Can anyone fix Saab? Would a sale to Spyker – or any other small automaker – create an orphan automaker, doomed to the fate of Rover. Saab is worth more than that, argues Mark Bursa. And history suggests there may be ways to plot a future for the brand.
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Will there be salvation for Saab? It doesn’t look good – though Dutch sports car maker Spyker is nothing if not determined, and has now taken any deadlines off its offer to GM. But when the deal foundered last week, GM had no plan B – instead, it announced that Saab would be wound down.
Brinkmanship? Exhausted patience? After all, one deal to sell the Swedish brand to an automotive minnow, Koenigsegg, had already collapsed. And there are still problems with the Spyker deal – in an echo of the Magna/Sberbank Opel bid, Spyker too has Russian backers, and GM is nervous about giving away access to its current technology – which it would have to do if Spyker is to build the new 9-5, based on the Opel/Vauxhall Insignia platform.
Meanwhile, in an untimely echo of the last days of Rover, elderly assets, including the ageing 9-3 and geriatric 9-5 models, are being shipped off to China in a bid to raise working capital to keep the show on the road. How did Saab get here? With Rover, you knew it had never really been right. The legacy of British Leyland was hard to shake off. But Saab is different. Unlike Rover, Saab is… cool.
In the 1980s and ’90s, Saab frequently topped polls of ‘coolest car brands’ – and it was easy to see why. Saab had none of the brashness of contemporary BMW, nor the stuffiness of Mercedes, the conservatism of Volvo, the tweediness of Jaguar.
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By GlobalDataSaab had the lot – instantly recognisable, quirky, and overflowing with geek-friendly engineering loveliness. Saab made planes – and channelled its wind tunnel aerodynamics know-how into its cars. It was ahead of the game with front-wheel drive (from the very start of production in 1947) and turbocharging (thirty years later, with the 99 Turbo). Its turbo engines offered V6 performance from four cylinders. It even had a glorious motorsport heritage – two Monte Carlo Rally wins in 1962 and ’63 for Erik Carlsson in a two-stroke Saab 96.
The designs rarely changed. Indeed, there were only two basic Saab shapes in the first three decades of the company’s existence. End even the rather bland 1984-vintage 9000, the result of a joint platform developed with Fiat group, didn’t dent progress. Saab sales peaked in 1987, at 136,000.
At this time, Ford and GM started to see their traditional US Mercury, Lincoln, Cadillac and Buick buyers drifting off to European or Japanese brands – and so, at the top of the market in 1989, Ford bought Jaguar, and GM bought Saab – almost as a consolation prize, as GM had been outbid over Jaguar.
At which point the problems began. A deep recession 12 months later didn’t help, but a leaf through the cuttings file over the past 20 years of Saab’s life under GM makes grim reading. Perennially in the red, and with successive journeyman managers seemingly unable to come up with a workable model plan. Instead, replacement Saabs sprang crudely from GM platforms. The 9-3, which replaced the 900, gradually started to resemble an Opel Vectra – because that’s what it was.
A nadir was reached in 2005, when a Saab grille was plonked on to the front of a Subaru Impreza, creating the Saab 9-2x – better known as the Saabaru. GM controlled Subaru at the time, and planned other atrocities, including SUVs (and there was, of course, the 9-7X for some GM stable rebadging). Available only briefly in the US, the Saabaru soon got the chop.
But the damage was done. GM’s management knew Saab could do with a new small car – a spiritual heir to the old 96, which had soldiered on until 1980. But funds couldn’t be raised to build a ‘real’ small Saab – and for all the rally-sport symmetry, a badge-engineered Impreza wasn’t the answer.
Could GM have handled Saab any differently? After all, Ford went through the same pain with Jaguar, again taking the best part of two decades to get the range right, selling the business before the job was completed.
GM’s problems are well-documented, not least the rigid management structure that hardly provided an environment for an off-beat, hip brand to thrive. See also the demise of Saturn, a brand which got all the peripherals right – the marketing pitch, the retail experience, the customer satisfaction – but consistently screwed up on product.
How could Saab’s existence have panned out if GM had been run differently? Well, in those old ’80s ‘cool brand’ lists, Saab had a rival. Audi shared much of the same aura as Saab – stylish, with a rallying heritage, but less in-yer-face than its German rivals. Audi knew this too – a memorable TV ad showed an odious, loudmouth yuppie type test driving an Audi – before handing back the keys to the salesman, saying it wasn’t his thing. The implication was clear – if you didn’t identify with the yuppie, Audi would appeal to you. And the yuppie probably drove a Beemer.
What Volkswagen achieved with Audi has been remarkable. The group has leveraged the corporate parts bin to the maximum, without ever creating cars that are obvious relations to their lesser VW-brand cousins. OK, the A3 and the Golf have a lot in common – but the original TT used Golf platform too, and the TT is as ‘pure’ an Audi as you could imagine.
What’s different is the level of commitment. Just look at Audi’s range proliferation. When GM bought into Saab in 1989, Saab had two basic models. Audi had three – 80, 100 and Coupe. Now Audi has around 30 different bodystyles, with yet more about to be added. Saab – well, it still has just the two main models.
Audi has used common engines and systems wherever possible. But the cars are clearly not badge-engineered VWs. Out-of-the-box thinking is rife. The R8 supercar is a partly a spin-off from VW’s ownership of Lamborghini. When Audi needed a bigger car, it developed the innovative aluminium spaceframe A8. GM would probably have made a big Saab from a rebadged Chevy Caprice.
Only recently – too late – did GM seem to grasp Saab’s problems. By the time anything was ready, Saab was being sold. New models are on the way, and only a few weeks ago, Saab executives were excitedly previewing the impressive-looking new 9-5 to UK media at a Farnborough hotel. More models would follow: 9-5 sport-combi (estate) and 9-4x crossover in 2010.
This ‘dowry’ is not dissimilar to the XF and XJ models that Ford bequeathed to Jaguar’s new owner, Tata. It took the pressure off the product development team in Coventry, allowing a new ‘F-Type’ sports car, for example, to be developed. The same would apply to whoever buys Saab, though access to a suitable platform on which to build a new 9-3 is essential.
Koenigsegg believed it could get Saab output up to 100,000 – a figure it has struggled to maintain over the years – by concentrating production at Trollhattan. The Spyker offer appears to be the same – both are dependent on European Investment Bank funding, plus continued cooperation from GM.
Spyker has removed any demand that EIB money is made available before the end of the year – this seems to have been one of the main stumbling blocks. With the money from Beijing Automotive for the old platforms providing some cash-flow, Spyker believes it can still raise this money, albeit on a slightly longer timeframe. GM is still talking, though it claims it’s started the wind-down of Saab.
The Spyker plan could work – but you have to fear for a demerged, orphan carmaker. Rover’s demise casts a long shadow. The shocking fact is that no mainstream car maker can see the potential in Saab’s brand. Here is a nameplate with the potential to be another Audi – maybe not on quite the same scale, but surely there are automotive success stories from the recent past that could apply to Saab?
How about “doing a Mini” with a retro 96, a unique car with a rich history in motorsport. All it would take is a reskinned mainstream platform, and a competent design team could update the 96’s original slippery profile into a product that could rival Mini or Fiat 500. You could even bring back the lovely 1950s ‘aeroplane’ logo in place of the Scania griffin. A cheaper, but still premium ‘new 96’ would boost volume too, getting Trollhattan back up to that 100,000 target sooner rather than later.
Then there’s the equally iconic 99 Turbo – some of that essential ‘Saabness’ has crept back into the lines of the new 9-5 – you could add a fair bit more to the next 9-3. To achieve this, you’d have to have the sort of access to platforms and parts bin that Audi has at VW. GM could offer this – and there are still plenty of voices in GM that mourn the sale of Saab.
But surely it would make sense for another mainstream automaker? Perhaps this is the endgame. Saab’s best asset is its brand. PSA, Fiat, VW or Renault might see the potential of Saab – but perhaps they’re waiting for the fire sale, hoping to pick up the brand, without the baggage of a Swedish factory and new GM-based models that bear no resemblance to their own?
Saab is worth fixing – unlike Rover, its brand is good, and recognised worldwide. Get it right, and you could be the new king of cool.
Mark ‘Coolbear’ Bursa
