BAIC has mixed things up
May 10, 2011 in News
In a statement made by Eric Geers at Saab, BAIC has mixed up the models of 9-3 that Saab intends to build in China. The model allowed by BAIC is the 9-3 through ’04 and the 9-5 through ’09; the version that will be produced by Hawtai is the next generation 9-3, nothing new to us who follow SaabsUnited closely =)
GerritN said on May 10, 2011
“The model allowed by BAIC is the current model”
Is that correct? I thought it was the older model (2003-2006?) that BAIC got the tooling for. Must be, since the newer model tooling is still used in Trollhattan.
Kittciokas said on May 10, 2011
I think it’s current model, everybody says that it’s 2003-2006 tooling, but the pictures from BAIC shows, that they have post 2007 year tooling, because between years 2006-2007 has been facelift, and BAIC has tooling for post facelifted model.
WooDz said on May 10, 2011
When I read the news that BAIC had brought the old generation tooling I thought they were talking about GM2900 architecture. I was quite surprised to see an Epsilon vehicle last year. Then news cam out that they’d bought pre-2006 tooling as part of the deal but now we have post 2006 tooling being talked about.
I think it goes to show that what even SAAB are telling the world isn’t quite the whole picture. Don’t interpret that as SAAB being mischievous, they’re entitled to give and hold back any information they see fit. But to me getting 4 models for 200 million sounds a very good deal indeed.
JH said on May 10, 2011
BAIC has bought the rights to the pre-2004 9-3, but their show car is a current model 9-3 built in Trollhättan because the tooling they have bought is currently not installed in any factory, neither in Sweden nor in China.
lala said on May 10, 2011
That explains. Thanks JH.
So when BAIC actually starts building them they will be beases on pre-2004 model?
JH said on May 10, 2011
Yes, that is my belief.
Börjesson said on May 10, 2011
So basically, in a post saying that BAIC have mixed up different 9-3 models, Tim mixes up different 9-3 models.
TTELA are very clear in this article. They inform us that BAIC have the tech rights to the 9-3 up until 2004 (and also the old 9-5, up until 2010), GM has the rights to the present 9-3, and Hawtai have bought the rights to locally produce the next generation of 9-3, model year 2013 and onwards.
GerritN said on May 10, 2011
Yup, that’s my recollection too.
Marque said on May 11, 2011
If you look at the pictures on BAIC C60 you see that the interior is post-2008 9-3 and I see the bonnet as post 2008 model too… So this pre-2004 thing isn’t clear to me.