10 years Saabblog - and no party
Anniversaries are sometimes odd. You're not sure whether to cry or celebrate. Is 25 years in the same company always a sign of loyalty, or were you too naive to quit and take advantage of your opportunities? Or that: writing a blog for 10 years about a long faded car brand. Can that be healthy?
Then you stand there. 10 years, which one would never have thought possible. One thing is certain, there is no party. The times are against it. If Corona weren't on the way, I would have thought of something. A meeting of readers for the anniversary, and there are some nice locations with an automobile paint in the vicinity. But the virus throws in any plan, no chance!
The times are generally not such that there is something to celebrate at Saab. The number of cars is shrinking, as is the presence on the Internet. Websites with a long Saab history are offline and are for sale. A prominent victim on a long list is saabhistory.com. The domain would have to be acquired. Even what we might have secretly always hoped for, a comeback of the brand, is no longer on the agenda.
All bad?
Not at all. Saab is cult. In a small, manageable world, of course. But the brand has never been for the masses - even in its prime. An insider tip for automobile gourmets, people with a special taste who liked individual cars.
These people still exist today. Because without them there would be no one who would read the blog and also no one who would invest a lot of money and heart and soul in maintaining an old car. That's good, that's valuable. Because the future serves digital uniformity and predictability. The hip, rolling smartphones will analyze and evaluate their users down to the smallest detail. Hiding, privacy, it's all the dust of years gone by.
But it's not there yet!
This project preserves a small piece of this individual, Swedish car culture. Even if it is only a small residue, it has become a virtual home for many friends of the brand. The last 10 years have been interesting and I am grateful for every single year. I got to know interesting people who knew how to tell exciting stories.
Without Saab and without the blog, I would never have heard them, and that would have been a shame. I learned a lot from the readers, experienced limits, and there were and are contacts that I would no longer want to be without. Of course, as always in life, there was one or the other screamer among them, whom one would rather not have met. But that is the exception.
But the most important lesson is to make something out of nothing. We stand here alone. Without a manufacturer to back you up or a company that Saab would feel obliged to do. That doesn't sound good, but it is by no means bad. It continues with creativity and interesting people around me. A little courage and youthful recklessness are of course also part of it.
Saab is still a matter of the heart, and because it is now customary to conjure something out of nothing, there will be new ideas and formats in the future. They may work. Maybe I'm wrong, but life is a constant learning process.
It will continue even at the age of 10, which is a very old age for a blog.
Saab's visibility in digital media is assured, with morning coffee or tea there are always a few lines of Saab to read.
In this sense:
Thanks to everyone for reading Saab for 10 years! Thank you also for the patience that fellowship has and had with me. I am looking forward to the coming time!
Addendum sustainability (PS)
Thanks also for making this blog a contribution to sustainability and environmental protection. Who knows how many Saab scrapping and exchange bonuses would have been lost if you couldn't make sure here that and how they can make it to kilometer kings?
I'm doing homeschooling right now. My youngest is supposed to write an essay on whether he lives in the fictional “Neustadt” (where you wake up every morning in a new bed, in a new house and with a new car in front of the door - next to a growing mountain of rubbish outside the city gates) wanted or not. And each why.
I don't push him, but I wouldn't be surprised if the name Saab also appeared as a reason in his essay for not wanting to live in “Neustadt”.
Dear Tom,
what else should I write that has not yet been mentioned here?
I congratulate you on the first 10 years of Saab Blog! I wouldn't have believed it.
Thank you for your great work and persistence in staying tuned!
Best regards from Vienna.
You make the world a little more colorful ... Thank you for that.
Dear Tom, I would like to join the crowd of well-wishers and thank you very much for ten great, committed years and articles about our brand soaked in heart and soul. We will hopefully see you in Trollhättan by 2022 at the latest, as usual with Markus for the crossing in Kiel. Stay healthy !
.... in addition to all the good and good wishes and thanks that I unreservedly agree with, Tom coined a term in the text that saved my day, but probably a lot more ... "automobile gourmets" I don't know if he's used it before I only noticed it here. That's so much more like a SAAB fan! That means consciously enjoying SAAB, exchanging and enjoying small nuances, but also respecting and enjoying the dishes of other cuisines.
As an “automobile gourmet” I had the state banquet today with rump steak, duchess potatoes and asparagus (SAAB 9-5NGturbo6xwd), but I also like a lumberjack stick with bacon beans and french fries (SAAB 9-7x), or a good dessert with lemon parfait in Champagne and cocktail cherry (SAAB 9-3cabrio1,8tvector), sometimes a spicy chili con carne (SAAB 9000aero) or a noodle stew with chicken from the troop kitchen (VW T3 Syncro). Well for today it should be enough with the feasting! 🙂
Hey Tom, Hey Mark and Hey BlogTeam,
all the best from me on the anniversary. It's been 10 years, it's amazing how time flies.
Thank you for the countless exciting articles about SAAB.
Actually, we could celebrate our anniversary together, because on January 13.01.2011th, XNUMX I bought my first SAAB.
Please keep it up SAABig contributions
Greetings Martin
Thank you very much for this great project!
Without you, dear Tom, I would probably not have become a Saab driver. Exactly a year ago I bought my first one with full conviction - and now 24 months later there are already three!
The blog is awesome! Chapeau.
Hello Tom, thank you very much for your commitment, this great blog would not exist without you.
With the many interesting reports, there is something for every Saab fan.
Please keep it up!
Greetings from Hanover
Sven
Happy Anniversary, thank you very much that, thanks to you and your team, we Sabbaths have our refuge here to celebrate our love for the old Swedes! Keep up the good work - we'll catch up on the partying!
Yes dear Tom and team
A huge thank you from the Swiss capital for the last ten years. We look ahead and, if possible, keep our small brand to the best of our knowledge and belief.
Hopefully for a long time to come
Best regards, Tom Wälchli
Dear Tom, dear Tom team ... thank you for your commitment in maintaining and continuing to use the cars of this beautiful brand ... I think you have exactly this passion and connection with the brand that the makers in Trollhättan had for decades. If there were more of your kind in other past brands, for example the drivers of the Triumphs, the Simcas, the Alfas and the Lancias would certainly be happier ....... I wish you all the best, greetings Matthias
Tom's idealism and commitment are truly admirable!
We look forward to many more exciting Saab stories ...
For the anniversary only:
THANK YOU
Hi Tom,
Warm greetings from Stormarn - combined with the wish for more years with the daily SAAB blog.
Unfortunately, I haven't got the chance to register for the subscription yet - but this will be done in the next few days.
A comeback of the brand (as a high-volume manufacturer) is probably no longer on any agenda. Nevertheless, I have the secret wish that a fan of the brand with enough money should produce a small series for the real enthusiasts - for example a contemporary SAAB 900 Hybrid with a lot of power. I would certainly be there as a buyer!
Thank you too dear
r Tom & Team
Thank you very much for the SaabBlog! He keeps making me dream of ending my car-less (that's possible!) By buying a Saab. Thus, according to Loriot: Life without SaabBlog is possible, but pointless!
Tom, Congratulations on your 10th birthday from the blog. I have had to give so many “thums-up” that it is clear that my message can be very short. Weeter make Tom !!! Thank you for this wonderful work. We all enjoy it.
Really 10 years? Time goes by so quickly. It's great to read the blog in the morning, indispensable in home office times! The nice community and the friendly atmosphere, I don't want to miss that.
If you can, hang on for another 10 years!
hello Tom, congratulations from me on the 10th blog anniversary.
10 years is a long time if you count 3.650 days, on the other hand
but also relatively short if you've been driving Saab for 37 years. Even more
like the Saab passion that gushes out of your blog articles, I admire
still your formulation skills, which make the blog so exciting for me
do. All the best and keep it up for the next 10 years!
Congratulations from me too !! Not every blog survives, even with brands that still exist, the lights go out for some. For this reason alone, I have the highest respect for you and your achievements. And another thanks goes to the people who actively supported you. Saab is a rare "number". I don't know of any other brand that, after such a long time, is still in so many minds and creates enthusiasm. Have you ever thought about a YouTube channel ;-)? The question wasn't meant to be taken seriously.
If the next year is no longer in the stranglehold of Corona, could it be possible to catch up on a post party in central Germany? That would be a little sensation!
I am definitely happy that the blog exists and that its future is not in question.
Thank you very much for your tireless efforts, Tom!
It's unbelievable how fast the time flies and at the same time it's great that I can look forward to the next ten years of blog.
I agree with previous bloggers thanking them ... 😉
Keeping up a blog like this as a “hobby”… that impresses me very much !!!
Thanks to you Tom !!!
Happy Birthday Blog! That I also got 10 years older during that time, I better not think about it now 🙂 To the next 10!
Congratulations Tom! Your stamina is remarkable - to put it in the typical SAAB understatement 😉
It's not just the daily articles, always well researched (some “professionals” could learn a slice of it), well written and consistently high quality. Your steering has also shown success with the comments over the past few years. In the meantime a very nice group has developed that treat each other with care. There are no longer any “real SAABs”, everyone is recognized. Everyone has different preferences and areas of application for their SAAB and that is respected - that's how it should be! The way was surely occasionally unpleasant.
From the events in which the BLOG is “partly to blame”, a few very nice friendships have developed that have lasted for years. For that, too, a big thank you.
This is also a point that I have been missing a lot since last year. I hope that maybe in 2022, on the 75th anniversary of SAAB, we can all see each other again in Trollhättan. Otherwise we try to make it over the time by phone and individual meetings in a very small framework.
Greetings from Kiel,
Gerd
Congratulations & above all 1.000 thanks.
I am not among the readers from the start. But I haven't been able to get rid of him since the discovery of this blog.
1.000 thanks could roughly correspond to the number of reports, articles and reader contributions that I've read here along with probably 10.000 comments since then.
I consider the fact that the brand's presence on the internet is decreasing to be a consolidation process, for channeling, for a success of this blog. At least I visited another Saab blog myself before. After the discovery of a better one (saabblog.net), the other one was dead for me and probably is now. I didn't bother to check.
It all sounds so negative (saabblog.net kills XY), but I don't want to understand it that way. It is good and right when a relatively small community concentrates on one point, when dealers and other protagonists know who they are leaving old films, documents and whatever, and why.
But these are analytical thoughts & details that are not relevant at the moment. I just hope that Tom celebrates himself and the blog in an appropriate way today - despite Corona.
ALL THE BEST AND HIGH SHOULD HE LIVE
Thank you, dear Tom. A later meeting in the greater Frankfurt area to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the blog would be a good idea!
Hello Tom, thanks to you! For the willingness, for your tenacity and for your optimism about Saab.
It is always a pleasure to read your posts. It makes you think and yes, of course I also think about how to get my still great Saab by the rounds. It'll work out somehow. The blog as a daily dose of Saab helps immensely!
Let's drive our Saab and hold the Saab flag as high as possible.