Saab Sale: Does Koenigsegg Have a Card Up Its Sleeve?

Thor Johnsen
by Thor Johnsen

Bård Eker, the Norwegian partner in Koenigsegg Automotive, and Koenigsegg Group, appeared as one of the guests on Friday night’s regular Swedish/Norwegian talk show “ Skavland” this weekend (the following, translated conversation starts at 27:09). Mr Skavland, first talking a bit about Eker’s feelings about the broken deal, and how he felt visiting Trollhättan talking to Saab employees after the deal broke, he then asked Eker: “Is there a tiny chance you’ll try again? Saab isn’t sold yet…!” Eker smiles and answers “…we’ll see. Maybe!” laughing, shrugging his shoulders, audience cheering. Skavland: “how would you wanna do it?” Eker: “I don’t know…Seriously – we haven’t given it much thought. We’ll see…perhaps there’s a new opportunity. Maybe someone’ll give us a phonecall” Skavland: “So it’s not definitive that you’re out of the game?” Eker – laughing, glancing at his watch – “..err..how long is this show?” Skavland says: “So, you’ll still want a Saab?”, Eker: “yeah, sure” Skavland: “Alright….?” and shifts to another subject. All the while Eker has a cunning smile on his face.

Now, what does this mean? Was the entire plug-pulling just another negotiations poker-play from KG? A way of getting the Swedish Government more involved? They’ve been quite ambivalent up until KG broke the deal, now they’ve sent representatives to meet with GM and plead for their precious Saab. Even though, as some in comments earlier mentioned, the “Scandinavian way” is not to save the business, but rather save the employees – no government likes watching a small community loosing their corner stone business. Or maybe Eker just loved the attention and the opportunity to make himself interesting. Which I doubt. I think they’re up to something.

Thor Johnsen
Thor Johnsen

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  • Lorenzo Lorenzo on Dec 07, 2009

    The reason there are few comments may be that the login is acting up. It was for me. With the tooling for the new 9-5 being shipped to China, and GM ready to wind down the brand, Konigsegg's only option may be to buy the Trollhattan plant and get government financing to build high-priced, high performance cars that may or may not be called Saabs, keeping the Trollhattan workers employed. That may have been Konigsegg's business plan anyway, and it would be cheaper to pick up the necessary pieces than take over the brand's older tooling, dealer network and liabilities.

  • Kristjan Ambroz Kristjan Ambroz on Dec 08, 2009

    It's the tooling for the existing 9-5, not the new one, that was sold to BAIC. Maybe Koenigsegg really only got into it for the publicity alone - some recent reports on their cars were less than complimentary - i.e. short of a Veyron, there is nothing else that is as poor an automotive investment as a Koenigsegg (a recent Evo supercar ownership article gave it a complete thumbsdown on every single count) - which is saying something.

  • Ajla On the Mach-E, I still don't like it but my understanding is that it helps allow Ford to continue offering a V8 in the Mustang and F-150. Considering Dodge and Ram jumped off a cliff into 6-cylinder land there's probably some credibility to that story.
  • Ajla If I was Ford I would just troll Stellantis at all times.
  • Ronin It's one thing to stay tried and true to loyal past customers; you'll ensure a stream of revenue from your installed base- maybe every several years or so.It's another to attract net-new customers, who are dazzled by so many other attractive offerings that have more cargo capacity than that high-floored 4-Runner bed, and are not so scrunched in scrunchy front seats.Like with the FJ Cruiser: don't bother to update it, thereby saving money while explaining customers like it that way, all the way into oblivion. Not recognizing some customers like to actually have right rear visibility in their SUVs.
  • MaintenanceCosts It's not a Benz or a Jag / it's a 5-0 with a rag /And I don't wanna brag / but I could never be stag
  • 3-On-The-Tree Son has a 2016 Mustang GT 5.0 and I have a 2009 C6 Corvette LS3 6spd. And on paper they are pretty close.
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