Saab is Dead - Spyker pulls out

The Grim Reaper arrives for Saab

Spyker has pulled out of negotiations to buy Saab from GM, who have announced that Saab will now cease to trade and be wound down.

Saab has been in intensive care for what seems like forever. Last profitable around the time the dinosaurs died out it has been kept alive in recent years with funds from US car giant GM. But GM’s problems lead to the forced sale of Saab, and for a while it looked like Dr Koenigsegg had a cure for the ailing Swede. But that turned out to be a false dawn, so GM sold off some of Saab’s old bits to Chinese car maker BAIC to buy a bit of time and raise a few bob.

But there seemed to be a light at the end of the tunnel in the shape of Spyker, Dutch makers of quirky, splif-inspired Supercars. Spyker and Saab have one thing in common – neither seem likely to make any money in the forseeable future (nor have in recent history) – but Spyker’s ace is strong Russian money behind them. So it looked like there was a chance of a deal coming off.

That deal looked even more likely when GM announced that the deal had to be done by year end or they’d close Saab down. Now maybe they thought that would galvanise Spyker in to making an unbeatable bid. But if I were Victor Muller – Spyker’s boss – I’d have poured myself a large Brandy, lit up a joint and halved what I was going to offer GM. We have no idea if that’s what happened (although announcing a short deadline or the business goes is not what you would call a sensible negotiating strategy on GM’s part) but whatever has happened GM has announced that the deal with Spyker won’t happen and that Saab will now cease trading.

Which is all very sad. GM will have to honour existing warranties and such like, but what’s going to happen to the new 9-5 and the almost here 9-4X is anyone’s guess. Which is a real shame as both cars looked like they had a chance of delivering some real sales for Saab.

I guess Spyker will have to look elsewhere for the SUV technology they would have been able to use on the Spyker D8.