2007 Saab 9-3 Premium on 2040-cars

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Last Saab 9-3 built nets nearly $48,000 at auction

It was among the last Saabs to roll off the production line in Trollhattan, Sweden, is virtually new, and now it has a new owner. The Saab 9-3 Aero Turbo4 we told you about a month ago has sold in an auction for the equivalent of $47,789. As with anything related to the remnants of the legendary Swedish automotive brand, the backstory on this one is a little complicated, starting with the model year. Saab originally ground production to a halt in 2011. This model came about after National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) acquired the brand out of bankruptcy, and was part of a run of 420 models built starting in late 2013 before NEVS lost the rights to use the Saab name and griffin logo. It was originally set aside for crash testing, but never actually used for that purpose, and mostly sat idle inside the plant, in case NEVS restarted production of combustion vehicles. The 41 miles on the odometer came from running the car on a test track near the Trollhattan plant for photography and video purposes. It features a 2.0-liter turbo-four engine that makes 217 horsepower and 258 pound-feet of torque. It has a two-tone interior with cream leather seats and a dashboard and center console that looks like what you might expect to result from Saab's parts-sharing arrangement under the ownership of bankruptcy-era General Motors. Nowadays, NEVS has financial backing from Chinese investors and is making electric vehicles based on the 9-3 platform and body, just without any Saab badging. It continues to operate the Trollhattan plant and another in Tianjin, China, and it reportedly plans a new plant in Shanghai. NEVS also has partnered with Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg in a venture to develop new EVs. The 9-3 buyer’s name is Claus Spaangaard. HeÂ’s a Danish car collector and car-repair shop owner who says he already owns two Saab cars. Proceeds from the auction will fund research into sustainable mobility in Sweden, NEVS says.

Saab tries [again] to emerge from bankruptcy

If we've learned one thing from watching The Walking Dead, it's that the only way to terminate a walker is with a swift and brutal blow to the brain. Sadly, no one has come along that's willing to do the gruesome deed to the stumbling shell that is Saab. The company's latest owner, National Electric Vehicle Sweden is trying, yet again, to crawl its way out of bankruptcy with a "composition proposal in order to exit the reorganization." That proposal, outlined in the attached press release, will see the majority of the company's many creditors receive full repayments. For 104 of the 573 creditors, all of whom have claims over 500,000 Swedish Krona (roughly $60,000), their claims will be reduced by 50 percent. If creditors approve the proposal, it'd provide "the conditions for completion of ongoing negotiations with two major OEMs," which the press release claims could come on as either a joint-venture partner in Trollhattan or a majority owner in the struggling company. We won't be holding our breath. Scroll down for the full press release from NEVS. Thursday, February 19, 2015 A composition to get Nevs out of reorganisation National Electric Vehicle Sweden AB, Nevs, provides unsecured creditors a composition proposal in order to exit the reorganisation. It creates the conditions for completion of ongoing negotiations with two major OEMs and the implementation of a new business plan together with partners and owners. Nevs' owners and management has noted the difficulty of completing this type of complex negotiations during a reorganisation and the risk premium it implies. The current negotiations, together with two major OEMs, are mainly focused on two tracks that are complementing each other. One is to form a technical joint venture company in Trollhattan and the other is to introduce a new majority owner in Nevs, with the plan of making Saab cars a global premium product. - The negotiations are progressing but we also see the complication of reaching an agreement when we are in a state of reorganisation. Our main owner has single-handedly financed the reorganisation and intends to get us out of it. In order for this to be possible financially, we need to reach a composition arrangement with the creditors, says Nevs CEO, Mattias Bergman. The composition proposal includes a composition of 50 percent for unsecured creditors on claims over 500'000 SEK.

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.