Comments on: How did you end up buying your first Saab?

By: Marc Swart

Marc Swart — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 14:16:00 +0000

Well, actually, my girlfriend bought my first Saab in 1999: a cherry red 900i two doors from 1984. I payed my half by servicing it and paying for the parts. She needed another car for her work and decided it had to be a Saab because her neighbour had have several over time and she loved the cars. He had a 96, a 99, a 9000 et cetera. He passed away since but his wife still drives a 9-3 (how about that for loyalty)
On a sunday, bicycling near the west coast of Holland we came along this red Saab 900i for sale in what once was a Saab dealership. It had to give up the dealership because of its remote location but still had most of the Saab customers who once bought a new Saab there. This Saab was traded in. I wasn’t a Saab fan. I never owned a car before. I had been a motorbike rider for 22 years untill then. I wasn’t interested in cars. No performance, no cornering, no topspeed, no adrenalin, no big moments, no thrills, wobbly. Actually they scared the shite out of me. Too big, too heavy, no room for error as in nowhere to go if the situation got hairy. And I didn’t like the fact that the limits of adhesion were so easily reached and beyond. Not to mention understeer. So when my girlfriend said she needed a car I was a bit indifferent.

Ok, so we saw the Saab. A few weeks later I asked her if she wanted to take a test drive. She reacted a bit annoyed. “Why should we”, “I don’t want to”, “it’s to expensive” and “It’s too red” where a few things she said. “Too red?. What do you mean ‘too red’” I said. “I don’t like that bright colour”. ‘It’s cherry” I replied. I tried to convince her to take a look but she was as stubern as a woman can be.

In the mean time I had read a few things about Saab and was beginning to like it. The fanatasy of owning a 900 Turbo one day was becoming very appealing, but for that moment a 900i was nice to begin with.

On a saterday we went for groceries and on the way back I decided to take the long way home. But my girlfriend knows me too well. She immidiately knew that I wanted to take her to see the car and said she wanted to go home straigt away. But I had the steeringwheel!
When she saw the Saab she started to laugh a bit histerically. In her mind the Saab had become Ferrari red but now she saw it she actually loved the colour.

She bought the car and I kept it rolling for the next 5 years. It never missed a beat. We added 150000 kilometers to the 168000 it already had, before I decided to take it apart. I kept a lot of (chassis) parts which was a good decision because we bumped into this beautiful Saab 900 Turbo SE. Fun thing was it had come on the road just one day after the 900i on may 30 1984. And the colour? Cherry red (-;

By: Larry Marzocco

Larry Marzocco — Mon, 14 Nov 2011 01:03:00 +0000

got any pics from the wreck? thats some story!!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 19:23:00 +0000

I own a purple 99 1972 E 1.85 , just like the one in the Ad . Just part of the fleet of 6 SAAB’s I have. 45,000 miles on it , found in a garage in columbus . After going to the glove box I found invoices from where I had done service on it in 1977 . It just gives you a smile . guess it’s a keeper =)

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:28:00 +0000

I dont HATE GM , they just dont have anything I want , save a little co-operation . after all SAAB was a part of their develoment team , and they do sell parts for GM . Also the 9/4 is money in their pocket . Last I saw they still owe the taxpayers in the US some bailout money we had no choise in . Without that they whould be bankrupt and closed , The union brothers in sweden need jobs too . IMO

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:01:00 +0000

I was working at a local dealer and they gave a SAAB to me for some service work , once I was done with the service I drove it and it was a WOW ! I like the way this drives ! That was in 1976 . The car was an orange 99 EMS , haven’t owned anything but SAAB’s from that day on

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:57:00 +0000

the hatchback is 2002 – last year it was made; the convertible is a 1996

Subject: [insidesaab] Re: How did you end up buying your first Saab?

By: Kurt W. Krauss

Kurt W. Krauss — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 14:35:00 +0000

In March 1980, my grandmother, who was an ultra generous woman, moved from Florida and came to live with us in New Jersey after my grandfather passed away. Because my parents would not accept her money for living with us, she wanted to buy me a car, but it had to be with my parents’ approval. She said she would give me $3000, which seems like a decent amount of money even now for a first car. I was 18 and a car nut. My parents had always owned European cars (VWs, Volvos and an Audi up to that point), so I was interested in buying a European car. I particularly liked the BMW 2002; my search began there. My dad went with me to look at several of them in the $3000 price range, but by 1980, they had all begun rusting in the rockers, top of the shock towers and along the rear edge of the front fenders. My dad rejected two BMWs that I thought suited me fine and I sulked with disappointment. About a month of searching did not turn up anything decent or at least anything that my dad thought would pass muster. One day, I was waiting for him to pick me up after school at a doctor’s office where the school bus dropped us off. In the parking lot sat an Aquamarine Blue 900 Turbo 5 door, exactly like the one I coincidently own now. I remember seeing Saabs driving around before – but they looked like they were owned by messy people; they were always stuffed with junk and were usually filthy dirty with mud and the 96s and 95s all had doors with their bottoms rusted out. This 900 5 door was different from what I had seen previously and I was immediately taken with its good looks. When my dad arrived, I suggested that we go to a Saab dealer to look at what they had. He thought that was a great idea and felt it would be a good first car for me, with safety and traction of FWD. Years earlier he had considered a Saab 99, but did not feel the dealers were showing growth and shied away from buying one. We went to the two local dealers which back then were only a few miles from one another. The first dealer we went to was Schwarz Motors, Dodge-Saab dealer and the first Saab dealer in New Jersey. Schwarz did not have much to speak of in inventory and maybe had 2 new Saabs in stock and one used Saab – a 1972 4 door 99 Automatic which we drove. It was not very exciting. Schwarz also had lots of 99, stroker and V4 parts cars out back. The same afternoon, we went to the other local dealer, Reinertsen Motors. Reinertsen had several new 900s and a 99. Most important, it had a much better selection of used cars. After another month of waiting for the right car, in June 1980, I traded my 1979 Motobecane moped on a Topaz Yellow 1976 99GL 4 door with 90k miles on it. It was right in my price range and Reinertsen allowed my $600 for my moped, which we thought was a great deal because that was what I paid for it a year earlier. That yellow 99 leaked virtually every fluid from underneath and made very interesting, almost Rorschach-like, patterns in our driveway, much to my dad’s dismay. I learned to drive in my first ice/snowstorm when getting our 1980 Christmas tree in it. It never, ever got stuck during that very severe winter and the heated driver’s seat had me hooked for life. It was the first of many, many Saabs to come in my family.

By: r0mac

r0mac — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 22:22:00 +0000

My first introduction to Saab was as an impressionable 8 year old in the early 60′s. Mr Fabianski, a charismatic Pole, owned High Cliff Motors, the local Saab dealer in Cleethorpes, England. He was trying to persuade my father to by a 95. Dad couldn’t afford to go for it, but I was hooked. I still have one of the brochures he gave me.

In the mid 60′s a couple who were friends of my parents came to stay. She was Swedish and they had a Saab. I got to ride in the front seat, and he apologized that he didn’t have a Jaguar or a Rover. I think he was surprised how enthusiastic and knowledgeable I was about Saab.Twenty years later, in the early 80′s, with a wife, a young family and a mortgage, my job was made redundant, and I needed to replace my comfortable but rusting Renault 16 on a meagre budget. I wandered round to the local Saab dealer, South Humberside Motors of Grimsby (now Humberside Saab) to see if they had anything I could afford. The salesman knew his stuff alright – he gave my 3-yo son a large plastic model of a Saab 99 (about 20cm long), saying “Every time you see that it’ll remind you that you want one.” Sure enough, I soon did a deal on an Amber ’73 99L 2door they had traded-in, registration “DET438L” – affectionately known as “Dettol” – for £700. It really needed a paint job, but hey! I was in a Saab! We loved that car and kept it for about 4 years, covering over 40,000 miles. It let us down a couple of times, but at least it didn’t oxidize away!

The arrival son #3 plus a company car (’75 Saab 99 2.0) meant that we could no longer justify keeping it. It would be another 14 years before we needed to buy a car. Amongst the company cars in the intervening years were ’90 900 S, ’93 900 SE, ’96 gm 900 SE and a ’97 gm 900 V6. When we need a car due to a change of employer, we chose a lovely Amethyst Mica Metallic 9000 CS 2.3t Anniversary. Sadly, I emulated Eric “on the roof” Carlsson in that, but that’s another story!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:41:00 +0000

I could say I’ve been a Saab fan nearly all my life. After all when I was very young my dad replaced the VW beetle with a Saab 99 Automatic, sea green. It was probably a 1972 or 1971 model year. We had that car until 1986 or something. I remember one when driving up to Sälen for skiing. It was a lot of snow and the old road that was used then was very steep. My mum got a bit worried and said “Shouldn’t we put it in first gear.” and my dad said “No need. It’s a Saab.”

My first own Saab was actually by coincidence. I was in the process of getting a drivers license so I looked around for a car. I looked at a BMW 318i, but it was too rusty. Then I saw a 1988 900i at the parking for a good price so I bought it. I became a member of the Swedish Saab 900 club and later also the Saab Club. Via their forum I bought a 1973 Saab 99L for a mere 500 SEK (about 50 Euros) that I spent some 10000 SEK on restoring. Probably not financially sound, but a very nice car and it’s still fun to drive it. I have used it for trips to the international Saab club meeting in Cesis, Latvia and to the one in Ljungbyhed, Sweden. Later I also bought a 1971 Saab 99 convertible, a 1982 900 Turbo (same as James Bond), a 1986 Saab 90 and the old -88 was upgraded to a -91 900S. I also have access to a 1999 Saab 9-5 via my girlfriend.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 15:38:00 +0000

Everyone who is divorced knows that this means a lot of changes in your life.
Friends change, habits change and even the place where you live might change.
For me one of the things that definitely had to be changed was my car!

It was a VW Golf, a cheap and reliable but very boring daily driver.
As I had owned several convertibles before I bought the Golf for family reasons,
it was quite clear that I wanted to go back in history and own a softtop once again.

At that time, the family of my fiancee owned a nice old villa near Lake Garda, Italy.
This house was painted in a warm yellow, a typical Italian color.
It looked great in the sunlight.

During a vacation in that house, my brother handed me the car keys for his beautiful 1992 Mercedes convertible. My fiancee enjoyed the top-down cruise as much as I did, so my wish to own a softtop fell on fertile ground.

Some time later, again in company of my brother, I accidentially stepped into a show room of a local Mercedes dealer. (I was born and raised as a Mercedes child since my dad was a long time Mercedes employee!)

And there she was: a black SAAB 900-II convertible with parchment leather! I wanted her immediately! But the salesman told me that another guy had announced his visit to see this car, so I would have to wait. And imagine, this guy bought “my” Saab!
But by that time, I was already in flames for the small Swedish brand.

Some time later, I found a car that caught me even more than the black 900-II: a yellow 9.3-I.
Only 4 years old, heated leather seats, auto-softtop, CD changer and aircondition.
In other words, a dream on wheels.
And in the sunlight, the color reminded us of an Italian villa…