Please find attached photos of my 1999 Viggen. I am the original owner and bought the car from the Saab Dealership 7th October 1999.The Viggen has just turned 150k miles. It has extensive upgrades, except for a LSD. My opinion of the vehicle is probably one of the best that Saab ever produced. If it had included the present upgrades from the factory, then Saab would have had a real winner on it’s hands.
Gerald P. Goulish (USA)
Thank you for sharing Gerald, more photos can be found here
This weeks Saab of The Week pick is from Jordan, who has a ’99 Viggen that has generated a lot of likes on the Facebook page as well as comments. The wheels would be something you either love or don’t but they definitely stand out and draw attention to a very sought after Saab. In the comments posted about this car, people were saying how they missed their Viggen and how if you ever had one, you would miss it too. Hard not to love the Viggen when it came with 225hp and talk about a rare car, I have seen numbers varying from 400 to 426 built for 1999. Thanks for sharing Jordan.
From Saab History I found some other interesting details on the first two years of the Viggen for those that did not know:
The first model year MY1999 for the Saab Viggen and its body continued to be manufactured at Saab’s factory in Trollhattan, Sweden, then shipped in a climate controlled, sealed container to Uusikaupunki, Finland for painting and final assembly at the Valmet Automotive plant.
The painting of the first two years of the Saab 9-3 Viggen, were appropriately colored in “lightening blue”, paying homage to the significance of the “thunderbolt” name.
Here is the video from SU about the making of the car and being born from jets.
http://youtu.be/TMHFPJfLu0Y
TuuSaR just dropped this one in comments and I’ve rarely ever felt so compelled to share a video on this site.
In the next three minutes you’ll see lots of 90/00’s goodness, some great fast driving on snow and ice…….. in a Saab 9-3 Viggen……… and if you’re really quick, you’ll also see a 3.5 inch floppy disk (to our 13 year old ad competition entrants – ask your parents).
Awesome. The Viggen is awesome. And the tyres are pretty good, too.
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A few weeks ago, the New South Wales branch of the Saab Car Club of Australia held an event. I showed some photos of it last week.
One of the cars that wasn’t included in that group of photos was this beautiful red 900 Aero.
The car belongs to a guy named Wayne G and it’s currently up for sale. Wayne got in touch with the club about selling the car a few weeks before the club event and was subsequently invited to go along, which he did.
Last Friday I was in Sydney and as is normally the case, I caught up with a few of the Sydney Saab fraternity for dinner. Wayne was also invited along to that event and again, he brought along the red 900 for us all to ogle at. It really is quite a special car (and yes, Pete, you should buy it).
Over dinner, one of our SU regulars (and member of the unofficial SU Board) named PT got talking to Wayne, who as it turns out, has owned quite a few Saabs over the years and has a number under ownership right now. In fact, he’s only selling the 900 Aero because he’s just bought another Saab and needs to create some space for it.
The Saab he’s just bought is a 9-3 Viggen and as PT asked him about, it started ringing a few bells – enough for PT to get me involved in the conversation.
I didn’t know Car and Driver were going to do this, so it’s a slight case of fortunate timing.
If you happened to read my reflective piece from last night about the joy of driving and that caused you to do a little reminiscing of your own, then you might want to put pen to paper (i.e. fingers to keys) and enter a competition over at C&D.
All you have to do is write about your first car:
What we want to know from you is a little about your first car: What it was, whether or not you loved it and why. If you’ve lost track of it over the years, would you like to find it again? Feel free to share any memories–good or bad–specific to your first ride.
The prizes will be given at random so everyone’s got a good chance of winning. In case it’s not going to be as random as they say, it’d probably help if your story’s a good one.
The prize pack includes a copy of the film, Love The Beast. This is an essential movie for any gearhead. It tells the story of Eric Bana’s love affair with the Ford Falcon he bought when he was a teenager and crashed twenty-something years later, not too far from where I’m sitting right now, during a leg of the Targa Tasmania tarmac rally. It explores the reasons why blokes get so obsessive about things they love and the bonds that are created through that shared interest. It’s also got some killer driving footage from Tasmania, too.
Click here to enter the competition. And even if you don’t, see if you can get hold of that movie. It really is worthwhile.
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If you’ve got time, here’s some great automotive writing from one of my long-time favourites, PJ O’Rourke. He tackles the Jeep Wrangler.
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Those of you who are affected by the whole Conan/Leno late night TV thing, please leave your prejudices at the door. Your comments on this post about that issue, should you make them, will be deleted because I don’t care.
What I do care about, however, is the Koenigsegg Trevita that Leno had in his garage. The following video will take you on a look around that car, with the tour guide being none other than Christian von Koenigsegg himself.
The car is absolutely amazing and CvK is heck of a dude.
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Viggen owners out there might want to take note of these……
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If I mentioned a group of red cars on a track, driving in various formations, around the cones and on two wheels, etc, you’d probably think immediately of the Saab Performance Team.
I know Saab have been doing those moves for over 20 years.
I’m not sure how long Cadillac have been doing it for.
hat tip to Andy Rupert.
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I don’t have any sort of Satnav device as I live in a small city and don’t really need it.
But the idea of Darth Vader telling me my route to work has me thinking a TomTom might be a good idea.
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There’s one review that’s doing the rounds of some of the bigger magazines. We first saw it thanks to Edmunds Inside Line just over a week ago. It appeared in Winding Road earlier this week and now, it’s in Auto Express.
The review was written by a guy named Matt Davis and it seems he’s sold the story to various publications with the right given to them to edit it and change it around so it appears a little different each time.
The interesting thing about this latest iteration is the following, which I don’t recall from previous publications:
Already, there’s virtually no turbo lag when you plant your right foot – something that’s set to improve further when a twin-turbo version prepared by Saab tuning arm Viggen goes on sale. “The Viggen name should play a significant role in Saab’s future,” Muller said.
Now, I do recall the Viggen being mentioned in regard to the 9-5 in the Inside Line article, but I don’t recall the Viggen name being regarded as the future tuning arm of Saab.
Not that I’d be disappointed to see more of the Viggen. I think the Viggen badge has heaps of currency amongst the Saab faithful and I’m overjoyed at the prospect of some mad machinery with the bumble-bee triangle on it.
But will there only be a Saab 9-5 Viggen, or a whole Viggen line through the Saab range?
Quote:
There will also be a high-performance Viggen version of each new model.
Interesting…..
I don’t know how many of you Saab owners have been autocrossing before. It seems to be the realm of the RWD owner, mostly. A quick scan of Dan’s Racing Ready archives will show plenty of BMWs and Miatas, amongst other things.
So when SU reader, Jose, turned up to a local autocross meeting in his Saab 9-3 Viggen Convertible, he was met with a few sniggers and a sign-in judge who actually said to him “You’re racing a Saab?! I don’t want to hear another Saaaaaab story when the times sheets come in. Its not a BMW!” as he completed his registration.
Jose didn’t mind. In true Saab Spyker style he just got in there, got his hands dirty and did the job he came to do – competing in the autocross. The Viggen looked pretty darn good, too, don’t you agree?
I’ll let Jose take the story from here…..
Afterwards the same organizers were giving out the trophies and announcing the winners. “In first place, Jose in a Saab?!?!” When I went up to receive my trophy, the douchebag again said, “You may have won first, but its still no BMW!” I calmly responded, “Thank god for that!”
The winning margin was just 1/10th of a second, but that’s enough.
My heartfelt congratulations to Jose for showing what a well-sorted Viggen can do and for putting some of the nay-sayers in their place.
And for looking so darn good in that Viggen whilst doing it, too 🙂
Quijote has just posted this one in comments and as it’s a prospective purchase (of a Viggen, no less) I figured time was of the essence…..
I just came across a beautiful Viggen convertible that I think I may snatch up.
In fact I was about to pull the trigger when I receive this video, as requested, of the soft top motion. There is a pretty loud pop when the lid opens up, whether the top is folding in or out of the compartment. Can you please check out the video, I’d like your opinions on what that may be.
Cause for concern?
Hydraulic leak?
Soft top failure on the way?
Or just an annoying noise, but nothing to worry about like the dreaded SIDs?
I previously owned a 9-3 SE and Viggen convertible and it never made this noise, although the 9-3 SE did suffer from quite a few soft top failures, the Viggen was solid.
Your thoughts? Can you post them here please?
And here’s the video:
Any of you convertible owners with similar issues, please feel free to advise.
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