The Trollhaettan blues

I am a Saab owner. I loved my Saab, once. But as "real" Saab people will tell you, the 1996 900 was but a pale, Americanized version of the true, iconic 900. And as I now consider my very real possibility of a Saabless future, I will agree. The New Generation 900 was a model that cut corners, and put a European car price point on Chevy quality control. Considering I've known people who have taken old generation 900s well past the 200,000 mile mark, the sad state of my 900s at barely 100k is testament to a brand that was influenced by the unfortunate, calculated-obsolescence philosophy of American automaking. It is truly sad how GM changed one of the most venerable brands in the world from a name associated with jets and idiosyncratic design to one of flabby Saabarus and ill-advised crossover attempts.

The beauty of Saab was that it never tried to appeal to the Average American. Saab owners were never average. They were people who could never settle for a throwaway American car or an German "I'm Better Than You"-mobile. The eccentrics, the geeks, the niche. A search inside the books of Amazon.com brings up any number of descriptive paragraphs in which writers, artists, sexy indie rock girls in glasses (ahem) or musicians speed off in their 900s. Saabs were never meant to be commuters, daily drivers, an SUV for your 3.5 children and your Golden Lab, and no matter how much GM tried to make it that way, they were going to fail.

And fail it did. And now as the fate of Saab hangs in the balance, I have to say, this is a good thing. Now we have the opportunity, as we do with all automakers at this point, to start for square one and really evaluate the car-buying public. For the first time in ages, carmakers have to think of what their customers want and need, rather than what focus groups and price points have to say. Perhaps Saab, as an independent automaker, will have to return to its off-the-beaten-bath roots, the base that made it great.