Briefly noted. Saab Inside and Saab staging.
The new Saab Inside is here! And it's about looking back at a Saab staging that took place in the old factory in Trollhättan. What do both have to do with each other? Nothing, and maybe everything.
The members of the Saab Service Club were happy on Friday. You received the latest issue of Saab Inside as a download. Full of short reports from the almost expired Saab year. Contributions from the IntSaab 2017, the Sachsen exit and the Saab Rallye Team Wagenheimer can be found in it. There is also an interesting interview with Jan-Philipp Schuhmacher, Managing Director of Orio Deutschland GmbH, about the challenges and strategies involved in engaging with the brand.
And the Saab Inside also provides important information about the Saab loyalty booklet. The subscription to the magazine is free of charge and is one of the advantages of being a member of the Saab Service Club. If you are not yet a member and would like to be one of the first readers in the future, you can register online.
Saab staging 2013
It was 4 years ago on Saturday. It was December 2, 2013 when NEVS staged a restart in the old Saab factory. However, we didn't realize at the time that it was a big show in the game for Chinese investor money. We wanted to believe in a reboot of the brand and NEVS provided the stuff dreams are made of.
4 years later, NEVS has not become what it should have been. Not a big provider of electromobility. So far, it has not even been enough to create one's own product. The pre-production phase in Tianjin is due to start this week and shows where the journey is headed. To China.
The car brand Saab, however, has mastered the last 4 years amazingly well. Even without NEVS, or perhaps because of that, it has become a cult. Our readership is rising slightly, and that of subscribers too. Amazing ! And that in the year 6 without new cars. Where is there comparable?
Nevertheless, you can think about what would have happened if ... If it had worked with the restart in 2013, and if the Saab letters were still shining at work on the Swedish night today. Would Saab have become a cult or just a brand with Chinese investors? An interesting question.
The word “cult” is used very inflationarily today. Everything is cult .... in the music world someone is already cult if he can only sing a song!
I see Saab drivers as contemporary individualists. Saab is simply MORE THAN HEARING! And that puts us pretty much off the beaten track.
A Viggen or a 9-5 NG is not cult in my opinion but simply a great and rare car.
Even a beetle is not cult, it was simply a mass product.
Regarding cult status: What matters is how we as SAABists see it. It is not about broad recognition: “Cult status is mostly attributed to objects of mass culture that do not have to claim to be valued as outstanding cultural achievements, but which are revered by sworn fan communities and to which the most diverse myths are linked. Accordingly, even very remote cultural productions can gain cult status. " (Wikipedia, disambiguation)
In this sense, the brand, but also individual models, have “cult status” for me.
Cult?
Is nothing more than the abbreviation for culture.
There are a thousand ways to live his cult.
And the Saab culture is the same as the motorcyclist's. You make trips together, meet in the club for sweating and shop talk and greet each other at the meeting in public.
Whether that is already a cult?
KA But it creates cohesion and a sense of community from which other brand supporters can only dream
Very fine definition. Thanks, I like it.
Hello Eric. It is exactly like that.
Strictly speaking, we at Saab speak of cultural property. And Saab belongs to the Swedish cultural heritage. There is no doubt about that. Greetings from the north to all Saabfahrer.
hach and I still have a Saab 9-3 2.0T convertible, EZ 06.04.2004, with deer performance type T8 / 230PS, so with 42.000km and 12 Aluflegen nicely covered in the garage, so all 1-2 years it's time for the Saab meeting but only if it is nice weather. Would still be here looking for the original car phone for the trunk or a buyer at some point.
Oh, I love the “scrap iron faction” 😉, but it was about the cult brand to which the Kultsaab901 has certainly contributed significantly, but certainly also the 96 and 9000 and currently the new SAABe non-Saab drivers are always amazed about their current appearance and equipment ……, but what a shame I would have liked to have participated in the automotive progress with the SAAB logo on the hood.
I think that has little to do with the “scrap iron faction”, especially since I have old and new iron in my inventory. But somehow an imaginary conflict is always talked about if you simply reproduce what connects the majority of people outside of the Saab scene with Saab. That doesn't mean that the other models are bad or less “real Saab”.
There it is again the old question: What would have, if. In fact, unfortunately, nothing good to announce. To argue with that again, the entry of BMW would probably have led to a better result. I'm sure of that. But in retrospect we are all smarter. So all we have to do is cherish and care for our Saabs, and wait for the time when we all drive young or old timers. Anyway, I'm ready for that.
Me too Bjoern, do this too. And this may not be an answer to Tom's question. Saab was already a cult car before the restart in 2013. So at least I see this development.
Well, only the 901 can actually be described with the attribute “cult”. If only because it is pretty much the only Saab vehicle that even Saab drivers cannot do anything with, in the sense of knowing. Everything else is just a Swedish brand car for 99% of people.
That there are definitely other interesting vehicles from the brand for Saab-savvy people is certainly undisputed. But neither 9k Aero, Viggen or a TrollR are “cult” in my eyes.
Saab is a cult. No matter what you drive. To experience with us daily on the school parking lot, with very young people. The 901 Mantra exists only in Saab circles, not in the real world.
Then please tell me what Saab cult is, if some already use the term so much. Even VW is not cult, although with two Bulli and Beetle probably two vehicles from this house come from which one can not deny a real cult status.
Sometimes I have the feeling that it is enough for a few people to look sympathetically around their car to speak of cult.
For the previous 3 years my 1998 SAAB 9000, Annivversary, has the staus of 'Classic car' for the insurance, so Cult is a good word, PARTICULARLY AS IN THE UK, THERE ARE ONLY 38 ON THE ROAD….
https://www.howmanyleft.co.uk/vehicle/saab_9000_cse_t_anniversary_auto
Cult is the brand itself. Like many things that you can not have anymore because there is not any more. Young people are less dogged and open than they seem to be. Only my observation. And of course I confess everyone's opinion and accept your point of view. We do not all have to agree to like Saab. Or?