SU has written articles on the two teams racing Saab 9-3 STCC cars in the STCC Racing Series here in Sweden. Yesterday Daniel Haglöf who is not only the driver parallell to Emma Kimilänen in the PWR team but now also the team manager after that Peter “Poker” Wallenberg has stepped back. Peter is still with the team that bears his name. Daniel managed to make a dual Saab win with Göransson from the Tidö Team in second place.
This is the most important SAAB Racing victory in a very long time! Great work in the PWR Team. Congratulations! – Jörgen Trued
Thus putting the Cyan Volvo of Thed Björk in third position. But it was really close racing for that third place and if the race would have been one more lap I am convinced that the other PWR driver Finnish driver Emma Kimiläinen would have made it a trip Saab win. Let hope for that in the near future. Lets hope Daniel puts SaabsUnited on the VIP list at PWR for next season so we can do even more and in depth stories about the team and its success.
Thanks for the post. Very exciting. Brings back memories of SAAB rally wins in my youth. Congratulations to all involved. Too bad SAAB’s owners couldn’t have had a fraction of this success on the business front.
3cyl great te see You liked the movie. Always easy to be retrospective and say they should have done that and that. I firmly stand by my opionion that SAAB management made som BIG mistakes not getting into various racing and rally activities. It all died when the Competition dept. was shut don in 1979-80. Saab should have developed the 4X4 in the 1980ies and SAAB could have had been just as great today as Audi. It is always sad when management has no feeling for the heritage and history of a brand and is not working on the corporate storytelling giving the customer the meta level knowledge of the brand and what it stands for.
Trued, I never understood why SAAB stood by and let its marketplace reputation as a safe car and a premier snow car be surpassed by so many other brands.
That is almost inexcusable. SAAB had a 4×4 system way back when competitors started to launch it. SAAB should have kept the competition department and have built a smaller more sporty car to create better volumes in the production. The 9000 was in all its years of production a safer car then the VOLVOS according to Swedish insurance company FOLKSAM.
I do not doubt that the FWD SAABs are extremely safe cars, but there is a perception among many buyers that AWD offers enhanced safety. Your point that the lack of 4×4 sealed the fate of SAAB as a competitive rally car, thus further cutting ties with the heritage that established the brand, truly hammers home the damage that was done by not pursing AWD much much earlier.