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, Wed, 9 May 2001 20:01:08
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heh heh....just kidding. David Coutlhard is also a Chrysler guy, heh heh.
I think you'll find all the stuff you've analyzed nicely here is right. I think, based on the experience we've had with this, our second Saab, a black base 4drA '99 9-3 with 30K miles, leather and sunroof, that you'll be quite satisfied with all aspects of acquiring the Saab.
I miss the extra inches the old 900 gave me but I like the finely cut lines of the 9-3 a little better. We could not drive the standard so our choices for the SE in 1999 were foreclosed upon. On a black car, the design differences are even more marginal and from what is said here, the extra hp is barely noticeable. Nothing fits badly; everything is finished well and cleans up easily. The only added part has been a $2.00 convex mirror tacked on to the driver's side for blind-spot elimination and the mandatory plain-Jane steel rims and winter tires (Alpins). I do my own oil and spark plug changes.
I do hear the Volvo has some quality problems. And you won't be cut automatically into like-minded herding yuppies with a Saab vs. your image should you opt for the Bimmer. With a Saab, you'll be hard to define..unique....and that's a good thing these days. At the same time, you'll inherit a built-in community here, willing to share.
When I was a kid growing up in Canada's eastern provinces, we had our share of English cars like MGs, Austins, Hillmans, and Morrises on our roads. Rarely would you see a Peugot, BorgWard, Renault, Simca, or a Bimmer but Volkswagens were coming on strong. You'd never see a Saab or even a Volvo in those days except when the tourists came up from New England.
Later, when I got to travelling through Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont through all those hills, I started to encounter these Saabs. There were a lot of green ones.....all over the place. These were driven my Appalachian Mountain Men with plaid jackets and peaked plaid caps and were hauling stuff up and down the hills and parked up heavily forested driveways and on the docks in Maine. You know - Salt-of-the-Earth types and very careful with money at the same time being handy with a wrench.
I knew they could not be English cars, for English cars would break and you needed always to be near a parts bin. I found out they were Swedish Saab cars. It struck me that since such simple, tough, virtuous people were choosing these Swedish cars in such numbers, there must be something special about them.
Nothing's changed. It's still the same today. Later, upon driving my Volvo the requisite 11 years, I had found out that in Sweden, the Saab was a young peoples' car while the Volvo was considered the choice of older, more sedate people. Then the Saab turbo came out and was literally blowing away American cars while using less fuel and being rather more proficient in snow and ice. When the time came, I knew I had to have a Saab.
If things continue as they have been with this '99 Saab, and GM doesn't kill the goose that promises to lay them a golden egg, there shall be another.
, Wed, 9 May 2001 20:01:08, Mon, 14 May 2001 18:07:32
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