SU-Drivers
July 30, 2011 in SaabsUnited Related
This beautiful 9-3 belongs to Carlo and he is one of the many who are supporting SaabsUnited 
My first car was a 9-3 and its probably one of Saabs models I love most.
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Red J said on July 30, 2011
Great car.
I can remember when I bought my first car, a brand new 9-3, back in 1999, the rear lamps where symmetrical and only using red and white,at the same time the Audis and Beemers had quite chaotic rear lamps with red, amber, and white.
Now Audis and Beemers have more structured rear lamps, just like Saab 20 years ago.
I love this car.
sgns said on July 30, 2011
Ah, and though one maybe doesn’t see it on this picture, a car with one of the most beautiful C-pilars ever, in my opinion. This car made me a fan.
Khrisdk said on July 30, 2011
Absolutely agree.
I do like and respect the newer cars and the OG900, from a design POV I think this is the Gem.
Which I probably why I will do whatever I can to keep mine running until the end of time
i. ant. kal. said on July 30, 2011
nice! i am waiting for mine
dave said on July 30, 2011
How many km ?
theSandySaab said on July 30, 2011
Yes, I had a scarabeus green (racing green) 900SE coupe 2006, brilliant car. Beautiful lines, especially from the side, solid interior and very roomy and flexible trunk. The only gripes was that the cruise control did not work over 200 kmh (tried on french private motorways) and that the steering was not very crisp… Still, miss that car… Picked it up at the factory a rainy day, think it was in October 2005… Golden days….
theSandySaab said on July 30, 2011
Sorry, the years should have been 1996 and 1995 respectively….
How time flies…
rallyho said on July 30, 2011
Ouch! A Brit may have had a “racing green” car but I don’t think ever a Saab had it.
There used to be a history associated with the color and country during a race, you could tell just by the color and stripe.
Does anyone remember them. I think France was a medium blue car with a white stripe. I only remember that from having met up with a quick little Renault Gordini back in the 1965′ish era.
The US was either blue on white or white on blue (most of the Shelby cars were one or the other), I think?
theSandySaab said on July 30, 2011
Well, that was what my colleagues and friends called it when I tried to explain te story about the dark green beetle or scarabeus… Great color, though, racing or not…
Red J said on July 30, 2011
The colours where:
white for Japan
light blue for france
rosso corse for Italy
racing green for GB
The Germans decided not to paint their cars so the Germans were polished metal.
Don’t know about the US guys.
martinsaab said on July 31, 2011
About the German race cars, there’s the story that the Mercedes cars were to heavy to fulfill the racing regulations. So they removed the (white, I think) body paint and “created” the legend of the “silver arrows” (Silberpfeile) due to their plain aluminum looks…
martinsaab said on July 31, 2011
Oooops… didn’t read the other contributions to this discussion…
rallyho said on July 30, 2011
There was a legend about German cars being silver because they came to a race overweight and to qualify, they had to strip the paint. This may be the story about Hitler’s proclamation about his “Silver Arrows” that were Auto Union?
Red J said on July 30, 2011
My legend says the the German decided to strip the paint to save weight, never heard about the overweight.
And the silver arrows were both Auto Union (today Audi) and Mercedes Benz.
Khrisdk said on July 30, 2011
It is a legend that is mentioned often, but is has been disputed.
But german cars used to be white before the Silver Arrows.
I as far as I remember from my Audi history, this is also the start of the more serious bad feelings between Dr. Porsche, Mercedes and Audi
Red J said on July 30, 2011
Khrisdk,
Mr Porsche did not visit University, the Dr. is only a Dr. h.c., and as his grandson Mr. Piech says in his biography: He was only good in one thing, attracting very capable people around him.
Khrisdk said on July 30, 2011
I would never argue against that. Everyboby seems to be a Doctor in Germany
It just seemed a god way to distinguish the Old guy from the other members of the family.
Red J said on July 31, 2011
It is important to be a Dr. in Germany, and if you don’t have one at a certain level, you get a h.c.
But in the last months many people are loosing their Dr. German politicians are more fun than the Swedish colleagues
ivo 71 said on July 31, 2011
@ RedJ: It’s actually a little more complicated than that. The short version: Between 1934 and 1939 German GP racing cars by Auto Union AND Mercedes carried the semi-official nickname ‘Silberpfeil’ (Silver Arrow). To avoid confusion, the press introduced the nickname ‘Silberfisch’ (silver fish) for the Auto Union cars and used the name ‘Silberpfeil’ for the Mercedeses. The general public, however, continued to call all German Grand Prix racers ” Silberpfeil’.
MB replaced the official German white racing color by silver in 1932 (the Avus race in Berlin) when they were forced to strip the car’s paint because the car weighed in at 751 kg when 750 kg was the maximum allowed. Manfred von Brauchitsch won the race to everyone’s surprise and the tradition was continued. It is not known if the silver was actually the naked aluminium color since then or if the cars were painted silver later on, both versions are being used in literature.
Auto Union first entered GP racing in 1934 and, for an hitherto unknown reason, also had their cars painted silver, probably to confuse the lot
. They didn’t confuse anyone in their first race anyway since Mercedes didn’t start due to tech trouble.
The Silberpfeil nickname was coined by a radio commentator of the1932 Avus race who compared the car to a silver arrow. It stuck.
After the war, the ‘Silberpfeil’ name was resurrected by Mercedes and continued being used until Mercedes withdrew from racing after the well-known terrible accident at Le Mans in 1955. A Mercedes 300 SLR was launched into the spectator stand after a collision in front of the stand. This cost over 80 people and the driver (Pierre Levegh) their lives. The name surfaced again in the late ‘nineties for the McLaren Mercedes GP cars and the GT-models from Mercedes (the CLK and CLR) and last year again -in Germany- when Mercedes works GP-cars entered the competition for the first time since 1955.They were painted silver again at the outset of the 2010 GP season.
Ivo
Carlo A said on July 30, 2011
Hello everybody… can I say that I am very touched seeing my car on SU? …. regards to you all …. you are like an enlarged family !!!
Griffin Up !!!
Marque said on July 30, 2011
So sad myself had to switch from the coupe to a five door. The Coupe makes so much of a difference to this car! I’m still in hot love with it even after 8 years of owning. However she stays in family, will be with my girlfriend.
cmhohioman said on July 30, 2011
I really hope SAAB comes through. Although I like my 2011 Audi A4….I think my 2009 SAAB 9.3 XWD drove better….they handle differently. It’s sad….I hope somehow things get back to normal.
RS said on July 30, 2011
It would be interesting to have people test the two brand ‘side by side’ for lets say a month.
I’m pretty sure Saab would do very well in that comparison even with those who’ve never even considered buying one just because Saab has never got on their radar thanks to lack of, or marketing not hitting the target.
Looking at Carlo’s Saab in the picture… What a great car it would have been to combine the best features of the OG and NG 9-3 at the time.
rallyho said on July 31, 2011
Either blue with a white stripe or white with the blue stripe were accepted for US cars. The US blue was the one you would expect to see on the Cobras (nice dark blue), as opposed to the French which was more of a medium.
Kind of a shame that these traditions have faded out, they are still there almost by way of an unspoken tradition. So many Ferrari are red and Mercedes silver that you almost don’t think of it. I am getting some paint work done on my Volvo (bad word here, I know) and if I could afford it, I would have tried to work in the the Swedish colors, but it is a free touch up respray on the hood and with the base silver it won’t work out.
British or Scarab, that dark green will always be one of my favorite colors.
MarkoA said on July 31, 2011
That pic of 3dr 9-3 get´s me back to the moment when I saw brand new yellow Viggen for the first time. Whoa..