1964-1974 [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Welcome to the parts-chasing, rust-speckled brotherhood/sisterhood of Sonett owners!
As to telling you more about your car: whaddaya wanna know? In having a 1970 Sonett III, you've got something a little unusual: that was the first year for the Coggiola-styled III body and only 302 Sonett IIIs were made that year. (If you're not positive you have a '70, you can check the chassis number: '70 and '71 cars have chassis numbers starting with "70" or "71"; later years start with "97", indicating the Sonett's model number, followed by a two-digit year, a single digit indicating where the car was assembled -- think all Sonetts will be marked "5" for Arlov -- and then the actual serial number.)
Having a '70 means you've got the lighter car, without the big ugly bumpers that came in '73, and yours is the only year that came with the 1.5 liter high-compression engine (in '71 they switched to the 1.7 liter engine with 8.0 instead of 9.0 compression.) This means your car likes premium fuel, while the later ones were designed for 91-octane regular. Emission control regulations were the reason for the switch, of course. Being pre-emissions, your car also has a slightly simpler fuel system minus the vapor canister and plumbing added for the evaporative emissions control features in 1971.
Your car also should have other detail differences such as the horn working via pulling the turn signal lever instead of a button in the middle of the wheel on later cars, different location of the windshield wiper motor, and other minor trim and detail differences.
So, basically the same as the others, but with just enough differences to be interesting! I don't have a '70 myself -- mine's a '74, the last year for Sonetts -- so I had to crib all this stuff out of various books. You can see a comparison chart of all the years on the Swedish Saab Registry website at http://www.saabregistret.se/data/utvsone.htm
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