It’s good to hear Saab had another big ad in the Wall Street Journal last week.
From page A5 (take that, Audi!)
Thanks to Mark T for the pic
——
One of the original moon-landing astronauts, Buzz Aldrin, once owned a Saab Sonett!!
He was a guest on the inaugural edition of Top Gear USA tonight and Quijote was kind enough to record the interview and post part of it on Youtube…
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8GJPsDSgG8
Of course, the Sonett didn’t need Buzz’s endorsement to be cool, but Buzz himself just got a whole lot of cool to join his moon-landing awesomeness 🙂
——
I’ve had more than one question asked in comments as to why Saab don’t stock more models – the new 9-5 in particular – with manual transmissions.
This post from Jalopnik might go some way to explaining why:
Even though manual transmissions have been in decline for decades, a new EPA report shows that 6.7% of new vehicles sold this year are equipped with a stick. Sadly, it’s the highest percentage in the last five years .
The good news is that that number actually represents a rise of about 1% on the previous year. That’s not enough to be a trend, but it gives some hope.
My understanding is that Saab have to have each model combination they sell in the US tested and certified before they can offer it for sale. The cost in dollars and time, combined with the low uptake of manual tranmissions, is probably a good indicator as to why some models don’t get a stickshift.
I know that’s not going to make some people happy, but it does provide a bit of an explanation.
——
The New York Times – a lazy, fat-assed publication that’s happy to pick some low-hanging fruit when it comes to Saab.
It’s crap like this – which is fundamentally untrue, by the way – that Saab is fighting against almost as much as anything else. I’m going to process some video tonight of one of the guys who developed the Saab 9-4x, the latest work in his 35-year career with Saab.
——
The Saab 9-3 SportCombi features in an AOL Autos list of Best 10 used wagons you can buy under $20,000.
In fact, go through that list and you’ll see the Saab offers the absolute best combination of age, power and low mileage – not to mention the Saab appeal.
Thanks Tal!
——
A friend of Ray K, Andy P, has been playing around with ideas for a new Saab logo and Ray thought we might like to see it….
People keep using the griffon logo that’s a holdover from the days when Scania was merged with SAAB . I decided that it’s time to retire it, since Scania is still using it.
—
Comments are closed.