Saab is gone

We live in a Saab-less world, and it makes mi sad. Saab has never been my favourite car maker, but it has been one of the most interesting ones for decades. A Saab was my second choice when I bought my first BMW.

It's the last victim of the current crisis and GM, that has never understood those Scandinavian folks.

Saab workers used to have a passion for excellence that made all but impossible joining other  mainstream car builders for shared projects. And for good reason: Saab has never been mainstream, no matter how popular have some of their models been.

Unwisely, GM never understood that passion for excellence and high quality and wanted Saab to stop that. They never realized they had a unique chance to improve their engineering and manufacturing. Cadillac could share Saab developments and sell a good product in USA and Canada, while selling the same car (albeit with a different style and maybe different suspension set-ups) in Europe as a Saab.

GM has thought that marketing is the key to sell cars. Well, it's true that good marketing will make you sell one car, but once you got it, it doesn't matter how fabulous and marvellous they tell you it is: If it's crap, no marketing is able to change your mind. And you know a car is crap because you can read about it, you can test it, you can challenge it. There is no way for a piece of junk to perform well in any survey.

I put the blame on GM for a several reasons: Oldsmobile, Pontiac, Hummer. Apparently, GM is having a great time this century killing nameplates. Saab is just another victim of a company that has gone nuts. And it's a pity, because Saab wasn't just another car maker.