The end of the road for SAAB?

Oh, sad times. VLX 993X - that was my dad's old 900 Turbo. Good fun, that was.

What happened to the Spyker deal?

I did wonder how Saab would get saved by any prospective buyer. Sad times, I think the Saab brand has lots of potential to appeal to people who don't want to be like everyone else and drive a BMW, Audi or Merc.

The EIB is saying that the company isn't allowed to have Spyker take over, as Russian Vladimir Antonov (part owner of Spyker) is wanting to put his money in, but he has alledged links to Mafia and other potentially dodgy things. GM didn't want to sell for the same reasons. Lots of Googling will bring up lots of confusing news stories about it, but time is definitely running out as they have huge debts, huge outgoings still, and no income.

More pictures.


















Modified Saab 99 Turbo by PrimusStrombom, on Flickr

From what i heard on the radio, the staff havent been paid for 3 months and the parts suppliers arent giving Saab the bits. So no parts means no cars, so i cant see them surviving long

I suspect what is happening is that a number of companies (mostly Chinese) are interested, but are waiting for Saab to implode so they can pick off the juicy bits (Brand name, new technologies, European factories, etc) dirt cheap.
It's what happened with MG Rover - a buyer could have stepped in and saved the whole lot, but it's a lot cheaper to wait and buy what you want from the administrators.
A cynical way to conduct business really.

That was when Saab were owned by GM, and GM had a stake in the parent company of Subaru, so were able to use the impreza with a few facelift parts for a while. GM sold they're stake and lost the ability to do that, but its all fairly irrelevant as GM don't own Saab any more anyway.

And the airplanes- thats Saab AB. They sold Saab cars to GM in 1990 iirc, and also split with Scania in the mid 90s.

As with most car companies, the original brand has been diluted over the years with many buy outs and take overs - as has been said, most see the current Saab line up as little more than rebadged GM vehicles such as vauxhalls or chevys.

When Spyker first bought them i didnt think it looked all that great - a small production company who shift a few vehicles a year buying a mass production company with over 70 years history... its a big shift in ideals.

Theyve built some fantastic cars over the years, but quite a few car companies have dissapeared with this recession, i think Saab may be the next.

Anyone who is such a badge snob doesn't deserve to be driving a car at all imho.

^^ this very much, I'm a volvo technician, and the vast majority of parts on them is from the ford parts bin, even the new models post ford ownership, so you could say the same about them. badge snobs annoy me anyway

shame that the Spyker deal fell through, bit hypocritical it being refused on that basis, as we all know how many crooks are in big business/are company chairmen etc

GM completely ruined SAAB which was once a great car manufacture only they could take a lancia and make it a good car or sort the triumph engine and make it a potent lump.
But sadly the end is on the cards they only sold 30000 cars last year and less this year you have to sell 200000 cars these days to break even.
Spyker did buy saab last year with EU money but things quickly went wrong so the sold the spker business earlier this year to raise funds they wanted to sell the factory and rent it back thats what rover did which was why rover was worthless when it went bust.
The Chinese will rule out the merger as they want there car manufacture to consolidate there business so they can take on the world sot buy another European basket case.
If sorry when they go bust then name reverts back to Saab aerospace as this was part of the original deal when they sold them.