Autocar magazine reported earlier that Beijing Automotive – who have already signed an MOU with Koenigsegg Group to become a minority owner – will look to purchase the tooling for the outgoing Saab 9-5.
This was not the first time that noises have been made about this. There were indications a few weeks ago at the Frankfurt show about this issue and they were covered here on this site as a possibility. That Autocar have received some confirmation of this is good news for Saab.
But consider the possibilities of this for a moment, not as an individual occurence, but as a precedent.
If Saab are working furiously on a new 9-3 at the moment, and it’s my belief that they are, then the possibility for another shift to China for the current 9-3 model range looms large as another earner for Saab.
The opportunity for Saab to earn money from another de-commissioned model – and in this instance a much more recent one – may prove to be yet another positive windfall from Beijing Automotive’s participation in this transaction.
As long as the Chinese market would accept the 9-5 and the 9-3 as new vehicles under BAIC’s own brand name, it really looks like a win-win for everyone. Saab gets to make some extra money from an old model that would otherwise be mothballed. Those outgoing models are still a quality basis for a new brand for BAIC, one that would emphasise safety in a market that’s not renowned for it.
If they can make this happen then it sounds like a smart play to me.
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