Ben’s Car Blog

Swade’s enthusiasm for Saabs has had me thinking about the “next car” for when it’s time to let the Mi16 go.

I’m thinking Saab 9000 Aero, or whatever a high-pressure turbo 9000 was called in any particular year.

Pros:

• Big-ish but not stupidly massive
• Roomy
• Safe
• Enough fasts to be interesting
• Small enough engine to be fuel efficient
• “Different”
• Annoys people who look down their noses at Saabs
• Cheaper than similar age Volvo 850 wagons

Cons:

• “Different”
• Expensive to fix? (Possibly spurious — my Pug hasn’t been expensive to fix)
• Turbo = expensive insurance (but I’m mostly past the age where that’s a real issue)
• alleged 1980s style turbo lag (eg: nothing, nothing, nothing… holy cow!)
• not a Mazda6, which is my wife’s current stated preference

Swade from Trollhattan Saab is possibly the most passionate Saab dude out there.

He was about to buy a 1999 Viggen (that’s a crazy-powerful Saab in case you didn’t know) and got a Dept of Transport check done on it, to see if there were any “financial encumberances” on it. No money was owed but it turns out the car had been previously entered on the “written off vehicles” register! Not cool at all.

I wonder if it was a real Viggen or a numbers job? That is, did someone re-birth a normal 9-3 as a much rarer Viggen?