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Goodbye from Saab?
Posted by Bjorn & Corinna Breitzke (more from Bjorn & Corinna Breitzke) on Tue, 16 Nov 1999 09:40:20
After almost 30 years of Saab life i recently sold my Saab 900i 16v and bought
an Opel Zafira mini van. Now, here's why, it may will be of interest for some
of you:
When my father bought his first 99 GL back in 1974 i was 9 years old and
absolutely enthusiastic. I loved the ruggedness of the design, the way of doing
things and solving problems in another way than the others. We lived in
Germany, near the Danish border then and took out on vaccation every summer to
Norway and Sweden. We visited the factory in Trollhättan and i was enchanted by
all the Robots doing their work so elegantly. I travelled many thousands of
kilometres on the back seat and fell asleep listening to the sound of that
engine.
Then we got a 900 GL in 1981 and this was the first car i drove, with all the
memories attached to that privilege. Which i had to fight for every time. Then
my father bought a 9000i CC and i moved to Copenhagen for studies. The first
thing i saved up for was an 11 years old 99 GL that rusted like hell, but it
was mine!
I still absoutely loved those cars and bought a used 900 GL in 1991 which i
kept a long time. We got married and that Saab carried the sign 'Just married'.
Two years later we were driving my first son home from hospital.
But Saab had changed now. The new models had not that swedish ruggedness and
the special appearence anymore, that i loved so much. They started to look like
the other cars, though adressing the high price luxury car market more and more
and turning down their image of the swedish folk car. Since i could not afford
45 k$ (including the crazy danish car registration tax of 180%, yes, 180%) i
bought one of the last 'real' 900. Again there was this feeling of safety, of
sweedish overengineering that carried me back to those days when sitting on the
back seat of that 99 CC, feeling so safe watching the Swedish landscape rush by
and slowly falling asleep.
Now we got our 2. son, and i had to face the fact, that with all the toddler
accessories with us, the car with its 1974 design got too small when taking out
on vaccation. The 9-3 offered not significantly more space, so we looked at the
9-5 Estate. The base model without ACC and Al wheels (probably not even
sellable in the US) costed about 60 k$. So we looked away again. The most other
estate cars were bigger and cheaper and we looked at the new Opel (GM) Zafira
which could load more ccm and more kg than the 9-5 or carry 7 people. I
realized, that this was the right family car so i ordered it and sold my 900i
16v with all the accessories which my father and i had collected for so many
years. I sold it to a very friendly policeman who is still happy about the car.
When he drove away from the driveway i had tears in my eyes, facing that my
Saab era now had gone. But i put a question mark at the subject line and i am
staying in the TSN. For maybe, some day, when my sons are grown i will buy a
(then) vintage Saab, maybe just like the one i sold.
Thanks for all that Saab'ing,
Bjorn Breitzke
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