Saab's Crown Jewels To Be Carted Off To China

by Bertel Schmitt

Published: January 10th, 2010

saab s crown jewels to be carted off to china

Bloomberg read it in Sweden’s Dagens Industri that General Motors will send the tools for Saab’s new 9-5 model to China. Mind you, these are not the old 9-5 tools sold to BAIC. These are the tools for the new Epsilon 2 based 9-5, or what Dagens Industri calls “the crown jewels of Saab.”

Stating the obvious, Dagens Industri states: “Without the 9-5, Saab’s attractiveness for new bidders fades quickly.”

According to Dagens Industri, some of the tools for the new 9-5 are in Opel’s plant in Rüsselsheim, Germany. From here, they will be shipped to the GM/SAIC joint venture in Shanghai, where they could be used to make the Buick La-Crosse, which has the same long-wheel based Epsilon 2 platform as the Saab 9-5. “First delivery from Rüsselheim will leave on Friday, January 15,” says a source for Dagens Industri.

More 9-5 tools have already been moved from Rüsselsheim to Trollhättan, in preparation for the spring series production of the 9-5. A Dagens Industri source said. “The next likely step is to dismantle the tools in Trollhättan and also move them to China.”

There is a similar story in Autocar that says that “GM has secretly booked transportation to shift the remaining 9-5 production equipment and tooling from Opel’s Russelsheim factory to GM’s Buick factory in China.” Autocar’s sources supposedly are “at GM Europe in Germany.” But it sounds as if they are at Dagens Industri. Even the ship date is the same: “The shipping will begin next Friday, 15 January, according to Autocar’s sources.”

Of course, the trucking-off of the Swedish crown jewels to China came as a big shock to the guys over at Saabsunited. They are still busy organizing Saab support convoys for January 17th. If the story above is true, the convoys will support a stripped shop. Saabsunited intimates that the story has been leaked by GM operatives, in order to hasten the final expiration of Saab. Saabsunited’s sources in Rüsselsheim say that “if GM decides to close Saab rather than sell it, then that tooling will be shipped immediately to China.”

All hopes of the Saab Defense League now cling to that little “if” and that “bookings can be canceled.” Folks, the teardown of a production line, even if it’s just for a “Null-Serie” (or preproduction series) takes a while and wants to be well planned. If the containers will leave in 5 days, then they are already packed by now, and tickets for the reassembly crew have been booked also. If the tools are crated up for overseas shipping, then someone has decided quite some while ago: “God natt, Saab!”

And what would Saab be worth without the new 9-5?

Stryker’s CEO Victor Muller wrote in an email to Saabsunited. “The NG 9-5 is of course in the business plan, and without it, the plan would not work.”

#9-5 #BertelSchmitt #China #GM #Saab #SAIC

Bertel Schmitt

Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.

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5 of 28 comments

Snabster on Jan 10, 2010

At the right price, an Eplison-2 car could probably compete with a 5 series or E class. It might not be as good a car, but shaving 20K off the price would bring out buyers. And BAIC did not get the Eplison-2. If this story is true, it is being put into Shangahi-GM. BAIC got the older 9-5, which, as I've said before, will be a very hard sell to Chinese consumers.

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- Bill h. on Jan 10, 2010
  
  Well now there are news reports coming out of Sweden denying the news. http://svt.se/2.22620/1.1841089/gm_inga_verktyg_till_kina_nu [Pardon the translation] GM: No new Saab tools to China General Motors denies that production of the new Saab 9-5 model should be sent to China for the production of Buick cars. "I have spoken to those responsible for Saab project and information is not true, "said Stefan Weinmann, spokesman for GM Europe, on Sunday to TT's correspondent in Detroit. Weinmann claims that GM still evaluating the various bids at Saab Automobile and that the door is not closed for a sales. "I can not give any timetable for when we can talk about results, "said GM Europe spokesman. [so who knows....]
  
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- Bertel Schmitt on Jan 10, 2010
  
  "The information is inaccurate. I have spoken to the people responsible for the Saab project and the information is not true. There must be some misunderstanding. Perhaps you confused this with the tools of the old 9-5 that have been sold to BAIC," said Stefan Weinmann, a spokesman for GM Europe, who is now in Detroit for the International Motor Show. He says that GM is still evaluating the various bids that have come in and that the door is not closed on the sale of the company. "We are not finished with the analysis of the bids and I can not give any timetable for when we can talk about results."
  
  What else should he say?
  Comment of the folks at saabsunited.com: "Well, Mr Weinmann, I can assure you that the information from my sources - yes, that's plural - was pretty specific. Your diversion in talking about the old 9-5 technology going to BAIC was a neat trick, but if you read the story properly you'd realise that we're not talking about tooling moving from Sweden (yet). The original story was about the remaining 9-5 tooling that's sitting in Russelsheim, Germany. It's this tooling and equipment that's apparently earmarked for movement to China on the 15th, in the event that Saab are closed instead of sold. Though don't be surprised now if that date's been moved back to corroborate Mr Weinmann's story." Bloomberg is running an even meeker denial: “We believe this is a misunderstanding,” said GM Europe spokesman Stefan Weinmann. “We are not aware of any such plans.” Always be careful when a flak says he's unaware. He can then claim he wasn't told.
  
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- Robert.Walter on Jan 11, 2010
  
  I'm w/Bertel here. I dimly recall the lack of alignment between GMHQ and GME regarding the Opel sale (or was it the SAAB saga?) was demonstrated elsewhere here on TTAC when the quotes between the HQ types and the GME spokesperson failed to align. (It was either this, or this was a blundered attempt to retrench ... before the internet made the world one, both things, i.e. misalignment and retrenching, happened easily and were more difficult to scrutinize. Now as to the possible reason for PR misalignment: It is a fundamental behaviour in the M&A world to try and manage information flow by limiting it to a small group of people directly involved in the process ("need to know.") It is likewise a basic behavior for those parties directly involved ("in the know,") to deny the existance of any action or deal; indeed, behaviours (always), incentives (sometimes) and punishments (often) are codified in an NDA which the individual must sign before receiving close-held confidential information. PR VP's are in the need to know circle, PR spokespersons are not. A spokesperson who is behind the curve, due to not being a need-to-knower, who doesn't have the skill to "talk but say a whole lot of nothin'" or quickly adopt a stance of "I'm unaware of that", risks not communicating the correct story, putting statements out there that allow insight into or misunderstanding of the story, or becoming the story himself, and ultimately getting canned for just complicating things. When deals are being done, "Loose Lips Sink Ships!", and those in the know keep silent, and if approached they lie, by denying the very existance of the deal until the ink is dry on the contract!
  
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Tedj101 on Jan 11, 2010

Robert, This is exactly the sort of information that makes TTAC valuable (and worth reading). I can read "press release drivel" anywhere! TED

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