2001 Saab 9-3 Viggen 5 Speed on 2040-cars

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NEVS, the company that took over Saab, gets new majority owner

Chinese real estate conglomerate Evergrande Group, a key investor behind troubled electric vehicle startup Faraday Future, has acquired a 51 percent stake in NEVS. That's the Chinese-backed Swedish electric vehicle company that purchased the assets of Saab out of bankruptcy in 2012. The investment by subsidiary Evergrande Health Industry Group was valued at the equivalent of $930 million and is expected to help NEVS develop new EVs. Evergrande said it paid the first installment of $430 million on Jan. 15, with the remainder due by the end of the month. The remaining 49 percent stake is controlled by a holding company controlled by NEVS founder Kai Johan Jiang. "It means that NEVS will get a financial (sic) strong main owner who is very interested in developing our vision about green mobility transport solutions for the future," NEVS CEO Stefan Tilk said in a statement. NEVS, short for National Electric Vehicle Sweden, owns production facilities in Trollhattan, Sweden, and Tianjin, China, with another under construction in Shanghai. In late 2017 the company launched what apparently was limited production of the 9-3 EV, an electric vehicle based — you guessed it — on the old Saab 9-3 platform. The company now says it will be built in Tianjin starting later this year, with components coming from Trollhattan. It boasts a 186-mile range, in-car WiFi and a cabin air filter for the notoriously smoggy Chinese air. It also showed a battery-electric 9-3X concept at CES Asia in 2017, which is likely to be its next model pegged for production. The South China Morning Post, citing local media reports, says two of NEVS' models meet the standards for mass production in China. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. Definitely the best promotional video we've ever seen. Evergrande Health first came to Faraday Future's rescue back in 2017 with a promised $2 billion investment, but the two sides later went into arbitration in Hong Kong over a dispute about money following the first infusion of $800 million, leading the automaker to cut staff and wages last year, casting the future of FF into doubt. At the end of 2018, Faraday announced it had entered into a new restructuring agreement with an Evergrande Health subsidiary that sees them end litigation and jettison the previous investment agreement, taking Evergrande's investment in the company to 32 percent.

Junkyard Gem: 1987 Saab 900 4-Door Sedan

Saab sold the original 900 in the United States from the 1979 through 1993 model years (followed by another few years of Opel Vectra-based 900s), and most of the 900s you'll find today are the higher-end models with 16-valve engines and/or turbochargers. Last year in this series, we saw a 900 Turbo and a 900 Turbo Convertible in Colorado car graveyards, and now it's time to take a look at a used-up Colorado 900 with the base 8-valve engine and few extras. The cheapest new 1987 Saab available here was the base three-door hatchback with 5-speed manual transmission, which had an MSRP of $14,395 (about $39,497 in 2023 dollars). If you wanted a new 900 with four doors that year, the price of admission started at $14,805 ($40,622 after inflation). That's the car we've got here. The engine is a 2.0-liter SOHC slant-four, the direct descendant of the engine originally developed in partnership with Triumph for use in the Saab 99 and Triumph Dolomite. The Triumph TR7 used members of this engine family as well. This engine was rated at 110 horsepower and 118 pound-feet. The naturally-aspirated 16-valve version in the '87 900S made 125 horses, while the 900 Turbo had 160 horsepower. The automatic transmission cost an extra $430 (about $1,180 now); most 900 buyers chose the five-on-the-floor manual. In fact, I have never documented a junked 1979-1993 Saab 900 with an automatic. This one came close to the 175,000-mile mark during its life. The paint is somewhat faded, but the interior looks good for a car this age. Its owner or owners took good care of it. The body has a few dents but no rust worth mentioning. If it had been a 900S or a 900 Turbo, it would have had a better chance of avoiding this fate. Saab's innovative technology for 1987 starts at around $15,000 and goes up to the $20,000,000 Viggen (the fighter plane, not the later hot-rod 9-3 that borrowed the Viggen name).

Want one of the last Saab 9-3s ever built? Here's your chance

National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) purchased the assets of bankrupt Swedish automaker Saab in 2012. The next year, NEVS restarted production of the 9-3 sedan that lasted until 2014. In December 2013, the company pulled a silver 9-3 Aero Turbo from its pool of customer cars, intended for crash testing. The crash test never happened, and that silver sedan hung out at the factory for six years. Autocar writes that NEVS wants to find that Saab a good home, and will put it up for auction later this year. The model has a 2.0-liter turbocharged four-cylinder with 217 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque, shifted through a six-speed manual transmission. Other than the fact it's spent six years holed up in a Swedish factory, the condition is brand new - there are only 3.1 miles on the odometer. It's hard to predict what such a time capsule might go for. NEVS only built 420 units before ceasing production, so the 2013 9-3 Aero Turbo has rarity on its side. This isn't the only such Saab to roll out of the crypt recently, though. In 2017, a 2014 9-3 Aero popped up in the Netherlands with only 211 miles on the odo. In 2018, a 2011 diesel 9-3 SportCombi wagon with 56 miles on the odo broke through the space-time continuum in Italy. NEVS will put its 9-3 on display in Trollhattan this weekend during the annual Saab Car Museum Festival.