Saab is dead

[Homer_Bart]

From Jalopnik, just moments ago.

 

Saab Sale Cannot Be Concluded

Brand to be Wound Down

 

General Motors announced today that the intended sale of Saab Automobile AB would not be concluded. After the withdrawal of Koenigsegg Group AB last month, GM had been in discussions with Spyker Cars about its interest in acquiring Saab. During the due diligence, certain issues arose that both parties believe could not be resolved. As a result, GM will start an orderly wind-down of Saab operations.

 

"Despite the best efforts of all involved, it has become very clear that the due diligence required to complete this complex transaction could not be executed in a reasonable time. In order to maintain operations, Saab needed a quick resolution," said GM Europe President Nick Reilly. "We regret that we were not able to complete this transaction with Spyker Cars. We will work closely with the Saab organization to wind down the business in an orderly and responsible manner. This is not a bankruptcy or forced liquidation process. Consequently, we expect Saab to satisfy debts including supplier payments, and to wind down production and the distribution channel in an orderly manner while looking after our customers."

 

Saab will continue to honor warranties, while providing service and spare parts to current Saab owners around the world.

 

As part of its efforts to become a leaner organization, GM began seeking a buyer for Saab's operations in January. Last week, Saab Automobile AB announced that it had closed on the sale of certain Saab 9-3, current 9-5 and powertrain technology and tooling to Beijing Automotive Industry Holdings Co. Ltd. (BAIC). GM expects today's announcement to have no impact on the earlier sale.

 

As the company continues to reinvent itself, GM has been faced with some very difficult but necessary business decisions. The focus will remain on the four core brands – Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and GMC – and several regional brands, including Opel / Vauxhall in Europe. This will enable the company to devote more engineering and marketing resources to each brand and model.

 

May we have a minute of silence please...

 

 

EDIT: I do have a question though, what will happen to the yet-to-be-launched new 9-5?

[KoenigseggBG]

That's a sad moment for the automotive industry. :( Although I never was a fan of Saabs, mainly because they weren't anything close to my tatse for cars, they did have some nice models. The cabrios for example or the older Saabs (from 80s-90s).

[CarMadMike]

I can't think of one old Saab i like, but i have to say i do like most of their modern cars, so it's a pity to see them go.

[Baltoman]

Serves them right! humph

[Andreas¹]

I heard that after Koenigsegg pulled out, the Chinese were interested in buying Saab as a whole. They must've pulled out aswell, or did they settle for just the technology that they bought? I'm confused. :(

Sad to see them go as they were one of our Swedish brands. :(

EDIT: I do have a question though, what will happen to the yet-to-be-launched new 9-5?

Great question there.

[Car Freak]

For some reason, the close down of Saab just ticks me off even more than the shutdown of Pontiac. Bloody Americans biting more than they can chew and in the end throwing away more than 60 years' worth of heritage here, and 80+ in Pontiac's case. What the bloody hell did they think they were doing??!! Buying a brand in order to expand and spread out your market base to reach into more markets, that i can understand. But not providing the funding/permission to build better cars, what the hell did you think was going to happen, GM??

 

I really honestly don't want this to be the end of Saab. Let's all hope that with the new 9-5, someone else can come pick up the remains and make something out of it.

 

For some reason I didn't get this worked up when they closed Pontiac. I suppose it was because it was the Americans shutting down one of their own, but now they've gone and screwed up another country's car manufacturers, and i simply find this unacceptable.

 

Up yours GM, and Saab RIP

[gingervette]

Spyker was thinking very seriously about buying Saab there for a week or two.

 

As much as I love GM, I hope they realize what a grave mistake they are making. Saab is a niche brand but they sell quite well in places. And their new 9-5 is proof that they can build an amaing car if they put forth the effort. They had so much technology as well. Their Cross-Wheel-Drive system (their version of AWD) was fantastic and their Turbo engines ran flawlessly.

 

I really hope they realize what they are doing and keep Saab going.

[Andreas¹]

Top Gear just posted it on their website aswell and I guess it answers the question below.

 

what will happen to the yet-to-be-launched new 9-5?

 

GM has announced it is killing Saab. The historic Swedish car maker has been up for sale for most of 2009, and no buyer has stepped up. GM is enormously vulnerable financially, having just come out of bankruptcy. It can’t afford to prop up the loss-making Saab any longer.

 

Saab isn’t going down in flames: the wind-up, says GM, will be ‘orderly’. In other words, Vauxhall dealers will honour warranties, and Saab workers and suppliers will get paid.

 

But 3400 Saab people will lose their jobs, and there are 1100 Saab dealerships around the world which will also mean job losses there.

 

When Saab was first put up for sale, tiny Swedish supercar maker Koenigsegg made up a financial consortium to buy the company. But at the last minute it pulled out.

 

Then tiny Dutch supercar company Spyker did the same (see a pattern here?). But it has been unable to overcome ‘due diligence issues’. Hmmmm: Spyker has never made real money. And it wasn’t a success at F1. Nor at Le Mans. To buy Saab looked like wildly over-reaching itself, frankly.

 

Meanwhile the Chinese firm BAIC has bought the rights to make the old Saab 9-5 in China, plus certain technologies from the 9-3. But it doesn’t have the Saab name.

 

Saab is a proud carmaker. Its history is of safe, practical big cars with muscly turbo engines. They were interesting and eccentric and occasionally rather good. But when GM bought Saab to try and have a premium brand (similar to Ford buying Jaguar), GM didn’t really know what to do with it. It lost money continuously.

 

GM has been trying to simplify itself in the past year. It nearly sold Opel-Vauxhall (which would have meant a catastrophic loss of engineering expertise). It closed down Saturn and Pontiac. It sold Hummer to another Chinese company. And now Saab is toast.

 

What’s ironic is that Saab had some good new GM-based cars coming: the attractive new 9-5 was about to go into production and towards the end of the year a new 9-4X crossover was due to be launched, based on the impressive new Cadillac SRX. Now they’ll never see the light of day. Unless some other car maker wants to buy the rights on them. GM says it’s open to offers, but that seems unlikely.

 

Paul Horrell

 

http://www.topgear.com/uk/car-news/saab-is-dead-2009-12-18

[Car Freak]

Thing is though, the only reason Saab's gone under is because of American mis-management. Eg the 9-5 was actually due to be replaced in 2005, when GM was working in the Fiat group. But when the alliance broke upm *poof* went the new 9-5, straight down the drain. All the money and time spent to design a car, all gone to waste.

 

Thing is though, from my PoV Saab's engineers weren't hopeless, it was just that GM never gave Saab an opportunity. The things that come to mind are Saab's progress with turbo engines, vehicle safety, 4WD system (as mentioned) and their bio-ethanol engines.

 

http://www.autocar.co.uk/blogs/autocarconfidential/archive/2009/12/18/what-went-wrong-for-saab.aspx

 

Like others on the Autocar boards have said, this is a really stupid move by GM, where it will work only in the short term. They've just made some money by selling off the rights to the 9-3 and old 9-5 to the Chinese, and more importantly, 2 new models are virtually production ready. Add to that the future potential of advancements in biofuel (i.e. bio ethanol) technology, and it really does look like this is one of the worst moves GM has ever made.

 

These few quotes from the people over at the Autocar message boards sum up my feelings perfectly: http://www.autocar.co.uk/forums/t/10501.aspx

Real shame - GM culls it just when the going was improving - cash injection from BAIC fo rold lines sold off' date=' new 9-5 and 9-4x ready to launch, factory awarded lean award, and then GM just gets impatient for the sake of a few weeks - unbelievable, very sad indeed.[/quote']

I realise that this is desperately sad news and really feel sorry for the workforce; particularly at this time of year. I have to say' date=' however, that this has been coming for years. Everyone likes quirky Saabs, apparently, but no-one buys them.[/quote']

Heartbreaking, to know the potential the brand had and yet was never realized. SAAB could have been for GM what Audi has become for VW, or Infiniti for Nissan... With a little more focus and ambition, SAAB could now be competing with the A3 (9-2), giving them the necessary volume, and the long-awaited new 9-5 was all done, for God's sake! A model that had been on life support for three years was finally getting a hugely improved replacement, a development that has cost tens of millions and countless engineering hours, all for nothing.

Tremendously short-sighted from GM's part, but that's American management style to you (short-term profits) vs German or Japanese (long-term thinkers).

There isn't enough time or energy to explain how much SAAB has contributed to GM's technology. However as basic as I can be. GM vehicles have become safer and more reliable thanks to SAAB engineering. they now have variable valve control' date=' and direct injection engines and a good line of Turbo-charged engines too. e85 capable vehicle are offered throughout Europe and North American Markets and 80% of the OPEL Insignia (According to SAAB insiders) was engineered by SAAB. All this plus GM's AWD (XWD) technology all developed by SAAB on SAAB's expenses of which GM gave them too little too late. Am I bitter and twisted about how SAAB has been managed by GM over nearly 20 years..... Damm right I am. However, it is the families of all the SAAB employees who I feel for the most. This is a sad sad day in the automotive industry. [/quote']

 

Oh, anyone else find it particularly harsh (esp to all employees of Saab around the world) that this announcement comes just before Christmas?

[Jacob]

:crying: Why GM why!! you've cut pontiac, which was going to make a UTE! Now you cut Saab! I think its till to pay Mr.Bob Lutz a visit.....

[superhyper]

R.I.P. Saab :( I would have loved to see the new 9-5 on the streets...

[Impala SS]

:agreed: That would be nice... :(

[TIMELESS]

Saab were alright. We had a 9-3 for.. erm.. 3 weeks XD

 

It's a shame Spyker didn't buy Saab... you could imagine the new sportier powerful versions they could have made :lol:

[t.]

Good. As Rover learnt, failure to keep with times is fatal. Is there a desirable Saab? No. They were alright cars but they suffered from being very dull.

[T1M]

Another great car company down the toilet.

 

I loved Saab, I don't see why no one would buy them. The new 9-5 would have been epic, and the 9-3 is a great car now.

[Immelmann]

I don't believe they're dead. Odds are some Chinese investor has just been waiting for them to tank. Then he can buy the intellectual property and we'll have Saabs once more, albeit made in China :(

 

Just look at TVR. The company's history is a friggen soap opera.

 

Still, I'm sad though, I loved Saab :(

And as for Bilo, funny thing is, I saw Mr. Lutz once...

[Car Freak]

Good. As Rover learnt, failure to keep with times is fatal. Is there a desirable Saab? No. They were alright cars but they suffered from being very dull.

Thing is though, this time round, it was GM mis-handling the brand for 20 years. Saab didn't do this to themselves.

 

Anyone else noticed that both Rover and Saab have folded right when they were on the cusp of launching some potentially life-saving cars to replace their ageing models? For Rover it was the Focus-class RDX60, for Saab the new 9-5. Would have been really nice to see how they'd have fared

 

Rover RDX60

[Shy Guy]

I think that many car companies could have benefited from Saab, these include.

 

PSA(Peugeot/Citroen) could have got access to the US market, some of Saab's new cars, and Saab could have benefited from PSA's platform's, and since Citroen is moving upscale, Saab could have filled the gap between Citroen and Peugeot.

 

Subaru could have made Saab their near luxury brand(Sort of like what is Infiniti to Nissan, or Acura to Honda) and Subaru's and Saab's I think are generally sporty.

 

I'm no fan of Saab, but they are certainly better than GMC and Buick.......

[Mr. Bean]

Hereby i'm requesting a nationwide minute of silence from the government.....Saab, you'l always be in my heart.......R.I.P :( :(

[RedCarDriver]

Psst. Subaru. Make moar 9-2x's. :P

 

Yeah, the death of Saab is a severe disappointment. At least the plane company was invulnerable to GM's financial issues. >_>

[Immelmann]

You guys who didn't like them can't say that you didn't like the Aero X Concept.

It was even better in the metal... *love*

[Car Freak]

GREAT NEWS!!!

 

Saab might still get another chance yet!

http://money.cnn.com/2009/12/20/autos/saab_gm_spyker_offer/index.htm

 

Cross your fingers and pray as hard as you can that this one will work!

[HighlineDSG]

uhm, they havent said that yet.. heard on the news today, that they are waiting for a buyer until 31. dec...

[Andreas¹]

This was (unsurprisingly) on the front page of yesterdays newspaper, and on 7-8 pages in the paper itself. It said that a secret group of Swedish people might buy the whole brand, or parts of it if this happened. I really hope this won't be the last we ever hear from Saab..

[Immelmann]

Andai, you is weird... :oook: