he had a look at the cars on display together with Rene Hirsch the day before and was told that the 900 shall be restored to original Aero condition with grey exterior parts.

As I am a big fan of the first 9-3 generation my personal favourite was the Troll convertible. There’s not much I wouldn’t do in order to get my hands on that car. Even more because this one also has only about 2500 km on the clock. A real black beauty.

To complete the convertible family there also was a current 9-3, of course equipped with all goodies Hirsch has to offer. Don’t know about the kilometres on that car but we were told that it might have the most of all on display because it was used as a daily driver for a while.

Of course there also was a Troll R. As it was parked to a new 9-5 one might think about the possibility of a new Troll R…

The 9-5, a TiD4, is actually a test vehicle with the interior stripped and the engine sitting next door. A bit more on that later on.