Should be interesting.

Koenigsegg made 18 cars last year and employ 45; Saab sold 93,000 and employ 3,400 ...

 

Saabs Suuck.

Koenig'll probably melt them down and make more exotica.

Hopefully.

 

Hmm. I had a 95 Estate as my last company car (5 yrs ago) and it still had some semblance of Saabishness. I agree that the 93s are just thinly disguised Vectras.

 

Pre GM Saab's were great
I truly hope Konnsiissiisngsss can apply their niche expertise to getting Saab back to pre GM days.

 

I can appreciate the shared platform idea because the cost of design should plummet (which is good for the consumer in theory) but it falls down in my opinion because the Vectra is not so much a car as a vanilla tool and the 93 is just so obviously a veccy and out of sorts with the brand because of that. A ford vectra would be fine , they'd sell.

GM and Ford are right up sh4t creek and saab needs to reinforce it's brand to survive (ask porsche for details) and they completely failed to do that.

Seems an odd deal though. They dont really have a car to sell so can they afford to develop one?

 

Oh, GM's mismanagement of SAAB would make a thick tome!

Making the 9^5 more like a next-gen 9^3 than a 9000 replacement, cancelling about 5 new car proposals, raping out all the tech for their own use, you name it...

Oddly enough, I can see a lot of sense in the Koenigsegg proposal - especially with a new SAAB-like EV from part of the conglomerate. I think with the balance of power shifting east, there is a chance for tiny Swedish anti-giants to survive, where as the bigger conglomerates will fail.

I'd expect continued GM architecture-sharing, but just not done so crappily. Oddball SAABs, not oddified Opels.

 

I completely disagree with respect to Ford.

Ford US are the only manufacturer not to have taken a government bung. European Ford cars are generally excellent - my business partner's S-Max is an utterly brilliant all-round, quality tool and I am amazed at how well it drives. A friend who is extremely handy behind the wheel raves about the new Fiesta. The C-Max is probably the consummate 'sensible'. car. The US Ford Fusion Hybrid is certainly innovative.

With one or two exceptions, this is an impressive range of vehicles:

http://www.ford.co.uk/Cars

http://www2.showroom.fordvehicles.com/Showroom.jsp

Edit:
And who wouldn't love to use one of these as a daily-driver...

http://www.fordvehicles.com/trucks/superduty/

 

ME

 

Ford of Europe has transformed its product range in the last decade, it's true. I'm not sure whether brand perception has caught up with reality.

But Ford of America is still financially precarious. They really need to offload Volvo, to shore themselves up.

TBF, Opel's products are probably a lot better these days then the Poxhall image portrays. Again, it's the entire global business model that's bolloxed. I've read that even the GM-logo'd bog roll is excessively costly, due to its tortuous production route! Not sure it's true, but it's credible.

 

my next car will be a gm.