Return of Saab to Canada slowly continues with updated website

General Motors (GM) consolidated its market strategy and withdrew Saab from the Canadian market on December 31, 2009. Within about six weeks, GM reached an agreement with Spyker Cars NV to acquire Saab Automobile AB. However, Canada was still without a Saab importer, much less a website.

Saab re-entered the Canadian market eight months later in August, 2010 and has just begun to restore its website at saab.ca. At one time, there was no website. In recent months, the website for Saab in Canada was merely a one page website referring readers to the U.S. website and listing the dealers in Canada.

Today, a slightly upgraded website appears. It's still basically a one page list of dealers but, instead of referring readers to the U.S. website, there's a link to a 45 page brochure. Interestingly, it describes a lot of history and characteristics of Saabs but does not have a picture of the car until page 19.

A link to the 45 page brochure can be found here. http://www.saab.ca/webdav/files/ca/en/pdf/BP_CA-ENG.pdf

The Saab website is at www.saab.ca

A review of the return of Saab to Canada

The return of the website follows the return of Saab to Canada. Saab Cars North America (SCNA) was formed after the Spyker acquisition and headquartered in Royal Oak, Michigan, near Detroit. By May, 2010, SCNA retained International Fleet Sales (IFS) to assist re-entry into the Canadian market.

International Fleet Sales is a privately owned company based in the San Francisco Bay Area that began in 1999 when Mike Libasci, a 21 year veteran of GM, last working as a fleet sales representative established the company. The firm is an authorized GM export distributor whose capabilities include assisting in vehicle modification to meet the local car regulations in other countries. IFS was responsible for assisting Saab export the Saab 9-7X to markets in Europe and the Middle East.

SCNA officially took over warranty claims and service responsibility in August, 2010 with the first new Saabs, the new 9-5 design, sold in Canada the following month. The 9-3 returned to Canada in October, 2010 with new 2011 model cars.

The Saab website for Canada appears to follow the clean white design that is used by most national websites for Saab, but the full website is yet to be released. The “Move your mind” tagline, used globally, is also used in Canada.



SaabWorld photo, courtesy of Wulf
Saab Cars North America Headquarters