Death Of A Brand: Saab Flatlines On The Table After Running Out Of Money

SAAB deserves to die. They spent the last few years building cars that were anaemic with hp and torque figures that were simply far to 1990s especially for turbocharged cars. They continued to flag this garbage about being "born from jets" when very few people, much less American customers, had ever even seen a SAAB jet. All of those were military models that were not exported outside Sweden. Their styling was lukewarm at best and their build-quality was suspect. The current 9-5 was too little too late. Like every other European car, they are a waste of time and money. Good riddance.

hmmm sounds kinda personal, disgruntled SAAB employee perhaps??????

I don't think many of SAAB's design & marketing failures were the brand's fault? Remember, GM swallowed SAAB whole and re-organized it to operate as all its other brands. It hadn't be allowed to operate "on its own" since maybe a few years after GM to full control of the automaker.

GM did what it did best --- used warmed-over vehicle platforms and differentiated the front & rear facias a bit to look like newer SAABS were totally different from the Chevys, Pontiacs, Saturns, etc. It wasn't until the (real) initial threat of bankruptcy that GM started to do some true R&D for brands not named Cadillac.

GM has squandered countless opportunities with its own list of brands to really have made some truly great vehicles.

"Like every other European car, they are a waste of time and money"????
What a wrong perception of the European auto industry!
Thanks God there's Korean automakers to supply everybody's needs

Saab WAS a pioneer of strong fwd cars in the 60s and 70s. Their 900 was eons ahead of the pack for its time. Unfortunately, it didn't carve out a niche like other small companies to stand out. And then GM took it over and fucked it up. I hope it survives for the sake of the 3700 employees, and Spykar.

You do realize that when GM took over SAAB's sales jumped massively, and only ever died down recently. I hardly call that f*cking up.

Rally sad that EIB is laying down these conditions. It's almost as if GM has the EIB in it's pocket. It's as if GM knew that Saab was going to go down when they sold it to Mueller. They knew that Mueller would eventually require additional cash and would call upon Antonov.So GM was able to make a little pocket money instead of bearing the cost of shutting down Saab. So assuming they go down who get's the factory and stampings etc. The Chinese company that bought the body stampings of the old 9-5 could easily come in and pickup the scraps for pennies on the kron as they say. It might be a similar scenario with what happened to British Leyland in the UK. Still sad I think Saab had decent model plans and the current 9-5 is a decent car even with a GM platform.

sorry to hear all those people are out of jobs hope they find work soon... just not making cars