:up: That´s the point, to sell more cars in the future, they really need to build a smaller car which is payable for the normal people and for private rally teamsQuote:
Originally Posted by Gard
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:up: That´s the point, to sell more cars in the future, they really need to build a smaller car which is payable for the normal people and for private rally teamsQuote:
Originally Posted by Gard
Yeah, but since the 60s Saab looked to USA as big export market. People i know at Saab Sweden said during the 70s thru the 90s the US importer always pushed for more "goodies" and of course higher prices....Quote:
Originally Posted by Brother John
Saab USA of course claimed that Saab customers "demanded" "fully loaded" cars with power everything....
from the very early 80s to 2000 I ran a small business heavily specialised in rebuilding Saabs---mostly, maybe 90% of my work was on 96 V4s owned by very loyal, long term, enthusiastic Saab owners. Most had owned multiple Saabs before and multiple Saabs at any given time...
And most bought 900s as their kids gree up---but kept their old cars..
Repeatedly, endlessly, constantly customers would ask me---as if I could answer---"why does Saab put all this expensive extra CRAP on every single car? I want a 900, and I want similar power like the 96 (I built motors close to Saab's old rally specification but with normal final drive ratios---and of course a bit quieter exhaust system and they had normal simple interior---but that's a hell of a lot quieter than an empty rally car!) But I don't want air conditioning, electric window lifts that die, electric sunroof, bloody climate control that never works right, or even power steering, but all that junk is standard on every car---and I'd never get a turbo without all that extra junk. Why?"
Saab USA was constantly crapping all over their core customers and dishonestly claiming "the customers want" newer and fancier cars, and that drove Saab Sweden to try and make Saab USA happy----despite evidence that Saab customers, like Volvo customers, wanted simpler STURDY safe---and in contrast to Volvo owners---FUN cars..
Saab USA stopped importation of the 96 at the end of 1973---but made them and sold them to Feb 1980. Saab USA bullshat claiming "the V4 can't meet the stricter emissions standards" but we all knew the EXACT same engine with 2 more cylinders ---the Ford V6---was sold in various forms until 2000.
Saab USA stopped importation of the 99 just when the damn thing was finally acceptably reliable (with the introduction of the chaindrive primary gearset) at the end of 1980, yet built and sold them in one form or another 9the rationalised 90) for another 8 years.
It could be argued that Saab's problems can be palced on the poor decisions at Trollhättan "bank" so much on Saabs USA sales, when Saab USA was so consistent in mis-guessing what their actual customers--core, traditional customers---wanted.
When I saw in the late 80s that more and more utterly clueless yuppie scum were buying fleets of Saab turbo 900s having come out of other mainly "consumer" cars, and that the car was becoming just another "consumer" car with sales based on hype and promotion, I knew they were doomed..
Sure there's smart designers at Saab, but like so much of the car business, management can sink a product line as much as anything else..
:up:Quote:
Originally Posted by janvanvurpa
I had absolutely no clue of this point :eek:
Very interesting reading janvanvurpa! Thanks a lot!