Awesome Saab..i worked at a Saab dealer when this car came out.. unreal amounts of torque steer but boy was it fun to drive. RIP Saab...and thanks Motorweek for this great look back:)
I was a young twenty something tech when these came out at the dealer. I was just moving over from the Saab side to the Porsche side. Loved these cars. We used to pdi these and the. Tell the customer to come get your friggen’ Viggen….😂
When I worked for GM I got to drive a Viggen convertible on the GM Proving Ground. The vehicle was fund to drive but it had Torque steer out the Ying-Yang, it was hard to keep on the road. Saab always made faster cars than most people thought. From 40mph - 70 mph, 2006 9-5 Aero was faster than 2006 Porsche 911 Turbo! Saab was one of the Best cars that GM never how to market. There constant fights between Saab and GM over product development, GM wanted Saab just change the Button and Badges of a current GM model and nothing else and call it a Saab, Saab ignore this and went on to overengineer a vehicle (usually great cars) that lost money on every car they sold. You would think there were some happy medium.
A friend of my father had one and the dealer at the time suggested a quaife differential which all but cured the torque steer and made it amazing out of corners as well. He said it was the best $1,000 installed he ever spent on a mod.
Probably one of the reasons SAAB failed. Didn't offer models customers wanted to buy. By offering a automatic transmission in this model they would have appealed to many more buyers.
Actually Viggen means like "the thunderstone". In scandinavian viking times people found old axe heads in the soil and thought that these axes had striken down from the gods with the lightning. While in reality they had been laying buried in the ground since the stoneage.
vwmatt33 was part of their bailout sadly, and the buyer unfortunately got forced to back down in court. I do believe a company called NEVS owns Saab now, and they are putting the 9-3 into limited production, here's the catch though... A: only sold in China and Sweden (and I believe also Norway) and B: it will be a fully electric car only
GM killed SAAB because SAAB was told to change the body parts and the badge of some GM cars at the time (Cavalier for example), but they went sooooo far that it costed GM a whole fortune. And they pulled the plug for good. It's sad, really.
These cars on the motorway???? I mean even today against modern vehicles, absolutely awesome, it's like a fcking rocket, I covered 100s of miles and couldn't stop, it was so addictive, you really have to drive one to see what I mean.................stunning stunning stunning
Loving this one thank's for sharing very important information giving blessed love to all knowledge is power hopefully everyone pays attention keep up the good work Saab one of my favorite cars wow throw back 🙏🙏🙏🇯🇲🇯🇲🇯🇲💪💪💪
No squat or dive, it looks amazing in those high speed braking tests. Saab’s were stealthy and could be easily tuned to run like this Viggen Thunderbolt.
Holy shit 39k USD in 1999, I thought it was 10k less expensive. With inflation it's the price of a nicely equiped Grand Sport Corvette or a GT350 Mustang.
I was just enjoying the video until I heard of the Mitsubishi supplied 2.3 Liter turbo with the horsepower rating (which are actually good even by today's standards). Not trying to get side tracked here, but why on Earth do companies like Mitsubishi supply automakers with incredible engines, like the one shown for the Saab, but don't utilize them in their own automobiles? I could only imagine how this engine could of saved automobiles like the Mitsubishi Eclipse.
If only GM treated Saab the way the Chinese treat Volvo. Give them funding but don’t meddle with their engineers and designers. Amazing how the fortunes of these two great Swedish marques have turned out.
This is so awesome. Curious why you've mentioned before that some recordings are in tricky formats? What kind of formats were used in the 80s ... (Beta?) Thanks in advance!
If only they knew back then what a fine and rare piece of art the viggen is today. In Sweden, this car is pure fucking gold. The love for it cannot be described. I sure wish i had one..
I think the 90s techno music is fitting for the car and review because the car deserves that respect for how ahead this car really was. It looks like SAAB had a hand in this review to me.
Thank you to General Motors for killing SAAB. SAAB was the coolest car company ever. First to really make turbo gas engines common, safety concious but not boring like a Volvo, cool ignition switch location and night panel. GM couldn't let them do their own thing so sales fell, then GM dumped them for next to nothing but kept shackles on what they could or couldn't do. The end of Saab was a sad day.
Very good looking car with excellent practicality as a coupe hatchback. It reminds me of the Volvo C30 hatchback. I prefer the Saab because it is larger, and it has more daily use. They are extremely hard to find, especially in good shape.
saabs are more tuner friendly. Its SO easy to make 350 bhp (280ish whp) with them. But both the GTP and saab, the weak point is the transmission. With just a piston swap in the B235 engine, it can handle 600 bhp quite easily with enough fuel/turbo.
260 hp at the wheels? Dang.. that’s ~300 bhp You’d think it would run faster than 7.0 0-60, but then again, Motorweek is infamous for its slow acceleration times. I’d bet with some minor mods it would pull 400 hp
Why were cupholders such a task in the 90's? Every car I had back then (Probe, Laser, LHS, Cherokee Classic) had very few, if any, usable cupholders. Some were so cheap and flimsy with the way they folded (Chrysler LHS) out while others just weren't practical. And the Laser? I remember having to buy one of those plastic holders that you had to hope fit the door frame. I was a teen and sojust remember what a pain in the A that was. Today I have a 12 year old Navigator with more cupholders than I need. Newer cars have lights in the damn holders, and some cars even have coolers for your road sodas. I know driving habits change but cupholders seem pretty basic and an easy enough addition to any car cockpit. It's not like a major technological breakthrough I'm talking about here, either.
That's not bad.... Not fast but not bad. Keep in mind 50-80mph was the strong point for any Saab, not much could compete at those speeds. Add some mods? Strong point becomes 50-100+ depending on the mods
Saab live on through NEVS. Also, Volvo supposedly considering to start a new, more youth oriented brand. Speculation is that that's why Saab (the aircraft manufacturer) doesen't want NEVS to use the Saab brand name anymore.
TassieLorenzo and they are still worth like 20k ! The SAAB would be safer then all cars mentioned in these comments ! They spent heaps of money in safety before most car companies did !
Anyone own one of these and remove the electronic torque limiters? What was your results? Man... I used to want one of these when I was young. Almost forgot about it.
+WikdSeafood The "GM screwed them over" line is getting old. Saab was an absolute basketcase of a company before GM threw them a lifeline and extended their life expectancy by at least a decade.
GM saved saab for a bit, everytime GM said to go with a more concervative approach they laughed in the executives faces and they did the opposite. GM lost allot of money with saab they killed themselves....
saab was a mess of a car, always broken but premium prices! same goes for Volvo. Ford, GM hold them all alive by making only losses with them till they sold both. saab is gone and Volvo is today Chinese which won´t last very long..
