I’d like to take this opportunity to pass along a belated, but very happy 82nd birthday wish to Mr Saab, Erik Carlsson.
His birthday was last Saturday, March 5th.
50 years ago, Erik nearly took a placing in the Monte Carlo rally driving a station wagon. He finished fourth. Some brief video here.
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I had a chat with Manfred from Hirsch, at the Geneva Motor Show. There are some new body kit items coming from the 9-5 soon. They look fantastic from the early imagery that I’ve seen, but they’re not ready to be shown yet.
What he could talk to me about was this new, lightweight wheel. How light? The wheel itself weight just 11 kilograms. When you put a tyre on it, the weight doubles to 22 kg.
I don’t know about you, but the idea of a wheel being the same weight as the tyre that’s placed on it is a bit of a mindblower.
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A note from TTELA about the Saab factory:
Saab will be going to maximum production in the next few weeks thanks to strong orders towards the end of February.
Sounds like those Independence Day announcements have caused some interest.
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A tiny bit of Djup Strupery….
Talk has come through that the Saab 9-5x has been signed off very recently, for release in MY2013.
We watch and see.
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And speaking of the 9-5, if you’ve never seen Saab’s U-rail system in action, there’s some video here demonstrating it from Geneva on the new Saab 9-5 SportCombi.
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TreeHugger is the Anti-NTP.
It’s great that Saab is thinking about hybrids and stop-start systems and all that, and it’s not nothing that a car this sporty can get in the mid-40 MPG range, but for a concept car that is supposed to be forward-looking, it’s not enough. It just doesn’t cut it these days.
It’s a CONCEPT you bunch of double-rainbow dreadlocked moonbeams.
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An image from comments…….. by Jeff the resident photoshopper
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Last, but by no means least….
Vale David Calabrese
Many Saab fans and club members in the US are mourning the loss of David Calabrese last week. David was tragically struck down in car accident in Chicago.
My correspondence with Dave was minimal, but it was very obvious that he was a passionate Saab fan. He wrote to me several times earlier this year telling me about observations he made at Saab dealers and auto shows that left him very concerned for the brand, some of which I passed on to Saab in North America.
I’ve had a number of people write to me about his passing and it’s quite obvious that he was held in very high esteem by all. It saddens me that I never had an opportunity to meet this old-school Saaber.
David Calabrese was 70 years of age.
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