Music for Cabriolets : Urban Species - Blanket ft. Imogen Heap

The deep and subtle song Blanket is a result of a collaboration between the great, mostly acid jazz band Urban Species and successful talented singer Imogen Heap. A wonderful tune for many situations, in context of music for cabriolets, it is excellent for cruising or stopping by for a moment.



Excellent track, isn't it ? Imho it's so strong, that it leads you away from thinking about styles or genres or wether it is pop, alternative or whatever else. It's just a very strong song.

There is also a live version available, as well as a version performed by Imogen Heap with Jeff Beck. It's great, but especially in this case I think, Urban Species's minimalistic approach wins. Pure personal opinion.

While searching around the song, it was a great pleasure to find out that Urban Species are preparing their third album. It seems they moved all their online appearance here to facebook. Looking forward for the album.

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Lost and found

When too many t-shirts are in the wardrobe, some of them tend to dissapear for a while in order to appear again. Always a nice surprise afterwards :) This happened with my white Saab t-shirt. So here it is. Yay I like this one a lot.

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The Saab Museum reopening in pictures

Yesterday, on 24.3. the Saab Museum in Trollhattan reopened. A very serious event for Saab, all the fans and people around. Also an expression of hopes for good future for Saab.

There were very important speakers on the stage between others Peter Akerlund, the mayor of Trollhattan, Peter "Poker" Wallenberg and by Erik Carlsson.

Saabrobz, a Saab fan, photographer and friend from Sweden published a 236 picture set on Flickr from the event and atmosphere around. It was a sunny day, spring is coming also to the northern parts of Europe. The cars in the Museum are more or less on the same places I've seen them in October, so it's also a nice nostalgia for me.

Saab Museum reopening, 24.3.2012

Saab Museum reopening 24.3.2012

Peter "Poker" Wallenberg, one of the museum rescuers

Ursaab. At the place where it should be.

... a piece of automotive history

AeroX

The sharks

The Saab Museum, a very nice angle.

Saab 900 Turbo with the experimental Targa roof.

Classic 900 Convertible. Food for an ongoing small wet dream.

!

The presnet. It must survive.

You can see the rest of the pictures here. The parking space around the museum was nearly as interesting as the museum itself :)There is also a short article on another fanblog saabblog-in. A video coverage of the museum can be found on here on SU.

credits : saabrobz

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Saab Car Museum website is up

The Saab Car Museum in Trollhattan reopens tomorrow 24.3.2012. It's new website is up now, you can find it on saabcarmuseum.se. Simple, informative and with carefully selected pictures.

After the Saab bankruptcy the museum was closed. After a dangerous period, where all the exhibited cars had to be sold and spreaded all over the world the City of Trollhattan, SAAB AB and The Wallenberg Foundation saved the museum.

A recent article in TTela describes a bit closer how it happened. 

The Saab Car Museum is a very important part of Saab, it's heritage as well as showcase of automotive history. Tomorrows reopening is also a symbol of hopes of all fans, that Saab as the whole will be reopened as well.

You can see my pictures from the museum here : part 4, part 3, part 2, part 1.

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The art of washing the Saab convertible

Washing was something I underestimated when I bought the cabrio. The soft-top isn't a cheap thing so to let it wash in the automatic station causes a bit paranoid feelings. So usually I do it by hand, which I enjoy to do, but not always. Sometimes I go to the touchless washing service, which brings a great result but also is twice as expensive.

But finally I found an automated station, where the guy can stop the brush at the top when it comes to the roof. The result is satisfaction, that my soft-top roof doesn't fade away too quickly, a clean car (95%) and normal price.

So after a long time in the washing station looked like this :


Taken with HTC Desire and FxCamera.

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Some nice Saabs around the globe

Just some pictures of Saabs circulating around the globe which I liked very much.

2000 Saab Viggen Convertible

2000 Saab Viggen Convertible

This awesome 2000 Monte Carlo Yellow Saab 9-3 Viggen Convertible was for sale in 2009 and sold somewhere in the U.S.. The source is this thread on Saab central.

White Saabs

Detail

This is from facebook, first a very nice shot of some white beauties 9-3 Convertible and a Sonnett. Second a stunning detail, it seems to be a 9000. 

Saab Art March 2012

And there is a march Saab wallpaper done by Roy Chui. Well done. again. For download go here or in the archive at that site.

Credits : SaabCentral | Saab Cars @ Facebook | Saab Art

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Saab in movies : Wrong by Quentin Dupieux

A very nice yellow Saab 900 classic appears in the new movie from the french electronic musician and director Quentin Dupieux called Wrong. The movie is mostly for club cinemas and I cannot wait to see it, not only for the Saab. One of his previous movies Rubber was great :)

If this is the Monte Carlo Yellow very popular on classic 900 convertibles, like this. It could be, so if you know it for sure, the discussion below the blog post is the best place to confirm for the others.

Some resources : 

Movie poster :

Wrong (2012) movie poster

For high resolution version (4050 × 6000), click here.

Saab 900 of Wrong (2012)

The trailer :






Wrong (2012) on imdb.com.

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In the flight

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Trabantism

While browsing on the net for another portion of Saab pictures I came again to Saabrobz flickr photo stream. This guy has made some cool pics of Saab special transport vehicles published here. But also another car brand came to my eyes, which brought many memories to me : Trabant. So I'd like to share some things and memories about this plastic car. 

While living behind the iron curtain we had one and were glad to have a car at all. The price of this minicar was 40.000 KČS (Czechoslovak crowns). To bring this number in real context, if an average person at that time spared 1/5 of the monthly income (300 KČS of 1.500) for the car, than there was a need of 133 months to spare the money.


Eleven years (+- 20%), for this :

Not really funny, isn't it ? Btw. a Saab, at that time available only in selected shops, costed 4-6x more.

But that's another story.

On the pictures is Trabant 1.1, we had it's predecessor Trabant 601, which looked very similar and had a weaker engine.

The Trabant 601, produced 1963 - 1990, had a 600 ccm two cylinder two-stroke engine with performance of overwhelming 27 hp and 51Nm at 3.000 rpm. It took 30 seconds to bring him to 100kmh which was also the top speed. You can read the full specs here.

The fuel for this was called Special MIX, which was a mixture of petrol and oil in 50:1 ratio. This was once a normal petrol to get on a gas station. Made special for the two stroke cars from the German Democratic Republic (Trabant and Wartburg).

The fuel consumption was 9 L/100 km (26 mpg) in the city and 7 L/100km (34 mpg) on the highway. This is todays consumption of petrol cars with ~2 liter engines doing the 0-100kmh three times faster.

Trabant didn't had an indicator for fuel level. So if your tank was empty, you had a special manual knob, located under the hood or inside, which you had to turn and got a "reserve" for about 50 km, means to the next gas station.




On the dashboard, there were no LED diods or similar indicators at all. Everything pure analogue.

There are some interior pictures on the internet, the closest one to what I remember is this :

Minimalism pure :) Please notice the shifting knob on the dashboard. It had 4 speeds, manual shifting, sometimes very tough. "Pull and up" was 1st gear, "pull and down" was the 2nd gear, "push and up" was 3rd and "push and down" was fourth.

Also there is another thing missing on the dashboard  - the ventilation shafts. Which means no circulating air inside. Therefore there were some Trabants had an "personal upgrade" done by a 12V blower sticked to the windshield. The electricity had to be taken by cable somewhere from the dashboard. Home garage work.

The body of the car was made from bakelite. You don't know what is it ? It's polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride. Sounds familiar, doesn't it ? :) Well it's a kind of plastic, the same plastic from billiard balls or dominoes are made. One of the main ingredients is wool. Yes wool. In 1990. Imagine to drive a car with body from a mixture of billiard balls and wool. Doesn't sounds too safe. Indeed by todays car safety standards Trabant wouldn't get even a single star.

I've been a witness of a practical example. My father wanted to turn from the main street to the left, but the driver in the metal car behind us was too nervous to wait, so he overturned. He was hitting us with his blink light on our left side from the trunk to the front part. Result : his blinking light was gone and we lost two doors as well as the rest of the left side of our "body". The whole bakelite side landed in a creek nearby.

Sometimes hitchhikers were jumping back behind the trees at the road, when there was a danger we with our Trabant would stop for them :) 

There are wonderful videos about production of Trabant around. To spare your time I'd like to offer you the Quality controll. You will not regret the 4 minutes : 



If you want to see more, there is a 37 minutes long video with german comments. Unfortunately I didn't find an english one. For czech and slovak visitors, check the czech one. It's crystallic Kafka.

On the other hand the Trabant did his job sometimes pretty well. Built under the conditions showed in the video, it brought us to summer locations 600 - 700 km far away. It took ages, but we've got there.

Another thing was snow performance. Northern Slovakia is full of mountains, which means lots of snow in winter. Snow chains didn't existed so road traffic stopped. Not for Trabants. 20 kmh, one of the car crew jumps out, sits on the hood and everything goes fine.

There was an urban legend, that a green Trabant (rare) brings luck. But you have to either three times stamp or spit (version 2) on the ground. Than you would become lucky.

One very serious thing. Weeks before the Berlin wall falled, in the curl of the events, thousands of habitants of German Democratic Republic fled in the late 80's from their country to the Embassy of Western Germany in Prague. In Trabants. They left them just on the street and climbed through the fence to the embassy. Trabant again did, this time an extremely important thing. Did the drivers and their families escaped to the west ? Yes, they did. This escape moved also people in my country to start to protest and was one of the starters of the Velvet revolution in former Czechoslovakia. Serious stuff.

There is a guy in the Czech Republic, who is specialised in driving Trabants basically around the world - taking the strangest locations as possible. He drove over Africa or South America many thousands kilometers. You can find  more on this site. It's in czech language but many things are self explanatory.

I really don't know where our Trabant ended. We've got rid of it as soon as it was possible. On one hand it was a terrible result of the socialistic planned economy, but on the other hand, it was such a strong nonsense, that the nostalgia keeps in the minds of them who had it. There are many of them around and also many around the world.

Credits : saabrobz trabant pics, shoc auto and socialism

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Topless

10 - 13°C (50 - 55 Fahrenheit) is for a convertible driver a bit of decision making torture. Roof down or not ? It's not cold anymore, but also not hot enough. The more adventurous characters click the roof button immediately. The others think a bit more. Than the shining sun gives you the last kick and the drive begins.

Topless.

Topless. On a Danube ferry.

One more recent picture. This is my one-of-a-kind customised B284L numberplate at night. I am pretty proud of it.

The B284L license plate

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The spirit of a hot air balloon flight

It was a Christmas gift. A great surprise. I like to fly a lot but it's not even close to passion like Saabs or sailing. Therefore there were a bit mixed feelings at that day, somewhere between questioning the safety and the joy of trying a new unusual thing.

Hot air balloon flying heavily depends on weather, no wind or heavy wind = no flight. So it is not 100% possible to agree on a date and time too far in advance. The uncertainty around when to go is interesting. You never know when it comes. You have only a few time to prepare mentally.

The set-up is majestic. From a semi-large box they conjure a huge baloon. In about 5-10 minutes.

From a semi-large box they conjure a huge baloon.

Than you jump in and start to rise. Faster than you would expect and without feeling it in your body, like in elevators. You just rise. The baloon is steered through rising and descending while searching for good winds. That's it. It is also possible to rotate it, but it is more for getting a better view. The flames heating the air inside the balloon are done by hand. You give gas by hand.

Gas by hand.

And than you fly. Mostly in quietness except the occassional flames. The quietness is awesome. It's sometimes as you would just stand somewhere high in the clouds. For most of us, used to some sound always around, especially in flying objects, the quietness is pretty unique. It shouts even a little bit.

Our flight was in only average good weather, mainly for the sight. Much better is to fly in the morning. The place we used for start was Senec, a small town close to Bratislava. There are lakes and canals around, no hills. But also the flatland has its magic.

Flatland

One of the smaller lakes

Flatland

Textures

We descended to one of the lakes, It was frozen. A swan walked to it's partner through the whole icy lake. When we came, she firstly tried to escape by foot but we were to big for her, so it flew away. I felt very sorry for it, we were in foregin territory.

Swan

We were flying between 400 and 2.000 meters (1300 - 3200 feet). One would expect more wind in higher altitudes but the opposite was true. Most probably this isn't a rule. Also while flying too high, the balloon feeling slowly fades away. Lower altitudes = better visibility from unusual angles.

From the altitude everything looked like from a computer game. Busses on the parking place, stock house, cars, streets, everything. The footbal players as well.

Our mighty football players

gggClose to the end a motorised paraglider appeared. He've seen us and who would resist to take a closer look ? He was a good pilot of that thing, he came close, made several turns around. Nice hobby.

Curious paraglider

Would I recommend it ? Definitely. Unless you don't fear altitudes. We were 6 in the balloon. Landed in the field and were going through all the rituals afterwards. Really interesting stuff the whole afternoon.

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Saab Museum Trollhättan reopens 24.3. - pictures #4

At least some good news in this quiet times about what will happen with Saab. The saved Saab Museum im Trollhättan will be again opened at 24.3.2012. At least a part of the cars will be again accessible by the public. Again a great thanks goes to all who were involved.

You can read about the complete collection of the Saab Museum in this link [pdf]. I recommend to download it, such links often like to dissapear. This link is coming from the Save Saab Museum blog.

I'd like to go to the opening, but unfortunately can't. Too many things are going on in my private life and I have to be close to the home.

But for this occasion I'd like to publish the 4th and last part of my collection of the Saab Museum photos, taken in October 2011. I hope you like them.

In case you didn't see the other parts, here they are : part #1, part #2 and part #3.

Saab 96B, built 1966

Last version of Saab 90, built 1987

Caterina, built in 1965 by the team led by Sixten Sason. One of the predecessors of the Sonnett

Saabo, the caravan (1967), look inside through the window

One of the noble Saab 900 convertibles, built 1986. I want one !

Saab Aero X concept, unveiled 2006

Saab Aero X concept, another view.

Saab 9-3 II naked

The Saab bike

A very early Saab 900 V6, test car

Saab 99 EMS, built 1974

Saab Turbo X detail. In the reflection 9-3 II Convertible Anniversary Edition

Aero X detail

That's it. If you liked the pics, there are 3 more series : part #1, part #2 and part #3.

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