Hej då, Saab Cars
Saab cars went into bankruptcy just before Christmas. There is tons about it on the web, so I don't really need to describe the ins and outs of the long and painful slide from being sold by GM to Spyker and "Swedish Automobile," to the rather demeaning attempts at sale to the nobody Chinese firms Pang Da and Youngman. I'm writing about this now because I had to pop into the local Saab dealership in Ipswich to have an engine management problem looked at. (It turns out that the turbo vacuum hose had a small hole in the side, most likely caused by a marten, the famous "Marderbiss" in German.) I had to wait a while, just over an hour, for my car to be looked at and repaired, so I had time to sit in the upstairs waiting area to read a 1987 history of Saab-Scania, and to sit in the latest and last Saab, the 9-5 Aero turbo 4. The book was full of hope and pride of Saab Cars, noting its original raison d'être of being an emergency occupation for thousa