Does stylish Swedish saloon have what it takes to fill the shoes of an old favourite?

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Friend and fellow Saab enthusiast, Graeme Lambert, has recently taken delivery of of his latest long term test car and it just happens to be a Saab 9-5 TTiD Aero. As you may know Graeme is a journalist for the British Car Weekly Auto Express. He will be writing about his new Saab on a regular basis and will let us have the links to his latest entries online.

Having recently sold his old 900, the 9-5 fills a huge void in his life. If you couldn’t tell already, Graeme is very excited about the 9-5 as you will see if you pop over to his page at Auto Express.


19 thoughts on “Does stylish Swedish saloon have what it takes to fill the shoes of an old favourite?”

    • Well they gave a scrappy 3 stars out of 5 for the new 9-5 SC? Another time I am not impressed by AutoExpress, and the fact that they often cite Saabs in their mag does not mean they are positive towards the car.

      Giving 3 out of 5 for such a great car is ridiculous again (I remember frequently using this word when it came to AutoExpress vs Saab lately) and clearly shows bias, but I really doubt it is in favour of the brand, but rather against it. If it were a Skoda there would be a 5-star rating for granted, so that’s about it.

      • The reason that car was given three out of five stars (and it wasn’t driven by myself) was that it is/was still under development. UK Saab engineers acknowledged there was still work needed to fine tune the suspension to UK roads, as what works well in one part of the world doesn’t necessarily work elsewhere. Also, there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that some versions of the 9-5 (our long termer in Aero spec with TTiD and DriveSense) warrant 4 stars, while others only merit three. Hopefully in time, the UK team will be able to develop the SC enough to warrant more versions getting another star rating.

  2. Read this last night. Brilliant! I think it proves people need to live with 9-5 to truly appriciate what a great car it is.

    I have switched to one from running convertible’s as my company cars and I love it.

        • Well, my interpretation was that Graeme let go of his old trusty friend. Hence the ghosty outline followed by the thumbs down.

          Another interpretation is that they wanted to do something different for the photo used for his article and simply played around long enough and ended up with what we now see. There may not have been much underlying thought / message there at all, so why bother bringing out the torches and pitchforks?

          There are enough strange people out there badmouthing Saab so it makes not much sense for us to attack those that give the new 9-5 two thumbs up.

        • Gunnar,
          why are you trying to misinterpret it.
          If you had read the article you would know that the picture can only be read in one way.
          The thumbs down is for the void he had after selling his 900, thus the ghost.

          ….I recently sold my first ever 
set of wheels – an 
old Saab 900 Turbo, which had occupied 
a massive place in 
my heart (and bank balance) for more than six 
years. And while I don’t regret moving it on, I still miss it.

          But with the arrival of our 
new long-term 9-5, that void has been filled – and I’m once again 
a happy man behind the wheel. ….

          Please don’t get to excited about people giving a thumbs down to the OG900, it is a great car, but not the Saab in everyone’s mind.

          • Gunnar, RedJ and Rune and hit the nail on the head. I’d be disappointed if ANYONE thought it fit to question my loyalty and enthusiasm to the Saab brand.
            The c900 (og900 out of the uk) was the first ever car i bought – i save for years and did without a car whilst many of my friends had one so that i could have a very special ‘first car’. The wait was worth it, when i picked up my 1992 black c900 T16s with Red box APC, A/C, leather (with suede inserts) seats and doorcards and great service history. What followed was an emotional and financial rollercoaster that lasted over six years and saw the car become a 1992 T16s with TD04 turbo, FMIC, Bilsteins, Kilens, JT exhuast, 2.1 inlet, 2.3 head, Abbott ECU, 9000 Aero seats, short shifter, Quaife LSD, type 8 primaires etc etc – the result was 3/4 gearboxes and over 260bhp at the fly. To say it was my pride and joy is an understatement – but there comes a time when you have to move on, and i bought a 2 seat roadster that really should have become the Saab Sonnet 4 when the company was owned by GM. I don’t regret selling the c900, but i do still miss it – lots.
            Thankfully my new 9-5 (which i’ll be driving over the weekend – on my 30th birthday) makes up for that – and hopefully if/once you’ve read the article you’ll realise just how much i rate the car.

  5. The guy has thumbs up for the NG 9-5, how does having thumbs down for his old car even matter or have anything to do with his enthusiasm, he clearly doesn’t have it anymore and if you read this quote:

    Having recently sold his old 900, the 9-5 fills a huge void in his life.

    The thumbs down could just mean thumbs down to the void he had.

    • To me, it is pretty simple: Graeme felt down after the sale of his good old 900 and now feels up again driving the new 9-5. I wouldn’t attach any great significance to the combination of thumbs down and a classic 900. Graeme has shown where his affections lie many times over. He even races a Saab, for heavens sake!

      Don’t we have enough other stuff to write grumpy comments about?

      Ivo

      • Exactly Ivo. Though i have to say I had hoped this would generate more comments – maybe i’ll need to be more controversial in my next Saab piece…
        One of the reasons i spoke to the SU team about linking this article here was to generate some more traffic to the AE site, so that i could prove to the powers that be, that there is a huge audience out there dying to read about Saab. The result would be an easier justification for writing more about the brand and its car, giving them more publicity and hopefully selling more cars to boot. Looking here, with only a handful of comments, i’m not sure that has worked. Hopefully I’m wrong though, and the lack of comments is simply related to the fact there is little to argue/complain about.

        • Graeme, you got the 2.0 TTiD there? FWD?

          Any new thoughts on HiPer strut?

          I think the timing for linking to your article was bad. It is my belief that visits to SU drops off in the weekends and many do not bother checking the weekend stories come Monday.

          • Hi Rune,
            Yes it’s the 2.0 TTiD in FWD. It’s pretty rare that any car (Saab or not) actually makes it’s claimed economy, and the loss from the (excellent) xWD system means the FWD really does make the most sense. And since the car will be back with Saab by winter, there really is little need for me to have the xWD on this model.

            No new thoughts on HiPer strut, i’ve always been an advocate of the system. Frankly it is beyond me why Saab decided to offer the two suspensions setups/systems knowing full well (and admitting as such) that one was inferior. A hang-up of GM. As i say in the article, i really do believe (having driven every iteration of 9-5 saloon) that the pick of the range in the UK (when you have to put fuel in and stomach all the other running costs) is the Aero TTiD FWD manual with DriveSense. I’ve just spent my 30th birthday weekend in it, and couldn’t be happier (apart from getting old of course!)

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