Daylife/Reuters Picture
Saab has become an Opel/Vauxhall/Subaru with a Saab skin |
The board of the Swedish carmaker Saab, which is owned by General Motors, has filed for reorganisation, seeking to create a fully independent business. The announcement follows Thursday’s extraordinary board meeting in which bosses considered the company’s future.
GM took a 50% stake in Saab in 1989 and gained full ownership ten years later.
Within 2 years, Saab ceased being profitable.
Despite turning down GM’s request for support, a senior Swedish government official has said the government has not ruled out providing loan guarantees to Saab following its restructuring…
Stephen Pope, chief global strategist at Cantor Fitzgerald, believes GM “oversaw the destruction of the Swedish car company’s soul. Just look at the current ‘93′ [model] as an example,” he said. “The ‘93′ is just a Saab body skin placed on top of the Vectra from Opel/Vauxhall.”
An illustration of how poorly GM understands the cross-platform concept. Along with everything else they do wrong.
I had a 99 GL 2 door in ’80. Great car.
I had a 1977 99, 1986 900 and then a 1993 900. When the last one got to 200k miles I looked at the newest 900 around 2000 and realized the only thing that had changed inside the car was a poorly designed cup holder. If they reorganize they need to bring pack the Sonnett.
For GM it’s all image marketing (most companies, actually). Don’t give a hoot about what the car really is, just sell some piece of crap that all your divisions are selling but give it a different image.
It seems that a good company should be run by people who care about what they’re doing.
ps.
Saturn and Pontiac went the way of the GM collective as well.
Good for Saab. Best get off the sinking ship while they can. GM is the modern day Titanic.
#4 you are being generous.
only common characteristic between titanic and GM is speed of going under.
#2 I looked at a 2008 Saab, same lame cup holders (I really don’t get that)
Great idea escaping from GM. Now, they have to change the name so that it doesn’t sound like crying.
Oh, and they have to set up dealerships in Apple stores.
The old Saab’s were quirky, reliable, and kind of masculine in that odd Swedish way. The new ones are cobbled together junk that kinda-sorta looks like a Saab.
Saab, Mazda, and Volvo should be free! They were better off by themselves, and each of them has a unique design philosophy that could flourish, especially in the coming new-energy economy.
The Saab of yester-years were pretty good cars. They got good ratings in reliability, quality and safety, particularly the last bit. But as some of you have stated GM is now merely slapping junk together into a Saab skin. I hope this goes through.
GM killed Saab don’t get me started.
My Dad had a 99 in the 70s
I put 240,000 miles on one of the last pre GM Saab 900s. A 1991 so technically GM had 50% buy the time I bought mine. All I ever found that was GM on that car was a cheap Delco radiator fan that quickly failed. I replaced it with the Bosch it was suppose to have and that one lasted for over 200K
I loved that car, if there was still such a thing as a Saab in 2005 when my 900 was getting long in the tooth I’d have bought it.
GM bought a great little car company and turned it into just another Brand. If they wanted to sell Opels in the US again they should just have brought them back. I’m sure they were pulled from the US market because it was hard to sell a Sky Hawk or Monza with some thing like Manta(little Bro had one nice car) on the lot. So they bought the Saab for the brand and gussied up some Opels a Subaru? even a Trailblazer<what the hell) and think we will buy those over BMW/Mercedes/Audi. If we wanted a Subaru or Chevrolet we would buy from Subaru or Chevrolet dealer the car would cost less and the dealer network is a lot better. How did these fools(GM) ever get to be the #1 automaker in the world?
At least it looks like Ford is finally getting their act together. If they can loose that Richard Kiel Jaws look I might buy a domestic car for the first time in my life. Hey Ford bring over the Kuga diesel or make it a hybrid don’t add a lot of chrome to the grill and you will get me in a show room.
Saab died in 1994 when the 900 changed to an Opel Vectra maybe the folks in Sweden can resurrect it. I hope so
It’s all too sad. GM produced the Avalanche, which is the greatest vehicle ever produced by anyone, yet they screw everything else up.
Chrysler used to make money. Then the Germans bought it and since then Chrysler has bled money. What should we make of that? German auto companies suck?
To understand why SAAB is going broke, just visit their website and see what GM did to the car line. They now sell bland, boring cars that are about as exciting as a pontiac bonneville. The old Saab’s were wierd looking, but very cool.
Even Chrysler still makes some cool looking cars. I’d drive this to the store.