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I can't believe you got up at 5am to post this, Jim! Ha!
Well, as Jim said, the Saab convention was a little disappointing. I took away a few positives, not the least of which was meeting Hoosier Jim and Justin HiFi!
One time a few years ago, I was at a friend's house in his garage. He had a garage band, with big guitar amps and speakers. When his band played there, they were LOUD. As we were chatting one afternoon after one of the band's practice sessions, a spider crawled out of one of the stage speakers. He looked a little fried, staggering on his eight legs, obviously blast shocked from spending the jam session inside the speaker box.
I got to sit in Justin's car while he demonstrated his stereo to me. Now I know how that spider felt!
Okay, I'm kidding a bit. But I've got a kick-ass home theater setup with big Klipsch speakers and a 300 Watt powered subwoofer that rattles the windows in my home, and I can tell you, it is NOTHING compared to the sound inside Justin's 900. He played a few CD selections with his bass set on the lowest setting and the volume turned up less than halfway, and the power of his sound system pounded me through the seat. It literally kicks ass! The highs were crystal clear, the bass crisp and not muddy, and the acoustic balance was equalized perfectly across the entire audible spectrum. The sound was superior to any live performance I've ever heard. Justin sure knows what he's doing when it comes to car audio.
We saw some pretty neat Saabs there, including Per Ecklund's Pikes Peak race car, quite a few old 96s and Sonnetts, and a 900 that had 404,000 miles on its odometer and still looked great. One car, a heavily modified red 900 that looked more like a 9-3, had some gizmo called a "Sensetronic transmission" or something like that -- it was a 5 speed manual without a clutch pedal. When you moved the shifter, the car would sense the movement and engage and disengage the clutch for you. The engine compartment of that car was sparkling clean. Another awesome car was a Sonnett someone rescued from a scrap heap, and turned into a showpiece car -- a four year labor of love that became a work of automotive art. It was worth going to the show this year to see some of these spectacular machines.
This was my first Saab convention, and many veterans of previous conventions told me that in earlier years it was not uncommon to have over 800 registrants at one of these gatherings. There were only a hundred or so this year. Also, there were only a few vendors on hand -- SPG9, Garrett turbo, Castrol, Pirelli... Harmon Kardon sponsored the Friday night concert. There weren't any parts or cars for sale, which was disappointing to many (though two people asked me if I was interested in selling my Beastie!). It was nice meeting John Whyland of SaabSavior and Mike Schadan of SPG9, though.
Spirits were dampened somewhat by the torrential rains that came and went Friday and Saturday afternoon. The grassy fields where the tents were set up became a muddy shallow lake. As we posed for pictures with our cars after the rains on Saturday, we were attacked by ants and mosquitoes. Good old Florida swampland!
The rain did provide some amusement. When it started pouring on Saturday, the convertible owners rushed out to put the tops up on their cars. Most of the people huddled in the convention center while the rain came down like a waterfall. Someone who came to the convention in a convertible Mustang obviously forgot he'd left the top down, and as the car filled with water, a woman in the crowd was heard to say, "Who cares? It isn't a Saab!" The Mustang driver eventually was seen sprinting out to the parking lot to put the top up, but an inch or two of rain had fallen by that point. Ouch.
I decided not to hang around for the Sunday breakfast and award ceremony. I left after the picture-taking session and hit I-95 tailing a red 900 with Maryland plates. They were doing about 90 mph until the rains came again, then slowed below the speed limit. I slowed to about 70 or so, which WAS the speed limit, and left them (and most everything else on the road) behind. Gotta love front wheel drive on wet roads! And of course, Rain-X is great stuff, too. The Beastie was back in the Garage Mahal in Jacksonville shortly after 8pm last night.
So... does anyone know where next year's convention is going to be?
- = M = -
'87 900T 167K
, Sun, 15 Jul 2001 12:49:47
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