New Saab 9-3 leaks
What appears to be the first image of a new Saab 9-3 has leaked out on the day the Chinese reveal plans for Saab’s future.
It makes a change to have a Saab story that isn’t more doom and gloom and financial meltdown, but it does seem a bit of a coincidence that an image of the new Saab 9-3 should surface on the day Saab reveals the Chinese investment plans to put Saab back on its feet.
Still, casting our cynicism aside, the new Saab 9-3 will be a key part of the plans to revive Saab – but this leaked photo isn’t the first news we’ve had of the new 9-3.
Apart from Victor Muller’s musings about Saab’s future, we saw a proper concept of the new 9-3 back at Geneva in the Spring when Saab called the Saab PhoeniX (the 9-3 Concept) an ‘Aeromotional Design’ and managed to allude to Saab’s background in fighter planes by saying the PhoeniX ‘liquid metal’ forms and a dramatic jet canopy-inspired glasshouse’.
But now we get the image you see at the top, which is said to have been part of a presentation by Saab at the start of 2011 when Saab were busy trying to convince the Swedish Debt Office they had a viable future.
It doesn’t tell us a huge amount, except perhaps that the PhoeniX Concept at Geneva was based on this image and that it is a Combi Coupe and is said to sit on a shorter wheelbase than the current 9-3.
What we do know is that the chassis for the new 9-3 will be made by ZF at a factory just a few miles from Trollhattan, where sub-frames stamped out by Saab will be welded together and have Suspension, chassis mounts and brakes added before being shipped back to Saab. Or at least that was the plan in March.
Although this ‘leak’ seems likely to have been contrived to get focus on Saab as a car maker rather than Saab as a financial basket case, it’s an interesting diversion from the whole Saab Saga of late.
But, it all depends on the Chinese now.
Source: SVD
Have your say - leave a comment