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Saab 9-3 production has restarted

If you're one of the small cadre of Saab drivers, first of all, kudos to you. Because as Top Gear pointed out, Saab drivers are among the most intellectual drivers out there. Secondly, we've got good news for you, because the 9-3 has officially resumed production at the Trollhättan plant in Sweden.
For those of you who may not have followed the story, a quick refresher: Founded in 1947, Saab Automobile AB was an independent automaker until 1989 when General Motors began the decade-long process acquiring it. Unable to make it profitable, GM sold Saab to Spyker in 2010, but that Dutch automaker proved unable to make a go of it, either, and finally shut it down a year later. Much of Saab's assets were acquired by National Electric Vehicle Sweden, which in turn is partially owned by the Chinese city of Qingdao, which pledged to get production back online by the end of the year.
NEVS has apparently made good on its promise, bringing 600 workers back to the factory to resume production of the 9-3 much as it was when a workforce of 3,500 labored on it and its stablemates prior to the bankruptcy. The reborn 9-3 will be sold in Sweden and in China, with an electric version to bring some other updates sometime next year.

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).

Junkyard Gem: 1971 Saab 96

Americans could buy the very first mass-produced Saab car, the 92, all the way back in 1950. Few did, because a tiny and odd-looking Swedish car with a smoky two-stroke engine buzzing out 25 horsepower didn't seem suitable for highway use, especially when a new Plymouth business coupe sold for $1,371 (about $15,180 today). Then came the 93, notable to Americans mostly for being sold by novelist Kurt Vonnegut's Saab dealership in Massachusetts. The first Saab to win over respectable numbers of American car shoppers was the 96, introduced here for the 1961 model year. North American 96 sales continued through 1973, and I've managed to find one of the later 96s in a junkyard located near Pikes Peak in Colorado. North American sales of the much less oddball 99 began in the 1969 model year, and that car evolved directly into the original 900 that sold very well through the early 1990s. Still, some Americans living in icy regions stayed loyal to the 96, so Saab kept selling 96s here until federal emissions and safety regulations made such sales unprofitable. Meanwhile, Scandinavians could buy new 96s all the way through 1980. My grandfather, a self-taught engineer who set foot outside the city limits of St. Paul, Minn., only to race Corvettes at Elkhart Lake (in summer) and all manner of rust-prone imports on frozen lakes (in winter), had this Saab 96 when I was a kid. The somewhat uneven bodywork near street level is the result of house-paint-over-Bondo corrosion repairs, and I recall going on some terrifying high-speed rides around town with Grandpa, circa 1975, watching the pavement flash by through the holes in the floor as we headed to the VFW for the meat raffle. Hey, the St. Paul VFW had Grain Belt on tap for cheap, a consolation for those who failed to win any meat. After that, a man could take his Saab to an establishment selling authentic St. Paul booya. As I recall, this Saab finally broke in half at an ice race in the late 1970s and got replaced by a slightly less rusty Rabbit. The serious Saab 96 nuts— including my grandfather— preferred the two-stroke three-cylinder engine, due to its chainsaw racket and allegedly superior performance on ice. By 1969, however, a Ford-produced V4 became the only powerplant available in a new 96 on our shores (the V4 had been an option for a couple of years prior to that). Someone grabbed the 65-horsepower V4 before I reached this car.