“It was because of Saab” – It was because of love that we drive a Saab

A weekly feature we would like to call
“It was because of Saab”.

A story about how you met your partner, was it because of Saab? or met a life long friend, or anything that you can think off that may come within the title.

If you have a story you would like to tell, please email it to the crew for publication. Send a few pictures along if you have them and we will  publish it so the whole of SaabsUnited can have a read.

Here is this weeks story told in Martins own words.

Here’s a story that does not go “It was because of Saab”, but the other way round:

It was because of love (that we drive a Saab)…

It was because of love that I got divorced…
Everyone who is divorced knows that this means a lot of changes in your life. Friends change, habits change, net income changes, even the place where you live might change… And for me one of the things that definitely had to change was my car!

It was a VW Golf, a cheap and reliable but very boring daily driver. As I had owned several convertibles before I bought the Golf
for family reasons, it was quite clear that I wanted to go back in history and own a softtop once again.

At that time, the family of my new partner in life (you’ll hear more about her) used to own a nice old villa near Lake Garda, Italy.

This house was painted in a very warm yellow color (you’ll hear more about it) that looked great in the sunlight.

During a vacation in that house, my brother handed me the car keys for his beautiful Mercedes convertible.

My fiancee enjoyed the top-down cruise in this phantastic region as much as I did, so my wish to own a softtop fell on fertile ground…

Back home, again in company of my brother, I stepped into a show room of a local Mercedes dealer.

And there she was: a black beauty called SAAB 900-II convertible! I wanted her immediately! But the salesman told me that another guy had announced his visit to see this car, so I would have to wait… Obviously, the other guy also fell in love: he bought the
car! But by that time, I was already in flames for Saab.

My daily internet search for other Saabs was then interrupted by a skiing vacation. Directly after our return, the Golf had to go, which was a very quick deal:

I put it into a car selling platform at 9 a.m. and it was gone at 5 p.m. on the same day. Some people don’t mind owning boring cars 😉

Unfortunately, the several Saab convertibles that I had checked before our vacation were gone, too. So I went on searching – in a VW Golf! (the car of my future mother-in-law)

Soon I found a car that caught me even more than the black 900-II: a yellow 9.3-I.

Only 4 years old, heated leather seats, auto-softtop, CD changer, aircondition. A dream on wheels.

And in the sunlight, the color reminded us of an Italian villa… When negotiating the price with the Saab salesman, he
offered a good discount on the listed price. But my fiancee wasn’t satisfied with that, so she achieved an additional price drop!

Was she already in love with the Saab at that point? The Saab was ours and we enjoyed it for more than 5 years.

And this car was jealous, I am sure! The day before our marriage, I wanted to wash the car. So I went into my garage but the car battery failed completely! After getting a new one from a DIY market nearby (mother-in-law’s Golf again), I hoped the best for my wedding day.

But on the next day, our Saab started another attempt to stop us marrying: After picking up my fiancee at the hairdresser’s, we drove
to mother-in-law’s place to dress up for the wedding photograher. All of a sudden, there was a tack-tack-tack sound travelling with us.

Stopping at mother-in-law’s house, I found an Allen key (those you get at IKEA) sticking in the back tyre of our Saab! We happily got married anyway… and the Saab never let us down again!

Some time later, I began to think about a newer car as the “Yellow” (as we always called her) was aging a bit.

By this time the new 9.3 came up with an exciting color option: lynx yellow!

But sometimes men go astray – or at least they think about it. So did I. No longer in need of a fourseater as my daughther was adult, I began thinking of a Mercedes SLK! I even test-drove one. And I must admit it is a nice car. But how close is “nice” to “boring”, if
you see a car at each and every street corner? And if all of the used SLKs offered are either black or silver?

Now guess who convinced me to stay with Saab? Right, my wonderful wife did.

She couldn’t believe that I was even thinking about switching from Saab (an individualist’s car) to Mercedes (an everyone’s car – at least in Southern Germany).

A couple of weeks later, I surprised her with a bottle of champagne. She asked for the reason – and I showed her the order form
for our brand new lynx yellow Saab convertible!

Today, our Saab has our wedding date on the license plate and so it is obvious that it is because of love that we own
a Saab… 🙂

Martin.Dillenburger

We are looking for more stories, so please email the crew with yours. Robin.