Goodbye Saab

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8421007.stm

GM to 'wind down' Saab business

GM says it has failed to sell its Swedish car brand Saab and will begin "an orderly wind-down of Saab operations".

WTH? I've officially lost all faith in GM.

It's sad but I'm not massively surprised. I didn't think there was enough there to build cars independently of GM so I doubt it made a lot of sense to stump up a lot of money to buy SAAB.

what are all of those fighter jet designers going to do for a living now?

RX Reven' wrote: what are all of those fighter jet designers going to do for a living now?

hopefully design a better Malibu...

IIRC, the aircraft and auto sections of SAAB have been separate for years.

cwh wrote: IIRC, the aircraft and auto sections of SAAB have been separate for years.

Didn’t stop them from coat-tailing on the prestige in their commercials.

RX Reven' wrote: what are all of those fighter jet designers going to do for a living now?

They plan to focus all of their attention on hunting down Sweden's only sworn enemy: Tiger Woods.

Government Motors is not going to champion the Motors of another Government.

A Saab story?

Anybody?

Anybody?

Saab design will evidently live on though...

Beijing Auto to immediately start integrating Saab designs

December 18, 2009 11:46 CET

BEIJING (Reuters) -- Beijing Automotive Industry Holding Co. said on Friday it will immediately start integrating its newly acquired technology from General Motors Co.'s Saab unit into its vehicles.

BAIC, China's fifth-largest automaker, plans to start production of its Saab-based own brand of cars as soon as 2011.

BAIC recently acquired the rights to vehicle platforms from Saab for an undisclosed sum. One newspaper report said that BAIC paid $197 million for the assets, which include the intellectual property and tooling for the current-generation Saab 9-5 and some IP from the 9-3.

The purchase was put together in just two weeks, after a larger deal unravelled that would have seen a group led by Sweden's Koenigsegg Group AB buy all of Saab. BAIC had been a part of Koenigsegg's bid.

"We will start integrating right away," Gu Lei, president of BAIC's technology center, told reporters at a news conference. He added that commercial production for vehicles with the newly acquired technology could start as soon as mid-2011.

BAIC President Wang Dazong said his company and Saab are also exploring other opportunities involving other technologies such as "new energy" vehicles.

"We need to have our own brand cars, and we need to grow our competency," he said. "We need to become a global company."

BAIC has made clear it has no interest in acquiring Saab's production hub in Trollhattan.

Looking to grow

The Saab-BAIC deal follows Chinese company, Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy Industry's purchase of GM's money-losing Hummer unit. Both are part of the U.S. auto giant's restructuring following a short-lived bankruptcy in the summer.

Wang would not disclose the transaction amount for BAIC's purchase of the Saab designs. But Swedish business daily Dagens Industri put the number at 1.4 billion crowns ($197 million), citing a source who was involved in the process.

China surpassed the United States this year to become the world's largest auto market, as sales soared after Beijing rolled out a series of incentives designed to stimulate consumer spending during the global downturn.

The company's production partners in China include Daimler AG and Hyundai Motor Co., with most of their joint output for sale in the domestic market.

Wang said BAIC's exports are still relatively small, at about 50,000 vehicles this year. He added it is still too early to say if vehicles produced using the Saab designs could be used for export.

"We need time to develop more plans, integrating the technology into our vehicles," he said. "Those plans are in the works."

Most Chinese automakers are either churning out foreign brand cars in tie-ups with global heavyweights such as Volkswagen AG and Toyota Motor Corp. or focused on the lower end, making cars as cheap as 30,000 yuan ($4,394).

But as wealth grows in what has now become the world's biggest auto market, many Chinese carmakers are looking to boost their profile.

The Chinese government is envisioning that half of passenger cars sold in the country to be self-developed by 2015, according to a media report earlier this week, citing government guidelines, which are expected to be released in the first half of 2010.

I kind felt that this would be the ultimate outcome of all of this, but I had hope. I think SAAB was too engrained in GM to be extricated.

Maybe Konigsegg or someone will by the rights to the name and start over, that would be nice.

RX Reven' wrote: what are all of those fighter jet designers going to do for a living now?

Design jet fighters?

The "Born from Jets" ad campaign was one of the dumbest they ever concocted. Saab cars were never "born from jets"; they were born from prop planes. Does this look like a jet to you?

And now for a graphical interpretation of GM's handling of Saab:

For some reason I'm now humming Pink Floyd,

Goodbye, cruel world
I'm leaving you today
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye

Goodbye, all you people
There's nothing you can say
To make me change my mind
Goodbye

Edit for crappy board formatting, please please give us something that works!!!!!!!

Honestly, Saab has been dead since 94 when GM took a huge stake in the company that produced the NG900.

At least Subaru managed to extricate themselves from the clutches of GM's brand mismanagement before they could be destroyed. Saab wasn't so lucky.

I was always thought the S19A was a nice looking plane, kind of a cleaned up JU-88:

The Viggen and Drakken are pretty cool to. Oh yah, I hear they made cars at one time also.

Saab has definitely made some pretty cool aircraft. A little "out of the box" thinking, just like the cars were.

Wonder why Saab and Volvo don't join up and produce cars?

procainestart wrote:

Another dissatisfied MapQuest user.

this sucks, the new 9-3 really gives me a hard on every time i see one.

DirtyBird222 wrote: this sucks, the new 9-3 really gives me a hard on every time i see one.

Get a Malibu. It's very, very similar, under the skin.

Jack

Jack wrote:

DirtyBird222 wrote: this sucks, the new 9-3 really gives me a hard on every time i see one.

Get a Malibu. It's very, very similar, under the skin. Jack

Go buy a dacia sandera, it's very similar to your sense of humor.

Dustin

aircooled wrote: I was always thought the S19A was a nice looking plane, kind of a cleaned up JU-88: The Viggen and Drakken are pretty cool to. Oh yah, I hear they made cars at one time also.

Saab AB still exists! Completely separate company in most aspects. We can look forward to many cool jets in the future.

Jalopnik's saying Spyker is making a last-ditch effort to buy Saab and GM's working with them. This show may not be over yet...

From what I've read, part of GM's problem with Spyker is their biggest finanical backer is some Russian billionaire with an alleged shady past.