All Entries Tagged With: "saabsunited"
NYIAS 2011: To Survive, Saab Must Change The Narrative
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Kevin Kusina for ADLX ::: NYIAS Saab
PRESS coverage of the Svenska carmaker is abysmal. Read any of the three articles in the Times that covers Saab events at NYIAS and you’ll wade through an uncomfortable amount of coverage that focuses on an “imperiled brand” inside a liquidity crisis that’s halted production. On a stage designed to showcase success, Saab’s tenuous fate is again the 800 pound gorilla in the room.
(Tardy) Congratulations To Saab’s Steven Wade
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: Steven Wade of Saab AB
NO longer hot news, but still deserving of comment, I want to openly congratulate a good friend of ours, Mr. Steven Wade.
Swade + Swedish Car Day
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: Steven Wade about to enjoy a Saab Sonett II
ONE of the great pleasures of writing automotive drivel content for the net is connecting with other automotive aficionados from far and wide. They don’t come further than fellow scribe and Tazmanian denizen Steven Wade a.k.a. “Swade” from SaabsUnited.com.
Steven and his Tennessean cohort Mike a.k.a. “Eggs ‘n Grits” have been good friends and their writings for the Saab community are now the stuff of web legend. And it was fun chewing the fat with them over sausages and hamburgers Saturday night.
Swade and Eggs were both present in the Boston metro area for Swedish Car Day, an annual gathering of the Volvo and Saab Party Faithful at the Larz Andersson Auto Museum hosted by the nation’s oldest Saab dealer – Charles River Saab.
At Sunday’s Svenska service, Swade gave an address to the congregation on the state of Saab – which in the marque’s current state of independence from GM is in a critical moment of do or die.
One Writer’s Take On Building The Perfect Car That Makes A Lot of Sense
by Gunnar Heinrich
“SWADE” over @ SaabsUnited.com posted a recent article titled, “Things I’d like to hear from a car manufacturer (Saab) just once.”
Needless to say, Mr. Wade’s post has less to do with marketing jargon and more to do with building his rendition of the perfect Saab (or car) in light of the news that it’s looking more and more likely that Saab is going to bring back the hot hatch.
A snippet:
Your eyes can sense rain on the windscreen and your fingers can quickly extend from the beautiful sports steering wheel to flick the solid, new and very high-quality stalk used to operate the wipers. Because you shouldn’t drink and drive actively, there are no cupholders. Because you most likely have a smartphone with navigation, there’s no big fat screen to distract you and because you probably digitise your music, there’s just a radio with a USB port. It’s right next to the quite simple climate control interface that gives one temperature for the whole cabin. Do you really need it to be 2 degrees warmer just 12 inches to the left in a small car?
Our good fellow Saab aficionado also went on to mention his perfect 9-2 would be lightweight, feature a small 230 hp four banger, and offer the option to nix all electronic safety nannies at the flick of a switch.
Sounds like a Lotus, an original 911, or a de-contented MINI to me.
Or an old school 900 (*sigh*). His post brings to the fore what’s needed more and more in the automotive world – cars that deliver not so much insulated cabins with mega horsepower, but sensational driving experiences by keeping drivers in-tune with the mechanics of the machine.
A lovely premise.
Spyker Announcement Re: Saab. Live Video Link
By Gunnar Heinrich
GOT this one courtesy SaabsUnited.com
Spyker’s set to hold a press conference which should take place in the Netherlands directly.
Here’s the link: www.rtl.nl
Saabists remember: if the sale with GM falls through, Genii Capital is reported to be waiting in the wings with a new offer.
It looks as though our dear Saab will find a new home!
Griffin Up! Saabists Rally For Their Marque
By Gunnar Heinrich
POSTED on SaabsUnited, there’s this jpeg which digitally displays a War-era British propaganda poster. Beneath the silhouette of the crown reads the succinct message:
Keep Calm And Carry On.
In case you haven’t noticed, what followed the multudinous epitaphs for the Swedish marque since GM announced closure last November was not a funeral but the sputterings of a car manufacturer that refused to die.
Saabists are having their Churchillian hour.
Like blitzed WWII Londoners staring the spectre of death bravely in the face, all the Saab party faithful can do is their symbolic part in making sure that the sun rises another day over an active Saab factory in Trollhattan, Sweden.
Anything at this point could tip the balance between Saab being snapped up for a heady $400-$500 million by some newly liquid buyer to Saab being shuttered along with GM’s other defunct divisions.
Pontiac, Saturn, Oldsmobile…
So that means public rallies to show support for Saab!
On Sunday, January 17th, rallies will be held around the world in demonstration of support from the Saab community for the embattled car maker.
In the US, there will be a rally in Brookline, Massachusetts at the Larz Anderson Museum from 10AM-5PM. The Facebook event page can be found here.
Event details for rallies in Norway, Denmark, Russia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Australia, and China can be found here.
Surprised there’s not a Motown rally…yet.
The automotive world’s a better, more dynamic place with Saab selling cars in it. Let’s hope, fervently, that this 60 year old marque will not slip from us, lest our passions yield to the coming homogenization of all cars.
Griffin up!
Trollhattan Stirs! Saab Lives To See Another Week
A happening at the Saab factory…
- Did GM’s CEO shuffle help buy time for Saab?
- Saab sales frozen with lack of confidence
- SaabsUnited proves to be best source for the blow by blow
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG via SaabsUnited.com
SAAB still lives!
Bless their Svenska souls, it seems like GM’s become too distracted with the immediate departure of former CEO Fritz Henderson and his reportedly outspoken daughter (if true, good on her for defending dad) to drop the axe on Saab.
Considering how the General so cavalierly doused that phoenix which was Pontiac last year, it may surprise you that with the collapse of the Koenigsegg deal, Saab’s lived to see another week.
But make no mistake, tidings are still grim.
Sales have drawn down to drip-drops from last year’s trickle. Monthly sales figures in markets like Canada and Germany are down to low double digit accounting errors. It’s a fearsome freeze in confidence that Saab’s facing.
Lucky for Saab, it has a plucky and loyal community of faithful Saabists led by the ever firey Steven Wade.
Mr. Wade is SaabsUnited‘s flame spouting griffin; a blogger who has in the past been coddled by GM largesse (in one instance, GM flew Mr. Wade from Tasmania to Detroit a couple to cover the Detroit Auto Show) only to be exiled when he continued to hold the Detroit giant to account.
Throughout this tumultous period for Saab, Mr. Wade or “Swade” as he’s known has provided a thorough, daily account of every little event – right down to writing a small post about some appreciative Saab staff handing a grimacing smiling CEO Jan Ake Jonsson a bouquet of roses in a show of support as he headed off to lobby the suits in Motown.
In such a dark hour, the Saab community (of which yours counts himself a member) can count Mr. Wade as a boon to a busted car maker.
All United For Saabs United
A 900 turns into a 9-3
By Gunnar Heinrich | IMG Saabs United
MY good friends “Swade” and “Eggs ‘n Grits” (those are web 2.0 noms de plumes, if you haven’t gathered) have established a new website that obsessively covers the world of Saab.
Formerly “TrollhattanSaab”, the new site is “Saabs United” which sounds like a firm defense against the oncoming unknown.
Frankly, the GM Swedish division is in rough shape. But there are silver linings including a new 9-5 replacement and maybe just maybe a 9-X (Lord, hear our prayer!) so that means that there should be product for Swade and Eggs to opine on.
Trollhattan Saab and now Saabs United are testaments to the best kind of marque-centric blogs.
They do not faun or merely act as automatic regurgetators for the corporate press machines they receive relentless PR statements from. Rather, Saabs United offers insightful, often positive accounts of the good, and critical thought on the bad, and the ugly of their Svenska corner of the car biz.
That they hold GM to account for Saab’s current state is another reason for reading.
In this vein, Saabs United has every bit the chance to surpass the original Trollhattan Saab success story for standing out among the generalist automotive blogs on the web.
Cheers to them for being the role model for other car sites.
[Linked: Saabs United]
