SAAB is sold!
Good bye GM!
The news has been leaking and is semi official, but SAAB has been sold to NEVS, an electric car consortium.
Let’s hope for the best in SAAB’s possibly green future.
The Saab brand has officially been sold to National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS). The electric vehicle consortium sparked rumours of the sale by publishing the following statement on its website earlier this week: “SAAB Automobile, Trollhattan and Sweden stands for innovation and technology excellence. At SAAB Automobile, the engagement for future transportation solutions is pervasive.”
Read more here: http://www.pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=25816, and here: http://www.thelocal.se/41290/20120607/.
Scott-Eklund Racing Saab 9-3 Shows Pace At Charlotte
Charlotte Motor Speedway, North Carolina – Saturday, May 26, 2012; Scott-Eklund Racing proved its pace against the established manufacturer-run Global Rallycross Championship teams during the season-opening official practice and seeding session on Friday, May 25, ahead of the first series round at Charlotte Motor Speedway, North Carolina.
Taking the wheel of the Scott-Eklund Racing Saab 9-3 with ENEOS Motor Oil for the first time, X Games bronze medallist Samuel Hübinette quickly mastered both car and course to seed eighth, just three tenths of a second adrift of multiple X Games gold medallist and four-time Rally America Champion, Travis Pastrana.
Andy Scott also impressed during his three official practice runs, cementing his form from Tuesday’s inaugural shakedown test on the .77 mile custom-built GRC course in which the Scott Trawlers-backed entry ran as one of the fastest of the field. The team founder, however, was denied the chance to truly battle for a top seed place when an issue with the Saab 9-3’s turbo charger prevented him from posting any flying laps during the 10-minute qualifying run.
Read more here.
This article does a great job of summing up what has happened to SAAB
GM’s ‘neglected stepchild’ never fully given a chance to thrive
by Daniel Howes, The Detroit News
It’s been too late for Saab Automobile AB for way too long.
As word spread Monday of the failed two-year effort by Dutch businessman Victor Muller to rescue the quirky Swedish automaker from bankruptcy, rattling thousands of employees less than a week before Christmas, my first thoughts fixed on the men and women now long gone from General Motors Co.
They’re the people, led by former GM Chairman Jack Smith, who took a pass on Jaguar Cars Ltd., looked beyond Volvo Cars and opted in 1990 to take a 50 percent stake in the smaller Swedish automaker “born from jets,” literally. They’re the folks who controlled Saab for a generation, bought the remaining stake in 2000 and posted a profit in only a single year, if the unable-to-confirm mutterings of executives long past are to be believed.
They’re the wise ones who touted Saab’s aging, barely updated product line even as they chose to beggar its interiors, to over-rule efforts by Saab product people to push next-generation technology in their cars, to partially move production of the 9-3 sedan to Germany from Sweden, a blow to its Scandinavian heritage.
To read the excellent, full article, please follow this link.
