Saab Un-Dead Watch: New Deadline Until Thursday

Bertel Schmitt
by Bertel Schmitt

Loss-making Dutch boutique carmaker Spyker (well, Spyker actually stopped making cars, and is outsourcing whatever car production is left to UK’s CPP) is revising – for a third time – its bid for GM’s loss-making Swedish carmaker Saab. Spyker received a new deadline of January 7th, Reuters reports. Everything else has already been said.

Bertel Schmitt
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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  • Saabista63 Saabista63 on Jan 04, 2010

    No, no and no! What has been sold to BAIC is the tooling for cars that are already or are running out of production. The technology in question is 10 years old and belongs to the old Saab 9-5 and the 9-3 as it was produced before its 2008 facelift. Spyker wouldn't be too hot for that stuff, anyway. The badge is certainly not something to bid for, as the brand name actually belongs to Swedish truck producer SCANIA and SAAB Technology AB, a producer of aircraft and defense technology . We all don't know what the GM board will decide to do, but if they really "pull the plug", the positive effects on the automotive industry in general and GM in particular will be - to say the least - rather limited. Fervent SAAB bashers will love it, though!

  • Jkross22 Jkross22 on Jan 04, 2010

    GM is behaving like the coyote and road runner where the coyote keeps drawing lines in the sand for the road runner to cross... "Cross this line... ok, now cross this line". Undoubtedly, someone at GM thinks this is how they'll gain leverage for trying to finagle more out of selling their "premium brand". Despite the departure of the worst of the knuckle draggers, GM continues to demonstrate their "leaders" have little insight or understanding of the perception of GM outside of their offices.

  • Snabster Snabster on Jan 04, 2010

    GM made all the US SAAB dealers sign an agreement to terminate their franchise rights, but it is contingent on GM making good faith efforts to sell SAAB. GM doesn't want to sell SAAB -- they don't want the buyer to walk away with the new 9-5. Dragging out the clock looks like good faith. All GM wants to make sure is they don't get sued by US SAAB dealers....

  • Robert.Walter Robert.Walter on Jan 05, 2010

    Makes me think of two things: 1. Despite no change in behaviour, it always looks like genius (or sane) on the way up, but idiotic (or crazy) on the way down... it is very interesting to see the lousy behaviour of GM (or any overbearing company) revealed in these thousands of snippets... 2. Definition of insanity: Keep doing the same thing, but expecting different results.

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