Saab production restarts – again.

Production has restarted at Saab’s Trollhättan factory after the troubled Swedish car maker finally got its hands on some much-needed Chinese cash from Pang Da.

Of course, we nearly got here before when Saab went courting China’s Hawtai Motor Group, but that deal fell apart when the Chinese government refused to sanction the deal. Or Hawtai pulled out. Depending on which version you believe.

But this time the deal – with Chinese car dealer group Pang Da – looks a little less shaky, especially as the chunk of cash that has bailed Saab out (for now), and allowed production to restart for the first time since early April, is actually up-front money for Saabs for China.

So it seems possible that even if the deal for Pang Da to take a shareholding in Saab and develop joint production deals in China goes sour, Saab could be able to keep the money they’ve already got. Which will keep them floating for a while at least.

But for now it’s smiles mall round as the production lines start to roll again, and Spyker/Saab/Swedish Automobile boss Victor Muller joined Pang Da’s Pang Qinghua to witness the first of the 100 or so cars come off Saab’s prodution line yesterday. And that’s just the start.

Saab say they have a backlog of around 8,000 cars to build, which includes the 1,300 cars Pang Da have paid €30 million up-front for (and Pang Da will be buying another €15 million worth next month too).

Despite filling in a short-term hole and getting production lines rolling again, it seems unlikely this is the last hole Saab is going to have to dig itself out, but we do hope this is the start of the rise and rise of Saab.

They do deserve a bit of luck.