Airbag Helmet for Cyclists

... on a Saab blog ? yes.

First check out  how sexy the lady is...

Would you like to meet her wearing only the helmet ? :) Some mechanical saabist had this intention. More in the first part of the video...



It would be absolute if she would ride a Saab bicycle ...

Source is here.

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Noise levels in a Saab convertible

Recently I've found an older article called "Top-down cruising can damage your hearing" repeated several times over the Internet. It's about a study measuring noise levels in convertibles with a warning and conclusion stating that "sounds over 85 decibels can be damaging" in long-term or repeating exposure.

So I was curious about noise levels in my Saab 9-3 convertible and wanted to measure it at least a bit properly. I've never felt that I am at the edge of a hearing issue, that the noise level is annoying or  damaging. Am I partially deaf already ? Maybe. I'd like to find out.

Since my HTC Desire microphone peaks at 83 decibels and than switches off (or what), I've asked a friend with iPhone 4 to go with me on a ride and measure a bit. iPhone 4 peaks at 105 decibels. For this objective it is enough as interesting are levels 85+ decibels. For measurement we used Soundmeter from Faberacoustical, which seems to be serious in their work.

We drove this way (76km) trying to be as realistic as possible and measure different environments - a normal city road, 4 lane city road (2+2), bridge, tunnel, highway and land road. Radio on at normal level, we spoke a bit etc. Windows were up.

Here are the results, I am posting them in order as they've been measured :

1) City 1 and city 2 :

This is a combination of a two lane road and a four lane road in a city outside of traffic peaks. Speed 50-60kmh (31-37 mph). In average the magical 85 decibels were not reached. The peaks came from trucks around and a stupid Skoda Superb driver with at least 90kmh in 60kmh traffic. Another peak was reached at a Apollo bridge over Danube river, which is a four lane road but not highway.

2) Highway bridge in a city + highway tunnel :

This is a bit different story. There were (un)fortunately no trucks on the bridge (max 90kmh / 56 mph), than the average would be definitely higher. In a tunnel the sounds are echoing from everywhere and it's really loud. Max speed in the tunnel was 80kmh (50 mph). But both the bridge as well as the tunnel are not long-term and mostly not repeating. It was this bridge (Harbour bridge) and this tunnel (Sitina tunnel).

3) Highway

This is a clean warning. Don't drive on a highway with roof down. But who does it ? Cabrio drivers mind the highway in general and if they must, they close the roof. With exception like car brand or tuning sessions etc. This is measured at 140kmh  (87 mph). In 160 kmh (100 mph) it was + 5 decibels, which is far above the "safe range" of 85 decibels.

4) Land road

These levels are measured at normal land road between villages at ~90kmh (56mph). Average, normal traffic. The two peaks at the left picture were motorbikes in the opposite direction. This is not very quiet but still somehow ok. I did several long trips (200km+) without any problem.

The sound level also depends  on road surface. Panel roads are loud. Every hole in the road which you dont avoid makes a decibel peak. The holes on inroads on bridges are making high peaks (10-15 decibels).

The original article is saying "even one long trip could result in temporary hearing loss, a phenomenon also noted by those who spend long hours at loud concerts". Well loud concertes go well above 100 decibels. That can cause whistle in the ears, I experienced that in the past. But I had never an issue in a convertible.

ENVIRONMENTAL NOISE LEVELS
140 dB	Space rocket at blastoff
130 dB	Jackhammer
120 dB	Ambulance siren, Amplified rock band, Thunder clap
115 dB	Sandblasting
110 dB	Woodworking shop
100 dB	Pneumatic drill, Chainsaw
90 dB	Lawn mower, Disco dance music, Shop tools, Truck traffic, Noisy restaurant
80 dB	City traffic, Loud music from radio
75 dB	Kitchen appliances
70 dB	Crowded restaurant
65 dB	Conversation speech
60 dB	Sewing machine, Typewriter
50 dB	Average home interior
40 dB	Quiet residential community
30 dB	Whisper at five feet
20 dB	Leaves rustling in a breeze
10 dB	Normal breathing
0 dB	Faintest sound heard by a human ear

Source: freehearingtest.com (with interesting articles)



Conclusion : 
If someone is aware of a probability of a hear problem, he/she behaves accordingly. It is to recommend to avoid high speeds with the top down, avoiding highways and driving more in a cruising mode than speeding. Actually this is the intention of a convertible - to enjoy the ambient in a chilly cruising way. To have the horse power when it's needed, that's a different story. But this story happens mostly with the top down.

Thanks Eva for the ride, the measurements and the screenshots.

Enjoy the summer :)

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A little individualisation ...

I've found someone near, who is doing custom frames for license plates - also single pieces. So I've did a bit of individualisation on my Saab.

Saab enthusiasts will know, for those who doesn't, B284L is the V6 engine beating in my Saab. A bit mysterious code is fine :) It's painted, required picture in curves and dried under UV-light. Let's hope it holds. It's on the back. Font : Raleway. Costs : 5€.

Also Hirsch logo came.

I'm not sure, if it's good or not. I will maybe restick it, not sure yet. Btw. normal color of my Saab is Jet Black, but sometimes after washing and on a sunny days it lives it's own life and converts itself into a mirror :)

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Cabrio ride hint : around Myjava

Yes Myjava. The name doesn't have anything to do neither with the indonesian island nor with the programming language (btw. which was invented by people of my former employer). It's a town and a river in western Slovakia, close to the czech border.


Larger map

The part worth to recommend starts in Trstín and goes through Small Carpaths which is a begin of the Carpathian Mountains (which continue 1500km south-east to Romania). A nice pass through small hills and woods (A->B). Than comes a typical countryside of this part, crooked road through a couple of villages up to Myjava (B->C). The roads are in good condition.

Originally I wanted to continue on a different road but a local I've met in Myjava advised me to take a nice scenic road through Krajné to Vrbové. (C->E)

That was a nice part, generally going down from the small hills, where fields start to appear but it is still not flatland. Very changing and mostly empty roads in average condition. In contrast to czech countryside, where people often wish to stop for a minute/hour here and there, this land it is more about driving than exploring towns. But still very nice and comfortable.

I didn't had luck for weather, it was before storm and rain and indeed it started after a while, so the roof was quickly up. But it is definitely worth a roundtrip again in better weather. Starting and ending in Bratislava it is ~200km long.

You can look at other cabrio ride hints as well.

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Saab restarts production after 38 days

Today at 10:00 Saab restarted the production in the Trollhattan plant. The last month was extremely hard for everybody involved and this restart is a huge step ahead. Great work !

The first 5 cars were extremely close examined for possible errors due to restart - nothing went wrong. Today 100 cars should be produced and in the future starting next week the day production shoud rise.

Saab has 8100 orders to produce, from which 6500 for the Trollhattan factory and 1600 for the Ramos Arizpe plant in Mexico where the 9-4X are produced. This number includes also 1300 cars for Pang Da, the new chinese strategic partner of Saab.

Congratulations Saab, you deserve it !

Sources : saabsunited.com, media.saab.com, saabinfo.net

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Saab 9-3 convertible print ads

I've found some "food for the eyes". These ads are a bit older but different from what we use to see these days.

Coming from Saabhistory and Ibelieveinadv. It was done in 2007.

Credits :
Agency: Leagas Delaney, Milan, Italy
Creative Directors: Stefano Campora, Stefano Rosselli
Art director: Guido Bonarelli
Copywriter: Valeria Villari
Photographer: Selmi Bali Barissever

Found here on Flickr.

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Happy Towel Day :)

Today is the Towel day, a tribute to the author Douglas Adams. On this day, fans around the universe proudly carry a towel in his honour.

Well, not only fans, a fan jets as well. As mine did today. So happy Towel Day !

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Rear door durability testing Saab 9-5SC

This came through facebook. Steven Wade takes a closer look at durability testing of the rear doors. It looks and sounds impressive :) Bum .... bum ...

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Car apps : Sygic GPS Navigation (Aura)

Recently several times Sygic GPS Navigation was recommended as the best existing on Android.  Although I have a GPS built-in and an older TomTom Go 930, so I don't need a mobile GPS, due to curiosity I've tested 7 days the demo version on my HTC Desire (Android 2.2),  so here is the result.

Download & Installation :
Download through the home Wi-fi is question of minutes. Installation as well. The possibility to run the whole thing on the SD card is a must and Sygic allows it. The installed application itself has 12.7MB and slovak maps have ~280MB. After successful installation I've got 2 icons - one for the app itself and one for downloading maps. Clean and intuitive.

User interface, adress input and graphics :
Sygic requires you to register from the phone, otherwise "sorry". The GPS module and application see the satellites but doesn't work. Bug or feature ? I suppose a feature, because Sygic offers you community based services simmilar to Waze where without a connectivity it doesn't make sense. On the other hand this should by an offline navigation, so a correct solution would be to run offline with a message saying something like "if you would like to see events on the road (radars, traffic jams ...) please connect to the network". But these days everybody collects data.

After registration everything worked perfect. Inside are many setting possibilities, for a regular users there is a very good default mode preconfigured. Adress or POI input is easy and intuitive. Multitouch zooming works fine.

Graphics is modern and well-arranged , the 3D mode is very nice. No problems with switching between landscape and portrait modes. For getting where you want, the app offers driving, walking and travel via options, which is great.

Driving :
I've tested it in my home city Bratislava, where I know exactly all the alternative ways how to drive from A to B. In some cases it didn't leaded me the shortest way at all although there were no obstacles on the road or any settings causes. That was a surprise, but this is not the first navigation doing that. It is acceptable for a normal user especially by driving in a foreign city where 3-4km more driving does not matter. But for example for a taxi driver which must drive a shortest way this would be an issue.

Otherwise it leaded me very clean through the city and surroundings. For a convertible driver with the roof down a quick and crisp voice navigation is important, because you dont see anything on the phone in the direct sunshine anyway. Sygic provides that, it works perfect even with a feature to run on background only. I've used this often and as a foreground was an mp3 player.

Other functionalities :
Sygic offers much more than a GPS navigation itself. It includes data from different sources  and it is configurable to show them on the map. Typical examples are weather conditions, speed limits, police traps (community based), navigating to contacts in your phone, integration with facebook and twitter etc. Worth trying.

Buy / not buy ?
If I wouldn't have a GPS navigation already, I would seriously consider to buy. Living in Europe I would go for the Europe package which costs 50€. It's not cheap bud still a fair price for a pretty complex software in comparison to dedicated GPS devices with prices around 250€+. It's at least 3 generations ahead of my built-in navigation, but also 4 years younger and provides broader functionality than my 2 years old TomTom.

I would fight with the small smartphone display therefore consider a tablet which is hard to install into the car. Therefore I would have to mentally switch to voice navigation, which is not always confortable in combination with music expecially on longer trips. Therefore I would very appreciate bigger signs/arrows on the display.

Great app.You can find out more at the Sygic website.

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Top 5 longest car chases in movies

Seeing recently in Vienna just on the street the wonderful 1968 Dodge Charger from Bullit, it reminded me on another small chart of top5 longest car chases in movies from a book I've read recently. Here they are as well as the youtube videos for it. The times listed and the videos may have small differences but that's not the point.

1. Gone in 60 seconds (1974) - 32:06 min



The video is the first part. You can see also part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5.

2. Bullit (1968) - 10:36 min



My favorite. I love this film as well as the chase. Just FYI some data about the cars :

1968 For Mustang GT 390 Fastback
V8, 6.4L, 325 HP and 578 Nm, manual 4-gear transmission, 0-100 6.3s. Price : 2952$ in 1968

1968 Dodge Charger 440 Magnum
V8, 7.2L, 375 HP and 650 Nm, automatic 4-gear transmission, 0-100 6s. Price : 3480$ in 1968

3. The Seven-ups (1973) - 9:29 min



4. The Driver (1978) - 8:53 min



5. Vanishing Point (1978) - 7:40 min



Although this is maybe too much for watching one time, enjoy it. Or come back later :)


Source : Auto, das grosse Sammelsurium

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Saab in computer games

I recently found IGCD.net which collects and lists car is various computer games. There is a section covering Saabs, where some of the Saabs are really nice. Here is a short listing of the nicest with some real data or links.

Forza Motorsport 2 had a Saab 9-3 Viggen produced between 1998 and 2002, a high-powered version with the turbocharged 2.3 liter B235R engine providing 225HP (later 230HP) and 342Nm. It had also a different body style than the regular 9-3 hatchback. You can find a Viggen overview here.

This is again a 9-3 Viggen from Midtown Madness 3. In reality 4600 9-3 Viggens were produced. One of them is in our Puppy Hunters Saabclub. You can see it on the first photo in this post, the blue one.

This is again a Viggen, but this time a convertible used in Downtown Run (2003). You can see it in reality in this post, really an extremely nice piece.

This is a Saab 99 Turbo used in Forza Motorsport 3, american version. In reality Saab 99 was produced from 1968 to 1984, the Turbo version came was introduced in 1978. This is a 1979 metallic green Turbo two-door coupe. In the game it was configurable, so the author of the screenshot knew exactly what he is driving in the game. There is a Saab 99 enthusiasts site online and you can even see in-game videos here.

You can see 43 more Saabs in computer games on the IGCD website, several of them have very nice screenshot.

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Google Street View's Nine Eyes

Several electric powered vehicles from Google are driving through the world and taking panoramic pictures with 9 lenses on a singe pole. As this is automatic / robotic photography, no artists- or documentarists eyes are behind them. But even though the pictures carry some strange message.

A canadian artist  Jon Rafman has collected many of them, some of them interesting, the others appealing. "I chose these images precisely because they assert their uniqueness and resist categorization.", writes Rafman in an introduction [pdf] to a collection of them. "Street View photography, artless and indifferent, without human intention,  ascribes no particular significance to any event or person. Bereft of context, history or meaning, the  only glue holding the Street View images together is geospatial contiguity. Such a perspective does not easily contain the sublime. ", he continues.

But some of the pictures are carrying interesting atmosphere even without any kind of composition or  light/apperture/film or whatever other techniques.

The others are realistic without any kind of intention or stylisation. However the selection itself is an artistic aspect as well and to put these pictures in perspective / comparison with others definitely influence their perception.

Since this is a street view project so many cars were met and photographed. Unfortunately in this collection I did not spotted any Saab (there are other coordinates with many Saabs) but these two are interesting as well. A Morgan (?) and a Back To The Future DeLorean DMC-12.

I am not a fan of Street View, it is indeed an attack of privacy. It's still not in my home city Bratislava, but preparations are underway. Street View also responds to the weird curiosity of people to see how other people are living and as usual compare "how am I doing". Due some people's nature some of the pictures can easily initiate negative feelings of maliciousness or enviousness.

The reason to putting these links on my blog is that this selection is maybe the only one, which shows the photos from different perspective than documentaristic. Like this one :)

 Sources and links : 9-eyes.com, Jon Rafman, Art Fag City essay

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Saab 9-3 Aero Convertible 2007 in WheelsTV test

While many of us are used to search for videos on youtube, there are other sources, which sometimes show before unseen things.

Like this one 9-3 Aero Convertible test coming from bing videos :


<br/><a href="http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video/2007-saab-9-3-aero-convertible/tz6xjbl?src=v5:embed::&fg=sharenoembed" target="_new"title="2007 Saab 9-3 Aero Convertible">Video: 2007 Saab 9-3 Aero Convertible</a>

                                                                               Original link

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Top 5 fastest convertible roofs

Altough the convertible roof speed is really not too important factor, the car makers are competing each other also in this "benchmark".

Here are the top 5 :

1. Audi TT Roadster 2010 : 9 seconds
2. Porsche Boxster : 12 seconds
3. VW New Beetle : 13 seconds
4. Mini Cabrio : 15 seconds
5. Mercedes SL : 16 seconds

My Saab has 20 seconds, which is still sure under the top 10. The speed of bringing the roof down is absolutely unimportant. For bringing it up the 20 seconds are completely enough on a red light stop on the way home to the garage. It is also enough to bring it up when it starts to rain and ehm in a convertible without roof you see the clouds much better than in a normal car.

Source : Auto, das grosse Sammelsurium

Picture : Saab meeting Roudnice nad Labem 2011, part of the cabrio corner. From the 196 Saabs 28 were cabriolets.

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A light at the end of the tunnel ...

It seems that Saabs cashflow problems get a solution. After the collapse of the deal with Hawtai Motor Group it looked very bad. But the unstoppable Victor Muller found another partner. Again in China.

On May 16. Saab signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Pang Da Automobile Trade Co.
The big difference to Hawtai is, that Pang Da is a distributor company selling brands like Audi, Mazda, Subaru, Acura, VW, Mercedes, Jeep or Mitsubishi. They are the largest publicly traded distributor on the chinese market with over 1100 dealerships in China and Mongolia.

Due to the fact, that Pang Da does not produce cars, this deal needs less strict approvals from all the authorities than the Hawtai deal. Does it mean it can go quicker ? I don't know.

However to speed up things, Pang Da placed an order for 1300 Saabs worth 30M€ which is the first and so needed cash injection for restarting the production in Trollhattan. In addition Saab has another 5000 orders which needs to be fulfilled after the production restart and it seems that the Saab 9-4X produced in Mexico received good feedback and orders are coming in.

Another part of the MoU is, that Pang Da orders more Saabs for 15M€ within 30 days (from 16.May) under several conditions. Additionally, Pang Da will take an equity stake in Spyker for a total amount of EUR 65 million at EUR 4.19 per share, representing 24 percent of Spyker on a fully diluted basis. You can read the whole press release for example here.

Spyker/Saab has promised to restart production within 7 days.

The future plans are more uncovered in an interview with Pang Da's CEO and founder Pang Qing Hua. He speaks about second round of investment which depends on the success of the framework of cooperation and keeping promises. Very interesting is the part about future production plans. Pang Qing Hua claims, that the manufacturer voice is stronger than the distributors, so Pang Da has to invest into car production as a competitive move. That would be Saab and it should happen within 1-2 years. That would require a partner, possibly one of the chinese car manufacturing companies.


High-level slides about Saab plans presented on Spyker Annual Shareholders Meeting 2011 can be found here. [pdf]

Today Saab has published an open letter to the world summarising all this. It is a good text with a very positive sounding messages.

Now everything seems to be fine. There is still a lot of work to do. Let's hope the result will be good selling figures.

Good luck Saab.

sources : saabsunited.com, photo : kerim from saabunderground.cz

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Involuntary soft-top tightness test

On our recent trip to Vienna we encountered on a strongest storm ever I've driven in with my Saab 9-3 convertible. The rain was so strong as if someone would take a monumental water tower and throw its content multiple times on the road. Visibility maybe 20 meters, some cars were standing, for these conditions the back fogligths were o.k. (which is not in weaker rains).

Concerns about my soft-top tightness came and I remembered myself about the "1,500 liters of water is sprayed over the Convertible’s soft-top in a special chamber at the Magna Steyr production plant to check weatherproofing." mentioned in the well known text about Saab convertible testing.

Result of the tightness test : not a single drop got inside. Fantastic and my confidence of the roof in the rain is now 100%.

Here are two pictures taken by my girlfriend from that storm. The first shows the mass of water with fastest wiper speed and on the second she even catched a flash.

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25 years of Saab convertible

This year Saab celebrates 25 years of it's convertible. There was an older text cited several times but these days were interesting figures about numbers of vehicles sold :


First generation 1986-1993 48,894 units
Second generation 1994-2002 149,145 units
Third generation 2003 - 99,535 units until April 2011 (24 years + 4 moths = 292 months)

Total : 297574 units

Wow, nearly 300.000 of these wonderful cabriolets were sold. Let's divide the numbers a bit more :

1019 units sold each month
255 units sold each week
51 units sold each day (5 working days per week)
6 units sold each working hour (8.5 hours per day)
1 sold unit every 10 minutes

Why such a great and high-quality brand as Saab can have such a hard time like it has now ? Was it too slow in development ? Or was it corporate incompetence of GM which saw in Saab only a product instead of object of individualistic expression ? Competition ? Bad PR ? Probably a variety of all and more.

However it is, I wish Saab it get again a chance to raise up. There are many examples of how niche brands can live very good and even grow, think some japanese cars 20 years ago or Apple in the pre-iPhone time.

So many people can take his family or close friends for a Saab ride, in a convertible or in a sedan, hatchback, combi, suv or whatever will come ....

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