Saab To Restart Production Next Wednesday
Despite deep skepticism about the value of Saab’s latest “alliance” with the Chinese dealer group PangDa, it seems that the Swedish automaker will restart production next Wednesday. SaabsUnited translates a DI.se report
“I expect the plant to begin production on Wednesday of next week since they’ve come to the Saab on Tuesday this week,” said Gunnar Brunius, Purchasing and Production Manager at Saab Automobile to DI.
On Tuesday, he initiates the process of agreeing with Saab’s 800 suppliers so that they start to deliver the components again after a six-week shutdowns.
The major suppliers, including IAC, Sweden, Plastal and car seat manufacturer Lear, are invited to personal meetings, while many other contacts are handled through e-mail.
Saab will reportedly restart production at a rate of 230-240 cars per day, but first it will have to pay off suppliers. We’ll see if that actually gets accomplished before we take this report too seriously, especially since CEO Victor Muller has admitted that negotiations with suppliers could take “several weeks.” But, Muller tells Saab employees that “we will never give up,” so who knows how long Saab’s death throes could last.
More by Edward Niedermeyer
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Tucker has been mentioned in this thread. Coincidentally I was at the Ypsilanti Automotive Heritage Museum yesterday. Since Preston Tucker was from Ypsilanti and since much of the design and development work on the Tucker Torpedo was done in that town, the museum has a Tucker display. This morning I was shooting photos at Henry Ford's Piquette Ave. factory where the Model T was developed and first assembled. At the Model T factory, I got a brochure published by the Detroit Historical Society about the "Milwaukee Junction" area of Detroit. So named because it was where the Detroit & Milwaukee and the Chicago, Detroit & Canada Grand Trunk Junction railroads intersected. Milwaukee Junction is Ur for the American auto industry. It's where Detroit automakers and suppliers primarily located as the industry was getting established and moving out of the downtown area. Just up Piquette from Ford's factory was the E-M-F plant, later Studebaker and Studebaker had another plant on Piquette. Fisher Body Plants #23 and #21 are down Piquette in the other direction. Companies with less recognizable names but also important suppliers of bodies, springs, radiators, stamped panels and other automotive components also located in the area. I spent a couple of hours driving around the old sites. In some cases, like the Ford Piquette plant, the buildings are still occupied (in that case by a commercial linen and uniform company and a very cool museum that is run by volunteers). In other cases the buildings are derelict and other are complete ruins or now empty lots. I also found the location of my grandather's junk shop, where he bought and sold scrap paper and rags (before you could buy shop towels, the auto industry used rags as wipers). There's a senior citizen's apartment building there, across the street from an abandoned public housing project. My point is that most of the companies whose buildings and locations I was trying to find were, like my zayde's junk shop, no longer in business. Is Saab really any different from Studebaker?
Which of these things do not belong CEO Middle aged, doughy white guy blue blazer hoodie (with writing on it, no less) Yeah, the 4th one seems a bit out of place. Seriously, I'm not saying he's got to wear a suit to every occasion, but dress like a professional, man.
The B&B couldn't be more wrong on this issue: His appearance was a stroke of pure genius. Unshaven, to show he's been working hard non-stop, and dressed casually, to show he's actually just a regular blue-collar guy, no different from the people he's addressing. You mustn't forget that Sweden is a socialist country - men in suit and tie are seen as out of touch, blood-sucking capitalist pigs. It's not simply considered business attire, like in the US. Calling someone "young man wearing a tie" (literally translated) is an actual derogatory phrase in Swedish.