Saab Sonett II - Swedish 2-stroke sports car

The official name is Saab 97 Sonett. Only nobody says that, not even sworn fans. The small Swedish sports car from Saab is very exclusive, especially when you talk about the 2-stroke version. And it transports a lot of sagas and dramas, in which the history of the Göta Älv brand is particularly rich.

It's been a few years. Summer, heat and the A3. Germany's busiest autobahn and the Sonett II right in the middle. It's tight, it's loud. And it's hot. The curved rear window heats up the interior relentlessly, of course there is no air conditioning. 110 km/h are on.

Number 190 of 258 copies. Photo: Bilweb
Number 190 of 258 copies. Photo: Bilweb

With the Saab Sonett on the A3

It feels like you're racing across the asphalt at a speed of at least 200. Or more. This is adventure, pure archaic driving, a forgotten world. Every kilometer you survive becomes a success, and you really have to like the man next to you.

Because the thing is saueng.

The Saab is tiny, at least by current standards. Pat Moss (Link), the better half of Erik Carlsson, would have gotten the crisis in her Swedish sports car today, surrounded by SUVs the size of pickup trucks. However, the said sonnet I was traveling with had a crucial flaw. And Pat Moss wouldn't have liked that at all.

She had a four-stroke V4 under the hood. No robust 3-cylinder 2-stroke engine like only the 258 of the models produced from 1966 to 1967 have.

The early sound of Trollhättan

If you add the incomparable sound of the 3 cylinders, you get a car experience for all the senses. If you turn up your nose because of the 2-stroke engine, you have to relearn. A Saab 2-stroke drive never spreads the smell of socialism. The 2-stroke Saab, that's the early sound of Trollhättan. A sound experience that unfolds after the Midsommar Rallye and Rikspokalen, Erik Carlsson and Pat Moss on the gravel roads of the Coupe des Alpes (Link) listens.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

In Trollhättan, the Saab 97 was seen as a serious sports car, and quite a few of its owners as well. The vehicles were often converted by private drivers and used successfully in motor sports. The 2-stroke engine ended in the 1968 model year.

Saab introduced the Sonett with V4 engine and shocking 4-stroke. And the cast-iron fans cried bitterly. The hood of the Sonett was given a scoop, otherwise the V4 would not have fitted. The change was not particularly beneficial to the design, which was not undisputed from the start. For this reason, the rare 2-stroke specimens are considered the more beautiful variant of the model.

The sonnet II with 2 bars - a rarity

The few Sonett sports cars that were produced in 1966 almost all stayed in Sweden. Almost the entire 67 production was exported, most of it to North America. It is correspondingly difficult to buy a Sonett II with this engine.

In Sweden, at a Bilweb auction (Link), a 1967 sonnet for sale. Like most vehicles originally exported to North America, it was brought back to Europe in 2008. There the sports car, which was not built in Trollhättan but at ASJ in Arlöv, was extensively restored.

The Saab has been registered in Sweden again since 2017, the owner drove around 4.500 kilometers, then the engine had to be overhauled.

On this occasion, the 2-stroke engine was optimized, it now has around 85 hp. The Sonett II is equipped with a Halda Speedpilot and an original Heuer stopwatch, just as Pat Moss and the unforgettable Erik Carlsson once rode with it. Even the map pocket and the lamp for reading the maps correspond to the equipment of the Saab factory cars.

Desired - or not desired?

The course of the auction became a test. Sonett 2-stroke engines are actually considered rare and sought after. However, there is a crisis in the Swedish sonnet scene. She is over-aged and she has failed to get the younger generation interested in her hobby at the right time. Around €65.000 went into the restoration of the sports car. Money that the owner never saw again. At around €23.000 plus premium, the result was disappointing.

I told the saga about the creation of Sonnet II and her opponent, the hapless Catherine, on the blog in 2012 (Link). A real thriller that is still exciting to read.

9 Comments
Newest
Oldest Most Voted
Inline feedback
View all comments
kochje
4 years earlier

Very nice Sonett II but really expensive if the seller has to earn his investment back.

Ken-Daniel S.
Ken-Daniel S.
4 years earlier

Many thanks for this story and the details of the sonnet. I always say the sonnet.
The sound of the Zweitaktsaabs is unique, the Saab Session Slovakia brings regular Polish Saab fans with their 95 and 96, forming their own group.

Anna Maria
Anna Maria
4 years earlier

The sonnet is a case for those who are very close to SAAB. For me she is a nice anecdote from the early days, so I can not really start with it. Still important that is written about it. Preserve the ones who forget about the sonnet.

Anddeu
Anddeu
4 years earlier

I'm probably a minority - I just found the scoop of the V4 cool 🙂

Herbert Hürsch
Herbert Hürsch
4 years earlier

SAAB story

I learned a lot today - not least through the link to Catherina. You should definitely read both articles in one go and look carefully at all the photos and the video and listen carefully (!) ...

Cool sound (today's video) and what a beauty (Catherina in the 2012 post). And what a thriller. Quote: "It was overlooked that Sason only adhered to the guidelines (...)."

Quote: “Another hit for Sixten Sason, because he had invented the name“ Sonett ”20 years earlier. Now a project that wasn't his own got his name. "

I feel for Sixten Sason and know that from my professional practice. If the guidelines were supposedly or actually bad, nobody can remember ever having made them. If an idea is good, some people like to imagine that they figured it out on their own (after tearing it up in midair) ...

How many times have I been sitting in meetings and (with a certain amount of time) letting my own input and ideas be explained, just as if I had never made or never uttered them?

Well, Swedes are probably only human too. Great cinema that Tom digs deep enough into history to be honored where credit is due. Catherina is a beauty. Cheers to Sason and thanks to Tom for the enlightening reading pleasure ...

Lukas
Lukas
4 years earlier

very nice! The culmination of the absurdity.
My grandfather, former owner of a sonnet ll and two sonnet lll, always speaks with a male article about the sonnet.

Black Saab
Black Saab
4 years earlier

Oh yeah! I remember the last SAAB festival. There was two-stroke power in the air! Before, I never thought that two-stroke can sound so good (Trabant ??). Then I knew it. Just awesome.

Herbert Hürsch
Herbert Hürsch
4 years earlier
Reply to  Black Saab

No Trabant but still a (western) German and not a Swedish engine working in the SAAB.
In the last few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, eastern Germany was smiled at so intensely for its 2-stroke engine that one completely forgets that the principle was propagated by supporters and manufacturers for many years in the west as well. I have a historical advertisement whose tenor is that a 3-cylinder 2-stroke is the equivalent but smarter version of a 6-cylinder 4-stroke ...

Herbert Hürsch
Herbert Hürsch
4 years earlier

PS

Interesting that this can also be read well on the Sonnet II. The V4 had almost exactly double the engine capacity but little more torque (which used to be earlier) and only 5 PS more than the 60-PS two-stroke engine. Since the Sonett II with the V4 but also 110 Kg (!) Was heavier, no better acceleration was achieved.

The light (approx. 660 kg) 85 PS sonnet from the article should be an astonishingly lively vehicle ...

I'll ask my neighbor if he does not want to bid on 2. Just the timing belt is about 30.000 Km before the prescribed change with the obvious consequences torn. As complex and modern as the car was yesterday, it is so broken and worthless today - because of a bad rubber!

Who knows, maybe the captivatingly simple 2-tact-principle, at least in the classic car scene, will experience a certain revival and old SAABs thus a further revaluation? The powerful and indestructible 2-Takt-Diesel old US trucks have long been cult status.

Speaking of US Truck & Trabant, who would have thought that between these two opposites, that between a filigree cardboard box and the chrome-plated heavy metal block, you would ever find a significant common ground? But now it is like this ...