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I've always loved Saab's styling, inside and out, and the company's individuality. Once GM bought majority share, many things improved for Saab, including reliability, access to great supply chain leverage, and GM's marketing machine. It's gotten so that even Consumer Reports has liked some Saabs in recent years. But now I'm wondering, has GM started to meddle too much with a good product? Is a new Saab 9-5 as good as it was 5-8 years ago? I won't ever consider the SUV a Saab.
Anyways, is somebody out there informed on this? For me, it's really a question of whether Saab will still be itself in 10 years, or just a name slapped onto GM vehicles. Poor Jaguar and Land Rover... if only they'd been bought by Toyota.
Once a car company that is renowned for its refined, classy saloons has stooped to the SUV market you know things have gone wrong somewhere. If they were a completely self-sufficient company with absolutely no ties to GM whatsoever then I question whether the ugly SUV thing would have ever come into existence in the first place so to answer your question, yes, in my opinion I do think GM is meddling too much.
If you have nothing to contribute to the actual subject, kindly go and troll some other thread.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nico7
I've always loved Saab's styling, inside and out, and the company's individuality. Once GM bought majority share, many things improved for Saab, including reliability, access to great supply chain leverage, and GM's marketing machine. It's gotten so that even Consumer Reports has liked some Saabs in recent years. But now I'm wondering, has GM started to meddle too much with a good product? Is a new Saab 9-5 as good as it was 5-8 years ago? I won't ever consider the SUV a Saab.
Anyways, is somebody out there informed on this? For me, it's really a question of whether Saab will still be itself in 10 years, or just a name slapped onto GM vehicles. Poor Jaguar and Land Rover... if only they'd been bought by Toyota.
For the most part, the cars keep getting better and better. I'm interested to see how the forthcoming 280HP AWD 9-3 is received by the market. But there have definitely been some head-scratchers, such as re-badging a Blazer as a Saab or the particularly strange re-badging of the Subaru Impreza Wagon (aka the "Saabaru") back when GM had a stake in Subaru. Saab and Subaru have virtually no features, traits or heritage in common whatsoever and they are rarely cross-shopped, so why would they do that?
Mostly what is irking me now is the addition of loads of new exterior design elements. Typical "more-is-better" reasoning from GM, and a really ham-fisted handling of an already beautiful style. The grille and the rear have acquired so many design features as to be just too cluttered. It's starting to look like Jackson Pollock had a hand in the aesthetic.
The black plastic "accent" on the rear bumper between the tailpipes makes me think of a Mazda3 or something. I think there are some Audis that have a similar look, but it cheapens the appearance of the car. And for, say, a Turbo X, I don't want to pay $45,000+ for a 9-3 with Mazda3 styling.
Anyways, I am pulling for the return of simplicity and refinement instead of ridiculously ornate detail. I would like to buy a Saab one of these years, and I don't want to have to resort to model years '01-'05 just because they don't make them like they used to.
I saw two brand new Saabs going down the street on my way home yesterday. One of them was a grey-like color and the other I think was black. I believe they were the newly redesigned 9-3, but they could have been the 9-5. Both cars had the window stickers on them, I would have tried to look at the price, but I was going the other way. They were probably on test drives. I think the Saabs now look better than the ones from about 5 through maybe ten years ago. Looking at those Saabs made me want one bad. That is the first time I have ever wanted a Saab.
If you have nothing to contribute to the actual subject, kindly go and troll some other thread.
Sure I'll contribute . In addition to making ugly cars, SAAB's rank pretty poorly in both Initial Quality and Dependability Ratings Per JD Power. To put it bluntly, the cars simply do not sell well in the US. They do well in Europe but Americans know ugly cars when they see them.
That still has nothing to do with the thread topic, but nice try.
Sorry, just love to bag on SAAB.
As far as GM ownership goes, I'm sure they will sell off SAAB just as Ford already has done with both Jaguar and Land Rover.
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. In addition to making ugly cars, SAAB's rank pretty poorly in both Initial Quality and Dependability Ratings Per JD Power. To put it bluntly, the cars simply do not sell well in the US. They do well in Europe but Americans know ugly cars when they see them.
