If you are worried that you may have to live without daily episodes of the Saab Soap, now that the company is bankrupt, worry no more. Or in the words of Saabsunited: “never ever give up!” The show will go on.
Today, Automotive news China [sub] reports:
“Zhejiang Youngman Lotus Automobile Co. says it has purchased Saab Automobile’s Phoenix architecture despite its failure to acquire the automaker itself. Youngman already has set up a company in Sweden to develop new models based on the architecture, said Rachel Pang, Youngman’s spokeswoman and daughter of Youngman President Pang Qingnian.”
The trouble is, nobody in Sweden or elsewhere has heard about it. As far as Sveriges Radio knows, the discussions between Youngman and the bankruptcy administrators are ongoing. No sale of nothing has been announced. Victor Muller’s and Vladimir Anntonov’s propaganda organ The independent enthusiast site Saabsunited implores the faithful:
“Don’t believe any report that shows up. The media is desperately looking for things to write about and comes up with, to say the least, strange news. Like with the rumours about Phoenix being sold to Youngman seperately we will try to figure out the truth behind it and keep you updated ad good as possible.”
To me, the story comes as expected. A few days ago, I predicted:
“I wouldn’t be surprised if a license for the PhoeniX platform won’t suddenly show up at Youngman, pledged as security for some of the money that had been paid. Then, GM will say that Phoenix IP is mostly theirs, and there will be a protracted and messy lawsuit.”
Whoever thinks the Chinese paid a few million out of the goodness of their hearts is gravely mistaken. The way we (and other Swedish media) understand the deal is that there was a loan, with the Phoenix platform pledged as collateral. Youngman most likely takes the position that the loan was defaulted upon, and the collateral is theirs. This can be a long, expensive, and messy lawsuit until this is sorted out, and in a bankruptcy, who has the nerves and money for that?
It seems as if something of value was pledged as collateral for a loan when the benefactors of the money did not have it to pledge. If GM owns the IP on the platform then it was a shadow loan at best.
I wonder if any bridges in Sweden were in the deal as well.
GM has already made clear that Saab owned the rights to the Gen 1 Epsilon platform to use as the basis for developing their own platform.
In the US that could be construed as fraud. I wonder what they call fraud in Sweden? Bedragare?
My wish(es) for 2012:
That auto “journalists” and bloggers will stop with the practice of typing an unfounded/unprofessional comment just to strike it out. It’s not clever, and it’s sooooooo been done to death.
Also, again to auto writers: Please be mindful that the words and “writing” style you use are straight up copied by kids typing on VW and Honda message boards. If I see the word “agricultural” one more time, as typed by a 26 year old kid living in his parents basement, as an excuse to not by a 2.5 VW vs a 2.0T VW, I will scream. As if said child will ever buy a new car anyway….
So, for 2012, “agricultural” is out of the lexicon, right? Agreed? Good! Happy New Year! :)
Your comment is more worthless than this one
Agricultural: Granted.
Strike-out: Denied.
strikeout: no
^h^h^h: yes
Bert –
Ok, one out of two ain’t bad! Thanks!
No more multisyllable words! Children will emulate you, thus expanding their vocabularies. For some reason, this can be perceived as a bad thing.
I’m not so sure how many 26 year olds have ever operated a tractor or even heard one running, to know what “agricultural” means.
I personally try to avoid “iconic” and “legendary” but sometimes they are the correct words.
Actually, strikethrough text, along with integrated graphics and hyperlinks, is one of the things that makes writing with computers different than writing for the printed page. Anything can become cliched, but when used appropriately, strikethrough gets the point across. It might be snarky, but it’s immediately understandable and doesn’t get in the way of the flow.
I read on other sites that it’s Pangda that had acquired (or at least interested in) the Phoenix platform. Looks like absent actual news, the media are reporting rampant speculations as facts.