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  ROYAL FORD
Globe Staff
8/10/2002
AUTOMOBILIA
Museum chronicles Saabs from birth to present

TROLLHATTAN, Sweden—I have been to the shrine. I have seen the toad, the green frog, the monster, the Sonett, and the Safir.

Inside the shrine, I ate reindeer meat, washed it down with ceremonial wine, and then rambled from icon to icon, watching the short history of a beloved car company unfold before my eyes.

Here in this city of 53,000, where 8,000 citizens work to build Saab cars, is the shrine: the Saab Car Museum. The toad, green frog, monster, Sonett, and Safir are all nicknames or true names of Saab automobiles (and one airplane— answer at end).

As an auto writer, and as an owner of five different Saab models over the years, the shrine was for me a must-see during a recent trip to Sweden to see and drive the latest, and one of the most significant new Saabs—the 9-3—at its unveiling.

I drove the car, toured the factory, and then headed to the musuem. Where else could I see Saabs—from the very first prototype to a fanciful and futuristic Saab that was never built? Where else to watch films of the great rally driver Erik Carlsson in action—as some of his cars surrounded me? Where else would I see, pinned to a wall, a photo of a Saab undergoing a crucial safety test—the moose crash test? (An aside of interest toNew Englanders: There are more than half a million moose roaming the woods and roads of Sweden and Saabs are built to withstand a crash with a towering moose.)

But mostly, where else could I watch the Saab evolve, right there in steel, plastics, and composites, from the 92.001 to the 92.002, through the rest of the many 9s—92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97 (that’s the sports car the Sonett), 99, 900, 9000, 9-3, and 9-5.

And to think that it might never have been.

Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (SAAB) was formed here in 1937. Its mission, under looming threat of war, was to build fighter jets and bombers for Sweden’s air forces. That they did, and continue to build (as a separate company now) aircraft down the decades. But with the war winding down, and surplus factory space now open in Trollhattan, Saab executives tried to figure out what to do with the factory and the work force.

‘‘One option was to build washing machines,’’ says Peter Backstrom, manager of the Saab Car Museum.

Which today might mean we’d have a turbocharged, intercooled washing machine that would keep our clothes very safe in crashes.

Thankfully, Saab decided in 1945 to build cars. Or, more correctly, a car.

‘‘The company’s resources were such that one couldn’t afford to design more than one relatively small and simple vehicle,’’ Gunnar A. Sjogren writes in ‘‘The SAABWay,’’ a history of Saab.

The first prototype—92.001—was rolled out in 1946. It’s right here in the museum: black, sleek, with a split rear window, turn signals that flip out from the body, and headlights literally taken from Volkswagen Beetles.

Its two-cylinder, two-cycle engine (imagine the sound of corn popping), produced a whopping 18 horsepower—plenty it turns out since, as Backstrom explains, the rear tended to lift at higher speeds. Indeed, viewed from the side, it has the shape of an airplane wing, and we know how that shape works.

The 92.001 gave way to a very similar 92.002, with a transverse mount two-cylinder, two-cycle engine producing 25 horsepower for the frontwheel drive car that would become a cult favorite in America starting sometime in the late 1960s, and a steady, safe, reliable performer in ensuing decades. Saabs were great for rally racing. Great for getting around in snow (New England has always been the top selling region for Saabs in the United States). And they have a solid reputation for safety.

Their engines evolved, of course, moving from two cylinders to three, then to four (Ford built some Saab V-4 engines), then to four-cycle, then to the turbocharged and intercooled powerplants that Saab is famous for today.

Yet much of what is tangible about this history was nearly lost.

The museum was founded in 1975 because, Backstrom says, all the old prototypes and original models faced, ‘‘the threat of being scrapped.’’

Instead, old Saabs and Saabs built since then have been added to the museum’s collection, which today totals about 110 cars.

Among my favorites in the museum collection:
  • That 92.001, a handmade prototype with doors that look to be about 8 inches thick. Its heritage has been passed down, from the aerodynamic shape to frontwheel drive. It has never been restored, still gets driven now and again, and is a centerpiece at the museum.
  • The 1957 Saab 93 rally car driven by Erik Carlsson when he won Finland’s ‘‘Rally of a Thousand Lakes’’ in 1957. It was his first win in a major international rally and he remarked afterward, ‘‘You can’t drive a car faster than this.’’
  • The 1956 Saab Sonett Super Sport. It was an open cockpit competition sports car—the museum’s is the first of only six made—with a three-cylinder, two-stroke engine that produced 57.5 horsepower. Its top speed was a class record 159.4 kph (about 97 miles per hour).
  • ‘‘The Monster,’’ a 1959 Saab 93 with two three-cylinder engines mounted transversely. It had 138 horsepower and topped out at 196 kph (just over 98 mph).
  • Another Erik Carlsson car, a 1964 Saab Sport in which he won the Monte Carlo Rally twice—in 1962 and 1963.
  • Stig Blomqvist’s 1980 Saab 99 Turbo, in which he won the 1979 Swedish Rally— the first World Championship rally win by a turbocharged car.
  • The 1974 Saab Sonett III. I look back on all the cars I never bought but wish I had, and this is one of them. That was the last year the sports car was built.
  • The Saab EV-1 from 1985. It was just a prototype, but I recall that it made the cover of a major American car magazine. It was a four-seater that used carbon-.ber reinforced plastics in its body and solar panels on its roof to keep the car cool in sunlight. Its top speed was 270 kph (just under 170 mph).
  • And finally, the Saab 91 Safir. The fastest of them all, with its polished aluminun skin, excellent riveting, and single propeller ahead of a cockpit any pilot would love. There’s your airplane, and it hangs in the museum, riding flight protection over the lineup of cars.

    • Royal Ford can be reached by e-mail at ford@globe.com.

    This story ran in the Boston Globe on 8/03/2002.
    © Copyright 2002 Globe Newspaper Company

    		 
         
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