Comments on: Saab Sale Slipping Away?

By: Bruce from DC

Bruce from DC — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 17:35:17 +0000

@Mkirk

Your comment about Saabs, Priuses and academics gave me a huge brainstorm — GM should have made Saab the anti-Hummer. Rather than try and elbow into the “sports sedan” category against BMW or the “near luxury” category against the Japanese and Volvo, GM should have made Saab the “thinking man’s car,” with environmental consciousness at the forefront — including hybrids.

By: dolorean23

dolorean23 — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 16:25:22 +0000

Kristjan Ambroz / european:

Your theory of a GM terrified to lose anymore of its octupus arms is a valid one, especially on the heels of losing their crown jewel Opel. Now if they lose Saab, what does GM have left in Europe to peddle, besides Cadillacs in small numbers.

John, SWEET picture!! Love the Swedish flying fish!

By: bill h.

bill h. — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:46:14 +0000

“Good luck with that.”

I just wish the TTAC guys could come up with a less overused, cliched phrase for their -30- tag.

By: groundhog

groundhog — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 01:34:51 +0000

I doubt GM want to hang on to Saab as it has done little for them since they picked up a share in ‘92.

The original story seems to be rumor only, saabsunited.com has more on the story.

Time will tell, but I hope it works out.

By: mkirk

mkirk — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:39:07 +0000

While Barak’s patience with the management at GM may run out, the fact that his party is beholden to the UAW will keep the lights on at GM…at least until January of 2013.

By: lahru

lahru — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 21:52:58 +0000

The problem as I see it is they never prepared to sell Saab and Opel and since there many patents and proprietary items that each hold, letting those go with the company and those buyers seeing that just buying a name and some manufacturing facilities is not worth the money that the ever “our way or the highway” GM attitude pushes away these suitors so that in the end GM “hopes” to hold onto both. It’s just a Chinese firedrill and I’m not sure if they can survive. You gotta know that without new products and the publics eroding perception of their viability they are treading water at best. Oh? Hummer? Yaeh likes that gonna fly! In a recovering economy next year they might find some fools to buy their public offering, but not many. Barack’s patience with GM’s mis, bad, conceited management will end and they will fail in a recovering economy.

Last one out, leave the lights on as a reminder of our (GM) arrogance. Rode that horse ’till it died underneath me, bastard!

By: mkirk

mkirk — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 13:37:58 +0000

GM delayed Saab’s inevitable failure. Once the Prius became the car of choice in Acedamia Saab would have failed anyway. Honestly, they built crap, some of it interesting, but interesting crap is still crap.

By: european

european — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 09:07:27 +0000

Kristjan Ambroz :

i think you’re close to something, i think its more likely they are terrified they will loose more sales if they drop any brand, ignoring that they are loosing money on each sale anyways.

for GM to change and succeed it takes alot more of aggressive thinking. i mean look at toyota and the fj cruiser, its not a i-fit-some-niche vehicle with the generic grill/face, it looks totally different than any other vehicle in toyotas lineup. why cant GM for example, take the hummers, at least the h3 and sell it alongside
cadillacs. they sure are for the same target audience (bling bling) etc.

or keep the enclave out, have only cars as buicks,
and later on merge buick & GMC as an near lux brand.

or if they had the balls to sell opels as chevys, and not even fiddle with saturn. now what they have is, opel is gone, the subpar daewoos will be sold as chevys which is like yuck.

By: Kristjan Ambroz

Kristjan Ambroz — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:23:31 +0000

An alternative interpretation is that GM never really wanted to ditch any of the brands and just needed time, and giving the impression of doing something, in order to get out of the bankruptcy procedure and into public coffers.

They may not have been listening carefully and it is fully possible that the strategy will backfire somewhere but if your whole professional life you believed that more brands is better and that what’s good for GM is good for the US (and that the others for some bizzare reason do not see it that way) a ploy of that kind is certainly not beyond the imaginable :)

In which case the Saab suitors and RHJ / a Sberbank financed Magna become much more attractive suitors than someone, who could definitely and demonstrably pull the deal off (aka a serious automotive company – not that one was really interested).

By: findude

findude — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 03:15:06 +0000

Funny thing. I stopped by a Saab Dealer a couple of weeks ago. Someone had printed out the name “Koenigsegg” and taped up copies above the name “Saab” everywhere it could be found in the showroom, on the doors, on the receptionist’s desk, etc. I had to laugh at their optimism, especially since they admitted they were stocking their used car lot with other-brand cars since new Saabs weren’t moving at all and there was little demand for used ones.

By: Lorenzo

Lorenzo — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 00:24:29 +0000

Nice try by the Swedes, but this story has no chance of even approaching the Porsche/Piech saga. Unless the Swedish Bikini Team somehow gets involved.