The bailiffs have been in to the Saab Museum
The day before Saab managed to get court protection from its creditors this week, Swedish bailiffs visited the Saab Museum and sequestered the historic cars to pay Saab’s debts.
Just like every other car maker with a lineage, Saab likes to make the most of its car-making history. So it has a museum with everything from the UrSaab to the Aero-X on display. And now, it has a little addition – stickers on all its cars from the Swedish bailiff saying Utmätt Gods – sequestered for debt.
It appears that bailiffs from Kronofogden – Swedish debt collectors – visited Saab’s museum on Tuesday, the day before Saab managed to overturn the previous decision not to grant it court protection, and slapped little stickers on all the exhibits proclaiming them seized assets.
Everything from the 1947 Saab 92 to the Aero-X by way of the 1985 Saab EV-1 has been stickered by the bailiffs with a view to flogging them off to cover the huge debts Saab has. But, for now, they’ve been stymied by the new court order.
Although it appears visitors to Saab’s Museum (open every day for a modest entrance fee of £6 – every little helps) will have to view the exhibits complete with sequestered stickers for the time being.
But even if Saab fails to complete its deal with the Chinese and get back on a viable footing, the Saab Collection may well be safe anyway.
The Mayor of Trollhattan – Saab’s home town – has said that if the bailiffs do get their sticky fingers on the Saab Collection, the local council will dig deep and buy it up.
But hopefully it won’t come to that. The small indignity of having a walking possession order on its exhibits in the museum is nothing compared to the indignities Saab has already suffered in the last few years, and the curiosity value may even bring in a few more punters.
But it’ll take a lot of extra punters to cover Saab’s current €150 million black hole.
Paul Phillips says
Oh dear, the SAAB saga just gets worse. Yesterday I saw a 9-5 which I can honestly say is the first of the new model and did look quite good. May have been worth a punt for rarity value, I suppose. It’s a shame that a company who have made such iconic cars are now living a hand-to-mouth existence, hoping that the Chinese come to their rescue with a wad of cash. Some hope, because by my reckoning the SAAB name will be bought up in the inevitable fire-sale, with the cars made in China, or India, or anywhere that labour is cheaper, crated and freighted to Sweden where they’ll be put together by a smaller workforce. This is known as the MG Motors business plan. It’s such a shame, but SAAB are on life-support at the moment and all those cars which testify to the company’s innovation over the years may become just distant memories.