Thursday, March 26, 2009

Not Quite The End Of The Saab Story?

I first drove a Saab in the mid-1960s, a free-wheeling, two-stroke Type 96 that was thrifty on gas but unkind to shade tree mechanics.
The quirky Swedish marque probably would have had difficulty surviving the vicious shakeout in a global automotive market, but General Motors pretty much administered the kiss of death when Saab became a wholly owned subsidiary in 2000.

Jerk replaced quirk. Saabs today are pretty much rebadged Opels and Subarus and except for the familiar grippen (or griffin) logo are anything but distinctive. And so when GM announced that it was dumping the brand, it seemed to be the end of the Saab story.

Or maybe not.

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