MYTH: GM Ruined Saab
http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101129/OEM01/311299980
Contrary to popular opinion, especially among fellow Saab enthusiasts, General Motors did not abruptly take over and ruin Saab. Indeed, Saab’s brand DNA and corporate identity were muddied under GM’s flawed stewardship, but the division hardly had a reason to live by the end of its peak in the late 1980s.
While GM received legitimate blame for diluting the brand with Opel platforms, taking engineering shortcuts, and using cheaper materials, GM deserves credit for introducing Saab to modern manufacturing efficiencies and changing the way Saab did business.
After more than a decade of producing the iconic 900, Saab had few plans to replace it. Designs were sketched but nothing was remotely ready for production. It is possible that Saab would have reskinned the car to update its styling and pushed it along through 1996, before US safety and emissions standards were due to dramatically increase, and then… what? Pixie dust falls from the sky, we climb into a time machine, and relive the glory of Reagan years?
The Swedish automaker was on autopilot, enjoying the moment and living in its past, falling asleep behind the wheel, ready to crash into a concrete divider. It was, hauntingly, a glimpse at what was also happening at GM.
The 13-year run of the 1997-2009 Saab 9-5 spanned four US presidential terms and serves as evidence of Saab’s willingness to allow products to wither on the vine, damaging the brand’s reputation for engineering and technological sophistication. Even in today’s advertising, Saab recalls the 1980s, focusing on its refinement of the turbo (I was in diapers back then, and I’m almost 30) as its greatest technological achievement.
Fast Tube by Casper
When the 9-5 arrived in 1997 (1998 in the US) to replace the aging 9000, we were listening to Soundgarden on Sony Discmans and gasoline was less than a dollar a gallon. Most upper middle class families drove Eddie Bauer Edition Ford Explorers, lived in culs de sacs lined with McMansions, and were wealthy beyond belief thanks to their shares of AOL and Netscape quadrupling in value.
By 2009, when the 9-5 was finally replaced, the iPod was in its seventh generation and a gallon of regular unleaded spiked to $3.90. The false prosperity of the 90s came crashing down as the dot-com and real estate bubbles burst like damaged saline implants, revealing a flat-chested mess of fraud and greed.
In that same period of time, the Acura TL had already gone through four generations.
You could certainly blame the 9-5’s neglect on GM. By 2000, Saab was a wholly owned GM subsidiary, nearly as homegrown as Saturn and Chevrolet. With GM losing market share at every division and failing to earn a profit since 2004, Saab was last in line for new platforms and refinements — after Chevrolet, Pontiac, Buick, Cadillac, Saturn, Hummer, and GMC.
The article (linked at the bottom) criticized the Opel-based 900 that arrived under GM’s management in 1993. It was an admirable effort as a convertible, especially the muscular, fighter jet-inspired Viggen, but the build quality and mechanical longevity were arguably not on the level of the 78-93 900 “classic”, which made Saab internationally popular a quarter century before. The classic 900 is to this day the iconic Saab, the same way a ’57 Bel Air is the iconic Chevrolet.
Additionally, Saab management tolerated an 18% employee absentee rate. Calling in sick to go frolicking in the fjords was the norm.
Saab History created a chart detailing Saab’s sales volume since 1947, and the GM era beginning in 1990 at least sustained previous sales levels, though heavy incentives and financing discounts were often necessary to move metal.
In the late 1980s, GM was feeling the pressure of global competition, and acquisitions and new brands (Saturn) and partnerships (Geo) were intended to increase access to global markets and improve manufacturing processes. The General was primarily interested in Saab’s legendary engineering talent, but without skilled management in manufacturing, sales, and marketing, Saab had no viable way of sustaining its autonomy. Unfortunately, GM appeared to replace sound engineering with clever marketing, rather than complementing it.
So, for all of the blame GM legitimately deserves for screwing the pooch, it may have been better than nothing.
Additional details are in this article: http://www.autonews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20101129/OEM01/311299980
I’m quite convinced that GM are to be blamed for Saabs failure, as they made some truly stupid decisions.
Saab wanted to make a traditional combi-coupé version of the current generation 9-3 but never got the funding. Saab wanted to make their cars 4WD essentially from the start of GM’s involvement in the company, the desire to make multi-fuel cars was established in 1998. Saab realised that they NEED a Sonett and from the start, the Opel Speedster was supposed to be called Saab Sonett. However, Opel is world renowned for booring cars with crap performance, so few motor enthusiasts were interrested. In fact, from what I heard, the speedster sold so slow, that Opel and Vauxhall had to sell them at true bargain prices just to get rid of them. GM then made the Solstice, and made different versions of the car for pretty much every single GM brand (Pontiac, Saturn, Daewoo and yet again Opel), but ignored Saab. You’d think that with the Speedster GM would’ve learned their lesson, but no, they had to make the Opel GT and NOT a Sonett.
That they kept the old 9-5 in production for so long and made Saabs have sub-par interiors was only the tip of the ice berg. Why was the old 9-5 so small? And why wasn’t it a kombi-coupé? Why was there no Viggen version of the current 9-3?
Further more, the development costs for the Cadillac BLS were covered by Saab. GM used Saab as a means of polishing their financial situation: a lot of developments which were used in other GM brands were officially paid for by Saab, resulting in smaller loss figures for the other GM brands. It’s becoming increasingly questionable if Saab actually were making losses in the end before the financial crisis.
Very good points!
These things havent got anything to do with eachother. SAAB might have disappeared a long time ago, if it wasn’t for General Motors. The character of SAAB cars was ruined
“Additionally, I was horrified to learn how Saab management tolerated an 18% employee absentee rate. Calling in sick to go frolicking in the fjords was the norm.”
This is not quite a fair point of attack. (And the fjords are in Norway.)
In Sweden we have at least 5 weeks of vacation, quite a lot of holidays and the possibility to stay home and take care of sick children. Read more here.
http://www.sweden.se/eng/Home/Work/Labor-market/Reading/3-good-reasons-to-work-in-Sweden/
18% was -outside- of approved vacation time.
Discipline was seriously lacking at Saab.
I do think that GM ruined Saab. I have owned Saab 900 and 9000, and were considering of buying the new 93, but when I went for a test drive, I had previously test driven Opel Vectra. And I was supriced that Saab which I always had considered as high quality product, felt just as cheap as Opel was, -I’m not saying here, that Opel would be bad car- It was like driving the same car.
Also the “old” Saablike things, like handling, the turbo kick, wich I had loved were totally missing. The car had turned from THE Saab, to just one car among the others.
I think the fate of Saab would of been different if the a Germans purchased it. really was a unique car, and I miss them. GM did not pay any attention to it – just as Buick, and Oldsmobile, and the brand died. China saved Buick but no suck luck for Saab.