esrosedotblog

SAAB STORY

This is so sad.

Swedish Buyer Drops Deal to Buy Saab

We loved our Saabs.

That's our last Saab car. A 1995 convertible.

We had a small dealer in Brookline, MA, right over the Boston city line. Two brothers who had been in the business for years. One ran the sales and the other ran the maintenance.

Buying a car there was quite fun, actually. There was no bullshit. No "I have to talk to the manager". Straight up. What it costs. What you want. OK. Done.

The salesman was the manager. The owner.

The maintenance was peerless.

You went and talked to the service bro. He got the mechanic. They ran through the work. The price was reasonable. The work just fine. As I recall, they took you for a ride to make sure everything was OK but that may be my memory playing tricks. The sales bro would always come out and perform. He was a funny guy.

Then, disaster. Saab made a deal with General Motors for US sales.

Overnight, the brothers lost their franchise and it went to a mega dealer out of town. I think we may have gone there for service once. It was horrible. It was sad. The poor guys. Poor us.

Fortunately, it was just about the time we were planning to move here.

There had been a dealer in the Valley but it was gone. Same bad deal. The new dealer was in Riverside over the pass. Over an hour away.

We bought a Jeep in Boston and took it cross country. Since then we have been Chrysler customers. Loyal. We got the Sebring because it always followed the Saab in appearance. We had rented it and the performance was and is good. The most popular convertible over the years.

But not as the Saab. The Saab convertible was the only true winter convertible. Tight as a drum. Double insulation in the top.

The performance was great.

The Saab motor made a putt putt sound, the result of an error in the original design. A kind of bubble sound. Nice. Unique. They were aircraft manufacturers and didn't quite get how to muffle the auto engine.

It became a signature. Later engines were made to keep the putt putt even though they knew how to keep it out.

It was a sign of the future when, in the last iteration of the machine, GM had them take the putt out.

Now the whole thing is gone, most likely. Whatever remains of the name and the pride in the machine was probably lost in the globalization of a fine brand.

Labels: automobiles, life