All Entries Tagged With: "Viggen"
Key To Saab’s Future, The 9-X Biohybrid Returns To Home Away From Home
By Gunnar Heinrich
SAAB public relations man extraordinaire Jan Willem-Vester sent yours (and countless others, no doubt) a press release announcing that Saab is holding a really big party for owners and fans in its home away from home – Massachusetts – us New English really love our Saabs.
If you haven’t read ADL’s Turbo X Drive in Beantown this past Spring, do so here >
Saab’s Stage: Bostonian Spring
The Turbo X Spectacular! The Talk In Herb’s Garden
The Turbo X Spectacular! Part II: Lost (Briefly) In Beantown
The Turbo X Spectacular! Part III: Thrashing Saab’s Best
So from Sonnet to Viggen, every bit of Saab’s past will be on view in the town of Devens from tomorrow August 21st through Sunday, August 24th.
Flying over from Sweden to make this party is the very special – nay, crucial – 9-X Biohybrid concept: a svelte Swede that brings the Scandinavian anti-bling of Bang & Olufsen and must sell like Ikea.
The challenge is whether Saab can keep it real enough for the fans and cheap enough for the accountants. There’s been talk that the someday-production-car is already being downsized (but hopefully not downgraded) from the original show car that debuted last March (see the concept in our video here).
Fuel efficiency is the likely rationale, though flexibility of platform to match future Opels and Chevys is also probable. Which would be fine so long as the production version of the 9-X (aka 9-1X) looks, feels, and smells nothing like them whatsoever.
[Linked: Motor Trend]
The Turbo X Spectacular! Part III: Thrashing Saab’s Best
By Gunnar Heinrich with Photos by Kevin Kusina
I’VE been having a difficult time wrapping my head around the word “SportCombi” lately. Apparently, there’s just no room for the “station wagon” anymore in the world’s vehicular lexicon. Wind back the clock as many as fifteen years and you’d even find Volvo busy selling 850 “Sport wagons”.
Station wagon has too much the utilitarian ring to it, though, in marketability terms it still trumps earlier names like “depot hacks” and “woodies.”
When I arrived at Saab’s makeshift proving grounds in North Andover, there were two Turbo X models lined up alongside a winding track of little orange cones. One was a sedan fitted with an automatic (same as what I drove to the event), the other was the Turbo X SportCombi (wagon) also fitted with an auto shifter.
Wanting nothing to do with something that only the Brits really want and eco-minded former 9-7X drivers feel they need, I opted for a turn at the sedan’s helm each time, every time on the track. Little did I know that my best Turbo X experience would come later with a manually fitted wagon.
