Last week Tim closed his article on the TTA Saab with this sentence:
Flash Engineering and Team Tidö will test the car for the first time on a secret location sometime next week.
Sometime next week is sometime this week, and thanks to Saablog-in we have found out that the car is being tested in the circuit Alès near Nimes in southern France.
Alès is only 160 km from Venelles, where Solution F is based, so maybe this is the reason why they have tested the car there.
And yes, I would have preferred to see a 9-3 Griffin silhouette like the CGI pictures from the presentation.
Source: Caradisiac.com
Pretty nice – obviously the design is for advantages in a racing environment and for everyday use. IMO that’s a good thing.
Taken out of a racing environment and put on the street, the design turns it into something akin to the heavily modified, poorly crafted and ridiculously awful Toyota Supra’s or Honda Civic’s that usually have their exhaust pipes about to break off from all the vibrating and poor craftsmanship of the modification… 🙂
(Those front wheel wells / quarter panels resemble the Mazda 3 as well.)
All that aside however, it still brings exposure to the brand and reminds the general public that SAAB is still here. That is a good thing. Nothing quite as effective as free advertising.
P.S. About those Supra’s / Civic’s, I forgot about the neon lights that bounce to the music, tinted windows that are basically just blacked out, a 28″ subwoofer in the trunk that is rattling the body off the frame…you all know what Im talking about. Those kids who we have ‘remind’ that their car is more funny than it is impressive.
The last sentance should have read: “You know, those kids who we – when in our SAABs and usually on the highway – need to ‘remind’ that their car is more funny than it is impressive.
its an interesting car, not what I hoped it would look like – but interesting nonetheless.
SAAB is fortunate to have these cars out there. After all, it isn’t likely that any new Monte Carlos or GTs will be rolling off the assemly lines any time soon.
Circuit Pole mecanique Alès is often used for testing. It has the advantage of weather – it has 300 days of sunshine each year and very rarely freezes. It is about 20km from my house.
Google satellite view : http://g.co/maps/4sdzs
Youtube lap : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3Y7pFzuf8U
way to go! And now get the investors to sign the contracts and get the workers back to work.
it’s only a dream away…….
JC’s new 9-3 kicks a$$. 😉
COOL 🙂