You are browsing the archive for Troll Stuff.

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

SU Site Statistics – December 2010

January 9, 2011 in Troll Stuff

We’re in a new month so I’ll take this weekend opportunity to share the site statistics from December 2010.

SU served 467,222 pages during December 2010, to 67,261 unique visitors. A slower month, thanks to the Christmas break, which really was a break this year.

Seeing we’re at year’s end, why not a small sample of annual numbers as well?

Saabs United served 7,551,995 page views for the whole of 2010. These pages were served to 784,589 individual visitors. Not too shabby, eh?

——

The top 20 cities visiting Saabs United during December were as follows:

Munich, Berlin and Amsterdam were all in the 25, but just didn’t make it into the top 20.

Much is made of the potential contained in the so-called “BRIC” countries. Visitation here isn’t quite pointing to the same thing, but Russia’s good at 5,821 pages and China’s growing with 1,313 pages (Taiwanese Saab fans viewed just over 2,000 pages for the month). India and Brazil were both around the 400 page mark, so there aren’t many people looking for Saab information there…. yet :-)

——

Here are some new stats for you….

19.7% of visits to SU in December were people visiting just once.

28.6% of visits to SU in December were the 200th (or more) visit for the person concerned.

——

The top 3 individual pages viewed in December 2010 (aside from the home page) were as follows:

——

That’s it for this month.

And here we go again for the start of 2011!!

Tags: 15 Comments »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

Saab 900 Convertible gets emu art treatment

January 3, 2011 in Troll Stuff

I think it’s going to be a convertible themed month…..

As some of you know, my wife does quite a lot of watercolour painting. At her first solo exhibition, held back in November 2010, she had a painting of some emus in a Mini Convertible. This prompted a few people to ask “what about a Saab convertible?” – and she even received one commission for such a painting.

I thought I’d share the finished result with everyone here at SU….

The emu paintings aren’t all she does, but they are extremely popular as they bring such a big smile to people’s faces.

Putting them in a 900 Convertible will hopefully bring even more smiles.

Tags: , , 12 Comments »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

SU Site Stats November 2010

December 2, 2010 in Troll Stuff

The monthly report is as follows….

  • There were 160 posts written on Saabs United during November. That’s an average of just over 5 posts per day.
  • Saabs United served 519,518 pages to 71,638 individual visitors during November 2010.
  • Visitors spent an average of three minutes (precisely) on site, per visit.
  • The busiest day of the month was November 18, with over 23,000 pages served. November 18 saw various posts associated with the launch of the Saab 9-4x at the LA Auto Show.

Geography

The US provides the most visitors in terms of countries……

…but doesn’t provide a single city in the top 10….

New York was #11 :-)

Content

The top 5 posts viewed during November were as follows:

The most commented articles on site this month (over 50 comments) were as follows:

And finally, for something different, the top 10 browsers accessing the site:

–

Thanks to all for hanging around. It’s been a pleasure.

–

Tags: 35 Comments »

Avatar of eggsngrits

by eggsngrits

A dubious milestone passes

November 25, 2010 in Editorial, Saabology, Troll Stuff

EggsnGrits here, long time no post.  My day job has been insanely demanding for the last three or four months, but with magnificent results, so I’m not complaining much.

Thanks to @JustSaab on Twitter, I’m reminded that this is the very day and hour that I reluctantly picked up the phone to call Swade in Tasmania a year ago.  The information that I had to give? Koenigsegg Group had abruptly ended their bid to purchase Saab Automobile AB.  The announcement was made near the end of the European working day, about 10:30 AM here in Nashville, Tennessee or about 3:30 AM in Tasmania.

As I recall vividly, Swade’s first words were, “Fair dinkum?”  (Translated:  ”Really?”)  The second question was one that really brings back the memories:  ”Who is reporting it?”  As you may recall, by late November of last year we’d had quite enough of the junk journalism and speculative posts surrounding the GM/Saab split.  Swade (nor I, for that matter) was in no mood to wrestle with yet another bogus report with no real basis in fact.  ”Reuters, AP and BBC from what I can see here.  Fritz Henderson (then acting CEO of GM) has a news conference scheduled for today.”   Of course, you know the rest of the story.

I bring this up today not to wallow in the negatives of Saab’s near death experience.  I want us all to revel in just how far we have come!  Two new world-class vehicles, our new 9-5 and the home-run 9-4x, in the showrooms.  Dealerships in Canada.  A partnership with a leader in automotive technology, BMW, for development of new Saabs.  A new 9-3 in engineering and test.  A growing and thriving North American organization lead by Mike Colleran and crew.  The talented Jason Castriota leading our design efforts.  And, finally, a charismatic and active leader in Victor Muller paired with our own strong, steady Jan-Ake Jonsson.

We have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving week.  We’ve come so far in just 12 months.  Just think about what we can do with the next 12.  It’s going to continue to be a great ride.

45 Comments »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

Things that go ‘bump’ in the afternoon….

November 12, 2010 in Troll Stuff

We moved offices yesterday.

We were told about the move around six weeks ago and I’ve been unhappy about it ever since. We’ve gone from a nice convenient office in the center of the city to a building that’s only another 5 minutes from home, but the setting couldn’t be any more different.

We’re now in the middle of what Australians call “the bush”. This is the sort of area that firefighters worry about – lots of trees, high fuel load and at the top of a hill where the wind can whip up a frenzy in no time. In fact, I went on a small walk today and you could see the charring from the last fire that came through.

I was told today that snake season is coming, too. We need to watch out for them in the carpark and in the surrounding countryside. Tasmania has three types of snake (Tiger, Lowland Copperhead and white-lipped) and two of those three will do more than just spoil your lunchtime stroll.

Enough of the snakes, though. As I was cleaning out my office cupboards earlier today, I came across some papers I haven’t seen in a long time.

The main one of interest was a green invoice, detailing the purchase of our Saab 9000 CS from a used car dealer here in Hobart a number of years ago. Along with that invoice was an inspection report, listing a bunch of items that needed to be fixed or replaced. Looking back, I don’t know why I paid the price that we did for that car, with all those things wrong.

It was a wonderfully nostalgic find for a car guy. Our 9000 isn’t anything to shout about but it’s served us faithfully, noisy transmission and all, ever since we first brought it home. It eats up the miles on a long trip and is truly one of those cars that gets you to your destination in as good a shape as when you started off.

The 9000 is my wife’s car. It’s the only automatic in the family, so it’s the only one that she drives. A few hours ago, as I was contemplating what to write next here at SU, she called me on my mobile phone.

“Swade, I’ve been in a bad, bad accident!”

My mind raced, as would anyone’s. But she was OK enough to call, she sounded OK and she wasn’t crying.

How bad could it be?

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: 74 Comments »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

Maybe, in a year from now…..

November 9, 2010 in Saabology, Troll Stuff

One of the great frustrations (and ironies) about me running this website is that I’ve never bought a new Saab. I’ve never bought a new car of any make, actually. It’s not something that sits that well with me given that I’m a staunch supporter of the brand but my wife and I have financial plans that involve paying off our house as the #1 priority. I guess you could say I try to make up for the lack of buying by doing other things (e.g. you’re reading one of them right now).

The good news is that the end of our mortgage purgatory is now within sight. It’s still going to take a year or so, but we’re almost getting to the point where I can start looking around and thinking about the Saab I’d like to buy.

A small tangent…..

I must be getting old or something. Even just two years ago, I could spend hours on motoring classified websites, trawling through the various cheapies I’d like to buy. I’ve bought a few of them over the years, too. Older Saabs, Alfas and even a Mazda MX-5. I look at those sites now, though, and there’s very little (aside from unattainable Porsches) that holds any interest for me anymore.

Must be time to start thinking new. /tangent

Whilst I absolutely love the Saab 9-5, I have to concede that it would be too expensive for us given what I would expect the Aussie price to be. It’s also bigger than what I think my wife would be comfortable driving.

A Saab 9-3 is more our style and ever since I drove a Saab 9-3x for a week in Sweden last year, it’s been my absolute favourite model in the 9-3 range.

So….. perfect world scenario, here’s what I’d be getting (built on the Saab GB website)

My Saab 9-3x

That’s a Saab 9-3x in Laser Red, with the TTiD engine and FWD.

The interior is the more spartan textile/leather combination in black and grey. There’s something about it that suits the more utilitarian nature of the car for me.

My Saab 9-3x Int

Options would include the Prestige Pack, comprising electric memory seats and the BOSE upgraded audio and Bluetooth.

I don’t particularly need XWD where I live and I’d be very happy to get the combined frugality and performance of the 180hp and 400Nm TTiD engine.

Well, kind of…..

Given that this would be the first new car purchase (and assuming it’ll be available here in Australia) I’d try and make it a little special by going for the Hirsch software upgrade. This would lift the output to 200hp and 430Nm without any loss in economy or warranty coverage. The 0-100 sprint is only marginally faster, but the 80-120 push is significantly quicker (as it should be with Saabs).

Whilst burying my nose in the Hirsch order book, I’d also spring for the Carbon Leather dashboard to dress up the interior. Their sportier steering wheel might also come into calculations, depending on the budget.

My Saab 9-3x Side

So, all going well, this is the car I’d like to be telling you all about – finally – in around 12-18 months from now.

It’ll have been a long haul from being a newbie blogger with an old 99Turbo to this, but it’s a journey well worth taking.

–

Tags: 49 Comments »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

Free postage on T-Shirts for North America

November 9, 2010 in Troll Stuff

I haven’t written about our little T-shirt shop for a while, but our shirt provider, Spreadshirt, has an offer on for the next week that’s worth writing about.

Don’t shoot the messenger, but there is just a little more than 6 weeks left till Christmas. Don’t panic! That’s just for people who wait until the 23rd to start their gift shopping. Good things come to those who wait plan accordingly. So, if you are already thinking about the right gift for your gift list: this free shipping promotion is a great way to start!

Order from our wide selection of gift ideas before November 14th and enter the coupon code SHOPEARLYUS (or CADSHOPEARLY for Canada) when going through checkout.

Of course, if no-one else in your family is thinking of a Saab T-Shirt for you, you might want to email this post to them (see sharing options below).

Ivan’s got plenty of great designs at the shop and you can use the SU DIY Shop to customise your shirt in any number of ways.

Saab Turbo Shirt

–

Tags: 1 Comment »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

Saab (unofficial) ad competition – win $500

November 3, 2010 in Troll Stuff

Opinions have been divided on Saab’s recent advertising efforts.

I figured it might be useful and entertaining to have a little fun with it all. And who knows, we might just discover another David Ogilvy or Carl Ally while we’re at it.

To make it even more interesting and in order to provide you with a little extra motivation, I’m going to pony up some dead presidents – It’s winner take all, people.

The task….

Design and construct a graphic and text suitable for a Saab magazine-style advertisment. Your ad needs to be ready to run – image and print all together in the one jpg file.

No video – this is a print-only exercise.

The judging

I will post every entry here on the website, most likely as a daily collection. After the deadline, I’ll get a suitably qualified person (i.e. someone who sells Saabs for a living) – OR a panel of said persons – to look them over and decide on a group of finalists.

The group of finalists will then be subjected to a poll and the winner gets the prize.

The prize

$500 $575 will be Paypalled to the winning entrant in US currency.

UPDATE: In addition, Dan from State of Nine has added a $100 gift voucher for use at State Of Nine – thanks Dan!!

I’m putting my money where my mouth is, time for you to put your creative talent where your mouth is.

How to enter

Ads should be in JPG format. You can send it PDF if you like but I have to show it on site, so I’ll convert it to JPG.

Send your finished ad to swade99[at]gmail[dot]com and include “Adcomp” in the subject line.

IMPORTANT: All images should have the text “This is not an original Saab Advertisement” written at the top/bottom or along the side of the image (whichever suits your layout).

The deadline

Entries will be accepted until midnight, November 30, 2010.

Giddyup! Let’s have some fun.

Tags: , , 38 Comments »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

A small milestone

October 31, 2010 in Troll Stuff

Bloggers do tend to observe these things sometimes…..

Trollhattan Saab ran for nearly four years and attracted just over 50,000 comments. SU has been operational for around 21 months now – and we’re about to tick over to six figures.

Thanks to all who come along and join in the fun. The 90,000th comment came in overnight. It was “hipchecker” talking about the Art of Camouflage ad.

Cheers,

SW

Tags: 14 Comments »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

Saabnet.com experiencing problems

October 22, 2010 in Troll Stuff

UPDATE: Problems persist.

An update from Scott:

Saabnet.com suffered a hard disk crash. By time I get a new hard disk, reinstall linux and all the supporting software, it’ll be probably mid week next week when it is online again.

——

Saabnet is off the air at the moment and I know regulars there might be wondering what’s going on. So I got in touch with Scott Paterson to find out, in order to pass on some reassurance that things would be OK.

Here’s the problem, from Scott via email:

On Saturday October 16th at around 4PM, the Saabnet.com server had a fatal hardware failure rending the server completely inoperable. I did have a new server machine on hand and on Sunday I loaded up Linux, Apache (web server), PHP (scripting engine), and mySQL (database engine).

On Monday, I began to reload the Saabnet.com content from backups. All went smoothly and by the end of the day, I had 95% of the site working including the bulletin boards. I’m now working on the member login script which is not working correctly.

I’m feeling optimistic I’ll be able to open the site back up to the public either late today or tomorrow, but you know how software is so it could be as long as a few more days too.

Saabnetters, rest assured the problem is being worked on and hopefully Scott will get the oldest Saab enthusiast site on the web back on air soon.

Tags: 17 Comments »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

Historic racing in Tasmania

October 17, 2010 in Troll Stuff

Time for something a little different. It’s non-Saaby, but I’m going to indulge anyway…..

Scroll on down if you’re not interested.

Today the MG Car Club hosted their second annual historic racing day here in Hobart, at Baskerville Raceway. There were some MG’s involved, though you won’t see many (if any) in the photos I’ve selected to show here.

The day had a mix of feature races and regularity events. The feature races featured the faster cars on the course and some notable drivers, too (more in a moment). They did one flat-starting event to begin with, followed by a handicap race later on, which was quite exciting.

Regularity, for those who are unfamiliar, is a type of racing where competitors nominate their own lap time. They then have to lap as consistently as possible and lose points for being off their nominated time. It’s a type of racing where you can still push your car, but the aim is consistency, not outright speed and therefore, it evens out the field a little.

Both types of racing were fantastic to watch, with some great machinery on display. The color. The sound. There’s something about grassroots motorsport that’s quite addictive.

I’ve posted a few photos below, along with a couple of thoughts/stories to go with them.
Historic racing at Baskerville

Shannons Insurance sponsored a vehicle display at the event and this Ferrari Dino was one of the stars of the show. It’s amazing the quality of machinery that’s hanging around in some garages, even in a small city at the end of the earth.

There were a few classic Australians there, too. I came within a hair of buying one of these XP Falcon coupes when I was about 19 years old. It was red, though.

Historic racing at Baskerville

Read the rest of this entry →

Tags: 10 Comments »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

Housekeeping – how to post a link in comments

October 15, 2010 in Troll Stuff

A few weeks ago, I added some functionality to comments whereby people could make comments bold, with italics and even add a link to their comments if needed.

I’ve noticed, however, that people are having problems with the linking function from time to time, so I thought a quick how-to might be useful.

Many of you would be familiar with making things bold or italic through your use of word processors – you select the text you want to highlight and then press the bold or italic button to apply the formatting to the text you’ve selected.

Linking follows a very similar routine.

Step 1 – Write your text

In this instance, I’ve written “This is the Saabs United linking demo” into the comments field.

Step 2 – Select the text you’d like to apply the link to

This is the step that people are missing out on. For this example, I want to make “Saabs United” the piece of text that’s used to link to somewhere. In this example I’ll link it to the site’s homepage.

So what I have to do now is use my mouse to select “Saabs United”, which is where the link will attach to.

Step 3 – Enter the URL you want to link to

Once the text has been selected, you press the “link” button on the comment form and it’ll bring up a dialogue box. In that dialogue box, you enter the URL you’d like to link to. Remember that it has to start with http:// or it won’t work (tip – copy and paste the URL from the address bar on your browser).

Once you’ve entered the URL, press OK on the dialogue box.

The monkeys behind the scenes will apply the appropriate code your comment so that it shows up as a link.

Here’s my comment with the code applied.

Step 4 – Finish your comment and admire your new found geekiness

Once you’ve finished your comment, done your linking and applied any other formatting (quotes, italics, bold), you can click “submit” and your comment will appear on site – properly formatted and with the link appearing according to the text you selected.

You’ll look like a pro and the comments section won’t have any hellishly long links appearing in their raw form – they look hideous.

Beware

OK, so now you know how to link. My advice is to use it sparingly, however.

If you enter too many links into one comment (like, more than one) there’s a very high chance that the system will think you’re trying to spam the comments section. If that happens, your comment may go into a queue for moderation, or even worse, into the spam filter itself.

I clean out the spam filter everyday so there’s a good chance I’ll catch it, but some days there are too many there to observe every one of them.

Bottom line – use linking appropriately and everything should work Ok.

Tags: , 16 Comments »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

Poll: Which Saab Sonett would you buy?

October 8, 2010 in Troll Stuff

So……

Imagine you had saved your pennies and you had a rare opportunity to purchase one of your dream Saabs. One that wasn’t released for sale where you live, for example. You have a limited budget, but one of these dream Saabs is actually within your grasp.

The curse of choice.

Imagine if more than one of these dream Saabs was actually within your reach. One’s quite a bit more expensive than the other, but the opportunity to purchase one doesn’t come often. Which one do you go for? The (slightly) more common one that you can generally pick up for less? Or the more rare version that sells for around twice the price?

You don’t have to be Einstein to figure out who the prospective purchaser is. I’ve finally scraped up enough money to purchase and ship a Saab Sonett. There might still be a spanner or two in the works, but I’ve been looking for some time and have found some viable options.

But which model to choose from?

The Saab Sonett V4.

Also known as the Saab Sonett II, but referred to as the V4 because the first Saab Sonett II’s, which are actually called Saab Sonett II’s, were two-stroke models. They’re super-rare these days. The V4s are rare as well. There were only around 1,800 Sonett II’s in total – two-stroke plus V4 – so finding one for sale and in good condition is a pretty rare thing and they tend to sell for good money.

Me in a Sonett IIThe Saab Sonett V4 in the photo to the right (taken by Eggs) belongs to a mechanic named Ralph at Charles River Saab. It’s in absolutely amazing condition and Ralph was kind enough to let me take it for a spin when I visited for Swedish Car Day. Note: this is not the car for sale. Money can’t buy the relationship Ralph has with this Sonett V4.

The pros for the Sonett V4 are extreme lightness, the beautiful column shift gearchange, unique good looks and of course, the exclusiveness of a very rare but still affordable car.

The cons for the Sonett V4 include rarity, which means some trim pieces might be impossible to find if something goes wrong, unique looks that some find a little odd and finally, a hefty price premium. The one I’ve spotted for sale looks to be in pretty decent condition and is selling for US$10K

—

The Saab Sonett III

The Saab Sonett III came out in 1970, shares the same Ford V4 engine but a different body on what is basically the same chassis. There were around 10,000 or so of these made over the four-year lifetime of the vehicle, which means they’re a bit more common but still exclusive enough to be considered pretty exotic – especially here in Australia.

Mike's SonettThe Saab Sonett III to the right is owned by a friend in England named Mike P, and I was fortunate enough to get a good drive of this car back in July. Look close and you’ll see Mrs Swade in that shot. Note once again, this is not the Sonett III that’s for sale. I could only wish.

Pros for the Saab Sonett III include more generally acceptable styling (subjective, of course), more access to the rear for those weekend drives (the III has a proper glass opening where the V4 doesn’t), a slightly wider brotherhood of vehicles should something go wrong and quite importantly, much more reasonable pricing – the Sonett III’s I’m scoping at the moment are around US$4K to $6K.

Cons for the Saab Sonett III – it’s not quite as exclusive as the Saab Sonett V4.

——

To the polls!

Should I chase the rare opportunity of a Sonett V4, or be (very) content with the Saab Sonett III?

If you had the opportunity, would you get a Saab Sonett V4 or a Saab Sonett III

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...

–

Tags: , 50 Comments »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

SU Site Statistics – September 2010

October 4, 2010 in Troll Stuff

I haven’t done a site stats post for a few months, but here’s an update for September 2010. Site stats are compiled to let me know how things are going, let you know how things are developing and to provide a gentle reminder to Saab that there’s some value in this whole website thing.

  • There were 152 articles written on Saabs United during September 2010. That’s just over 5 per day for each day of the month.
  • Saabs United servers fed 540,833 pages to 75,585 individual visitors during the month.
  • Visitors spent an average of three minutes on site, per visit, which is quite a lot of face time.
  • The busiest day of the month was the 29th September, which was when Saab announced their partnership with BMW

—–

Pageviews (click):

Pageviews Sept 2010

—–

Referral sources

  • The #1 referring site to Saabs United in September (aside from search) was Auto Motor and Sport.
  • The #2 referring site to Saabs United was Facebook (which is interesting as I don’t even use FB for promotion of SU)
  • The #3 referring site to Saabs United was Twitter

—–

Geography

The top 10 countries with visitors to Saabs United are as follows (click):

Countries Sept 2010

The top 10 cities with visitors to Saabs United are as follows (click):

Cities Sept 2010

—–

Popular posts

The following were the top 5 viewed individual posts during September:

The following posts had more than 50 comments during September:

–

Tags: 19 Comments »

Avatar of Swade

by Swade

A picture’s worth a thousand tears

September 20, 2010 in Troll Stuff

Audi A7

–

Tags: , 76 Comments »