Tuesday, 31 January 2012
The swiss TV broadcast Cash TV is about how the swiss people make money. In the part from 29.1. was a part about Saab. Mainly from the dealers and Hirsch perspective. Well, no reason for pleasure at all. But the whole thing is not over yet.
It's in german language mixed with swiss german, sometimes hard to understand, but the point is very clear.
You can watch the video through this link.
It's in german language mixed with swiss german, sometimes hard to understand, but the point is very clear.
You can watch the video through this link.
As previously mentioned, there was a company Solstad in Sweden, rebuilding Saabs to special purpose cars, mainly 6-wheelers, car transport vehicles. There are not many pictures around the globe, but some are.
The main source is again Saabrobz's flickr photostream and couple of other sites. So I'd like to post them here. They are based on a timeline, the oldest first. A click on the pictures results in a better resolution.
There are more pictures, you can find them here.
Sources : Saabrob, wikipedia, cardatabase, sorlinden.se
The main source is again Saabrobz's flickr photostream and couple of other sites. So I'd like to post them here. They are based on a timeline, the oldest first. A click on the pictures results in a better resolution.
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Sources : Saabrob, wikipedia, cardatabase, sorlinden.se
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| Saab 9-3X |
Firstly there are five interested parties, potential bidders. The receivers didn't comment on any of them by name. Three are known : chinese Youngman - Lotus, turkish Brightwell Holdings and indian Mahindra. The names of the remaining two will stay hidden. From earlier claims it comes out, that there is at least one swedish interested party.
A name, BMW, resonates in many comments and also behind the scenes. It would be a good mother company, but it remains open if this is the truth and what business strategy may lie behind. On a personal note don't like BMW's design too much, but the technical part is great.
Secondly, around 100 people are still on Saab's payroll. These people are very important for a possible restart of the factory. There are managers as well as technical workers with unique skills. It must be a decision of the receivers to keep them still in, even when time is critical and money is running out. Such a decision must be part of a plan, namely to sell Saab as a whole with a restart of the production on the background.
One more update came about Saab Parts, the highly profitable company producing spare parts for Saabs. The EIB (European Investment Bank) loan was payed by the swedish NDO (National Debt Office) and NDO is taking over Saab Parts. In practice that means a takeover by the swedish government, while Saab Parts remains as a part of the package offered for sale by the administrators.
If someone buys Saab, there will be a debt to NDO to be covered. It is somewhere between 100 and 200 M €. If nobody buys Saab, Saab Parts remain government (NDO) owned and the debt will be repayed from the profit of their business.
Sources : saabsunited.com and saabblog.net
Monday, 30 January 2012
Do you like modified cars ? I like them as long as they are done with sense and taste. All of us have seen many mods, which destroyed the original.
There was a swedish company called Solstad, found by Robert Solstad, which modified cars, mostly Saab, mainly rebuilding them to special cars like car transport vehicles or ambulances.But they did also a convertible. If Solstad have nothing to do with the norwegian Solstad Offshore, than I couldn't find anything about them.
But I could find some pictures of the Solstad Saab. It's a tuning of Saab 900NG (1994-1998) with the B258I 2.5-liter V6 with 170HP and automatic transmission.
Click on any picture to get bigger resolution.
The pictures are coming from saabrobz's flickr pool and you can see 4 more pictures here. Thank you for the "yes" for posting them here.
Do you like it ? I like a lot the rear part with the spoiler and the dashboard. Yellow and black are a very daring combination, but very nice as well. The seats would be nice without the V6 turbo letters. The rims are fine, the changeover from black to yellow on the sides makes it look a bit like from a computer game.
Btw. what were the differences between 900NG and 9-3 I ? There are two interesting threads on in : first and second.
There was a swedish company called Solstad, found by Robert Solstad, which modified cars, mostly Saab, mainly rebuilding them to special cars like car transport vehicles or ambulances.But they did also a convertible. If Solstad have nothing to do with the norwegian Solstad Offshore, than I couldn't find anything about them.
But I could find some pictures of the Solstad Saab. It's a tuning of Saab 900NG (1994-1998) with the B258I 2.5-liter V6 with 170HP and automatic transmission.
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The pictures are coming from saabrobz's flickr pool and you can see 4 more pictures here. Thank you for the "yes" for posting them here.
Do you like it ? I like a lot the rear part with the spoiler and the dashboard. Yellow and black are a very daring combination, but very nice as well. The seats would be nice without the V6 turbo letters. The rims are fine, the changeover from black to yellow on the sides makes it look a bit like from a computer game.
Btw. what were the differences between 900NG and 9-3 I ? There are two interesting threads on in : first and second.
Sunday, 29 January 2012
With great feeling I've found an article about Saabism together with a link in the blog links section on one of the very large Saab community sites - Saabblog.net.
Saabblog is a german speaking site covering the large german Saab community, always up-to-date and one of my main information sources. The 27 categories of topics speaks for itself. You can find here news and different topics, sometimes from a different angle of view as well as a great wave of enthusiasm.
The article on Saabblog can be found here.
For me it means a large dose of motivation to continue and improve Saabism. Saab is a passion, Saabism is a hobby, a school of blogging and writing texts as well an attempt to bring at least a small contribution to visibility of Saab and the power of the community - potential customer base. If my blog contributes at least a little bit to a rebirth of Saab, it would make me really happy and only confirm, that the dedicated time was worth it.
Thank you Saabblog, thank you Tom !
Saabblog is a german speaking site covering the large german Saab community, always up-to-date and one of my main information sources. The 27 categories of topics speaks for itself. You can find here news and different topics, sometimes from a different angle of view as well as a great wave of enthusiasm.
The article on Saabblog can be found here.
For me it means a large dose of motivation to continue and improve Saabism. Saab is a passion, Saabism is a hobby, a school of blogging and writing texts as well an attempt to bring at least a small contribution to visibility of Saab and the power of the community - potential customer base. If my blog contributes at least a little bit to a rebirth of Saab, it would make me really happy and only confirm, that the dedicated time was worth it.
Thank you Saabblog, thank you Tom !
Saturday, 28 January 2012
I just came across an interesting picture, a Saab 9000 combi - or kombi, estate or wagon if you like it more. For unknown reasons it never came into serial production. It is a pity, because the 9000 is a desired model in the Saab community.
It's this one :
source
Some googling brought other pictures of the car. Since this kind of rare picture tend to disappear with the time, I've downloaded them all and posting them here, so another source is alive. The original sources are of course there.
All the pictures are clickable to get the original size.
These two pictures can be found on this swedish forum.
And these pictures are coming from this dutch forum.
All the pictures are clickable for the original size.
It's this one :
Some googling brought other pictures of the car. Since this kind of rare picture tend to disappear with the time, I've downloaded them all and posting them here, so another source is alive. The original sources are of course there.
All the pictures are clickable to get the original size.
These two pictures can be found on this swedish forum.
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And these pictures are coming from this dutch forum.
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A nice video came from the czech part of the We are many, we are Saab event. I didn't attended at the czech part, the slovakian (home) and austrian parts were enough.
Brno : 60+ cars
Prague : 40+ cars
Bratislava : cca 50 cars
Vienna : 53 cars
But the video is nice. Greetings to saabunderground.cz !
Brno : 60+ cars
Prague : 40+ cars
Bratislava : cca 50 cars
Vienna : 53 cars
But the video is nice. Greetings to saabunderground.cz !
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| Image source : www.mediafreedominternational.org |
A recent leak from Brussels published on Euractiv claims, that exactly this happens.
The CO2 numbers we know are not including the effect of an important factor - Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC).
ILUC happens, when a new land is created for fields, where plants for biofuels are growed. It means mainly deforestation all over the world, mainly in places like South East Asia. That means, that with burning of biofuel we get less direct greenhouse gas emissions in the air but with cutting forests we produce more emissions at the end.
These messages are coming in the connection to the awaited EU legislative proposals on biofuels in the spring.
In its recent review of the Fuel Quality Directive, the EU proposed a default value of 107g CO2 equivalent per megajoule of fuel (CO2/mj) for oil from tar sands, as compared to 87.5g CO2/mj for crude oil, reflecting the greater environmental harm that its production causes.
It a is 22% difference. A lot.
EU intends to constantly decrease the amount of greenhouse gas emissions, starting with 35% less emissions than conventional petrol and the number should grow up to 60% in 2018.
You can read more details in the Euractive article.
Friday, 27 January 2012
The private-equity firm claimed before, they are interested in buying Saab as the whole company.
They would like to make a bid. "We are just a few days, maybe a week away." said the spokeswoman and board member Zamier Ahmed. It makes sense, they don't want reveal any details. On the first hear it sounds a bit suspicious, but at least my experience says, confidence agreements are before tenders and bids not unusual.
Their competitors in bidding should be chinese company Youngman, which claimed to bid. Another interested party was the indian Mahindra, which representatives visited Sweden a few days ago. But about bid no word until now.
The second part of the article becomes also interesting, when DI starts to ask Brightwell about GM and their possible steps in licensing of their know how. The answer :
"If GM is continuing to issue their licenses, we can begin production within weeks.".
"But if GM, at worst, do not want to go that route, it does not mean that we are not interested in Saab ... we have our own platform, developed internally by one of the companies owned by Brightwell Holdings, " she added.
What licenses she speaks about ? GM claimed, that they will not issue 9-5 and 9-4X licensing to anyone. So, does she speaks about the 9-3 license ? What about the PhoeniX ? It is known, that Saab has sold a right to use to Youngman. If the right is exclusive ... about that falled never a word. Or one of their plans is to have PhoeniX and the new platform together.
This is unknown and due to the agreement it will remain so. To buy a Saab as a whole package is one thing, what exactly they plan to produce in Trollhattan is a different story.
Let's hope for the best.
Thursday, 26 January 2012
Saab had in the 60's a computer departement, later a separate company, which developed computers, firstly for the aviation industry and tried it to place also in other industry segments. The company was called Datasaab. Now, in 2012, the computers from the 60's looks like from the stone age, but still it has some retro magic inside.
Datasaab had an interesting history, through which they developed and sold several models. SARA, D21, D22, D15, D16 and D220, just to name some of them. Their main intention was to make a computer small enough to be placed in an aircraft, which was at that time a pure science-fiction. They even invented FCPU (flexible central processing unit), never patented that, but Intel did years after.
The company lasted from 1960 to 1975, when it was sold to Sperry UNIVAC, which doesn't exists anymore. The last known sale was to Ericsson and ICL. You can read more about the history of Datasaab o a dedicated page as well as on Wikipedia.
Also a guy called Göran Sundqvist tried to do computer music on the D21 in 1967. Some samples, you can listen to are located here. It sounds like computer music Sinclair Spectrum a computer from the 80's. Hey, but this is computer generated music from 1967 on a aircraft computer ! A pure avantgarde for the time where it comes from. In the same year, one of the digital pioneers Tangerine Dream were found and even three years later Kraftwerk started to exist.
There was also a Saab promotion video aiming at the computers, where also the D21 and D22 are shown. As well as some nice old Saabs. And funny music sometimes :) The language is swedish. It reminded me sometimes on the wonderful sci-fi series from the 70's called U.F.O.. Enjoy.
Wednesday, 25 January 2012
Remembering the summer ... and many summers before. Imho this is one of the best tracks of McSolaars album Prose Combat. Old school. In the car, it lets you drive.
Tuesday, 24 January 2012
There is a study called Saab Sixten designed by the swedish design studio Gray Design and named after Sixten Sason, the designer of the first commercial Saab, the Saab 92, which roots are in the Ursaab.
The wonderful study gives the lines of the first Saab a modern look. It's an awesome showcase, what the designer can do, for example for a Saab 9-1. If Saab, after some miracle, would survive and produce new cars, for which all the Saab fanc, including me, hope so much.
I like this study a lot. See for yourself. The pictures are clickable for a higher resolution.
You can find more pictures and text here.
An engine in this ? The site says 6 liter V8. Yah right, I want it tomorrow ! In todays world to have this in a size of a Focus/Mini with 300 hp would be fun as well :)
The wonderful study gives the lines of the first Saab a modern look. It's an awesome showcase, what the designer can do, for example for a Saab 9-1. If Saab, after some miracle, would survive and produce new cars, for which all the Saab fanc, including me, hope so much.
I like this study a lot. See for yourself. The pictures are clickable for a higher resolution.
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| Saab Sixten |
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| Saab Sixten |
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| Saab Sixten |
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| Saab Sixten |
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| Saab Sixten |
You can find more pictures and text here.
An engine in this ? The site says 6 liter V8. Yah right, I want it tomorrow ! In todays world to have this in a size of a Focus/Mini with 300 hp would be fun as well :)
According to P4 West and Saabsunited the Saab Museum is saved and stays in Trollhättan. The bid of 28 million SEK (3.18 M €) for the whole museum will be covered by the city of Trollhättan, SAAB AB and The Wallenberg foundations.
THE MUSEUM IS SAVED.
The running costs will be covered by the city of Trollhättan and regional government.
THANK YOU !!
This is another very clear message to the automotive world, that Saab isn't just another automaker, but a brand with a high value for many fans and some authorities which deserves to be saved.
Read more at Saabsunited.
THE MUSEUM IS SAVED.
The running costs will be covered by the city of Trollhättan and regional government.
THANK YOU !!
This is another very clear message to the automotive world, that Saab isn't just another automaker, but a brand with a high value for many fans and some authorities which deserves to be saved.
Read more at Saabsunited.
In the recent issue of Auto, Moto and Sport is a 6-pager about Saab. It's a recapitulation of Saab's history with the accent on what was happening in the last 1.5 years. Also it reminds on inventions of Saab.
I really appreciate, that the so often seen poison in the articles (for unknown reason for me), is not seen here yet. It is not an enthusiastic article but also not an anti-Saab text. These are basically data with comments, nothing else.
For those who understand Slovak, below you find scanned copies for read or download.
The images are clickable / Obrázky sú klikateľné.
I really appreciate, that the so often seen poison in the articles (for unknown reason for me), is not seen here yet. It is not an enthusiastic article but also not an anti-Saab text. These are basically data with comments, nothing else.
For those who understand Slovak, below you find scanned copies for read or download.
The images are clickable / Obrázky sú klikateľné.
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Sunday, 22 January 2012
This funky/breakbeat tune works perfectly in the car if you like the beat and bassline. There isn't too much more in the track but if you jump on the wave of the track, driving makes much more fun. The repetitiveness works great this time. This track keeped me awake after a 1000km while still had to drive 250 km in rain and snow.
The Herbalizer are one of the most known artist of the independent label Ninja Tune.
Saturday, 21 January 2012
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| Saab PhoeniX, one of the key weapons in Saabs fight for survival |
Important is, that they confirmed the interest of several parties in buying Saab as a whole package and in continuity of Saab as a brand. Also very important is the claim of the administrators, that their aim is to sell Saab as a whole.
Until now published interested parties are chinese Youngman, turkish Brightwell Hodlings and also, and this is new, an unnamed swedish company. Also a combination of them seems to be a possibility.
Establishing (evaluation ?) of all Saabs assets is not yet completed. And the clock is ticking, money is running out.
That is the reason for decision to sell cars in the Saab Museum. they received 500 bids, no decision made yet and it should be expected within 2 weeks. This is a very sad par of the story, but let's see, what happens and if we ever get knowledge of the winners.
According to the Save Saab Museum blog one of the bidders is the dutch Louwman museum in Den Haag, which is the world’s oldest private collection of motor cars. They are bidding for the Ursaab. Another Ursaab bidder is the Swedish National Museum. Another very important bidder is the swedish Innovatum Technology Park, a development centre doing research projects and inspirational activities based in Trollhättan.
Well if time and money are running out, we will know the most important answers soon.
Sources : Saabsunited.com, Save Saab Museum blog
Thursday, 19 January 2012
They would like to buy the whole "Saab package" and are in talks with Saab for several weeks now.
Ex-CEO of Saab Victor Muller claimed before, that he was in talks with Brightwell Holdings. Brightwell confirms talks with the administrators as well as with Muller. What about GM ?
Any transaction will need approval of GM as well as the Swedish government and the European Investment Bank.
You can read the whole article here.
Sources : Bloomberg via Saabsunited.
This news has now the status of a rumour, next hours / days should bring more light in the situation.
It was reported by Saabsunited together with the message, that there is a workaround for the existing 9-3 models to be produced without GMs intellectual property.
That would most probably mean the end of 9-5 and 9-4X, however some voices say, this isn't necessary true.
The receivers called selected media to a press conference for Saturday. Next week Rachel Pang, CEO of Youngman should be in Sweden. With the new bid ? Who knows.
Around other interested parties in buying Saab after bankruptcy it is quiet, but Victor Muller claimed in an interview, he's trying to help the turkish potential investors Brightwell Holding.
The Saab museum is still in the same status - they sell the cars, deadline for bids is 20.1.2012, a day before the press conference.
As if the things started to move ... at least for the public.
edit : this link : Youngman to submit SEK 5Billion Bid For SAAB - was submited just minutes ago (18:30, 19.1.2012) by ex CEO of Saab Victor Muller on his facebook fanpage.
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Today as the protest against SOPA and PIPA the english part of Wikipedia is down.
You can see the blackout page here, today only. You can learn more here.
edit : to see nice overview of the websites, which joined the blackout effort click here. You will find there screenshots of the blackout screens of webs like wired, wordpress.org, google, mozilla, tumblr and many more.
You can see the blackout page here, today only. You can learn more here.
edit : to see nice overview of the websites, which joined the blackout effort click here. You will find there screenshots of the blackout screens of webs like wired, wordpress.org, google, mozilla, tumblr and many more.
According to Saabsunited selected media were invited for a press conference to Goteborg on Saturday, 21.1.2012.
There were several interested companies in buying Saab after the bankruptcy - the chinese Youngman, the turkish Brightwell Holding, the indian Mahindra, just to name a few. The lawyers are aiming on selling Saab as a whole.
However the whole process is running out of cash, so there are already concrete steps of selling the Saab Museum in Trollhattan out of the whole package. This is a bad sign, because the museum is an important part of Saabs culture and the automotive history. You can read more on the Save Saab Museum blog as well as on Swadeology (with list of cars for sale).
There are also critical stakeholder voices asking what exactly the lawyers are doing, why and who they are focusing at from the interested parties.
Indeed it is not clear, what is going on right now in the bankruptcy case. This might be the reason for the press conference. Or there are already some concrete things done. Probably not the biggest, what all the enthusiasts and ex-workers are waiting for (that would be public or semi-public immediately), but some update would be healthy.
Let's hope they will come at least some good news.
There were several interested companies in buying Saab after the bankruptcy - the chinese Youngman, the turkish Brightwell Holding, the indian Mahindra, just to name a few. The lawyers are aiming on selling Saab as a whole.
However the whole process is running out of cash, so there are already concrete steps of selling the Saab Museum in Trollhattan out of the whole package. This is a bad sign, because the museum is an important part of Saabs culture and the automotive history. You can read more on the Save Saab Museum blog as well as on Swadeology (with list of cars for sale).
There are also critical stakeholder voices asking what exactly the lawyers are doing, why and who they are focusing at from the interested parties.
Indeed it is not clear, what is going on right now in the bankruptcy case. This might be the reason for the press conference. Or there are already some concrete things done. Probably not the biggest, what all the enthusiasts and ex-workers are waiting for (that would be public or semi-public immediately), but some update would be healthy.
Let's hope they will come at least some good news.
Monday, 16 January 2012
I just wanted to point out fantastic photos from the Dakkar rally 2012, issued at the boston.com. Wow.
Also I am somehow proud, that the slovak motorbike rider Stefan Svitko finished on the 5th place, which is historically the best place for a slovak attendee. Congratulation !
One picture to speed up the tastes, you can see the rest here.
The rest of the pictures can be found here on boston.com. Enjoy.
Also I am somehow proud, that the slovak motorbike rider Stefan Svitko finished on the 5th place, which is historically the best place for a slovak attendee. Congratulation !
One picture to speed up the tastes, you can see the rest here.
The rest of the pictures can be found here on boston.com. Enjoy.
Saturday, 14 January 2012
To see 100 Saabs in one day is here in the middle of Europe not a common thing. Different was the situation at the worldwide series of Outside-Saab events. Bratislava and Vienna were the places I've chosen to go.
Bratislava was for me a very nice surprise. Some people were saying about 45 cars, imho there were more. Many new faces but many Saabs, which I've seen in the streets through the year. Mainly newer Saabs, but also some older babies. A nice surprise was also the meeting with old friends from saabsunited.cz. The program was simple : meeting, convoy to the Devin castle, fotosession, convoy to Danube and again foto session.
Sorry for the long post, the blogspot engine behaves sometimes very crazy.
Some pictures (click on them to see larger size) :
The austrian part was at the Saab Oberlaa dealership. A nice event, 53+ cars. The dealer opened for us the shop and offered some tea. The cold wind outside was crazy. They have new Griffins on display. Again many people from the austrian Saab club. Thanks a lot for inviting us. Hopely we doo together in summer again a drive.
Again some pics :
Bratislava was for me a very nice surprise. Some people were saying about 45 cars, imho there were more. Many new faces but many Saabs, which I've seen in the streets through the year. Mainly newer Saabs, but also some older babies. A nice surprise was also the meeting with old friends from saabsunited.cz. The program was simple : meeting, convoy to the Devin castle, fotosession, convoy to Danube and again foto session.
Sorry for the long post, the blogspot engine behaves sometimes very crazy.
Some pictures (click on them to see larger size) :
The austrian part was at the Saab Oberlaa dealership. A nice event, 53+ cars. The dealer opened for us the shop and offered some tea. The cold wind outside was crazy. They have new Griffins on display. Again many people from the austrian Saab club. Thanks a lot for inviting us. Hopely we doo together in summer again a drive.
Again some pics :
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