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San Diego Saab Proving Ground report (long) Posted by aizzo [Email]  (#1220)  [Profile/Gallery]
(more from aizzo) on Fri, 16 May 2003 09:16:33
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I attended the Saab proving ground event in San Diego last night. It was a good time. I think it was a great opportunity for those not familiar with Saab. It started out with a static display of a 9-3 Vector and a Saab rep answering questions about the car. Then a chance to drive the 9-3 Vector and 9-3 Arc (or Linear, I didn't drive this particular car) and , too my pleasant surprise, a 9-5 Aero. When driving the Saabs a Saab rep came along. The driving coarse was pretty simple, but did give you a feel for the car. It was laid out as:
- A straight acceleration for about 100 yard (up to about 40MPH)
- A tight slalom coarse (small cones about 15-20 feet apart)
- A traction control skid pad (FOT from dead stop to demonstrate TCS)
- An ESP skid pad (accelerate from dead stop, then hard right, hard left. Definitely felt the ESP kick in)
- A mini-road coarse with a left bend and a right bend. Nothing too dramatic, but it did give a chance to push the cars a little
- Some "bumps" to show how much noise/vibration isolation each car has
After driving the Saabs you could drive each of the competitors
* BMW 325i
* Audi A4 1.8T
* Volvo S60
* Mercedes-Benz C240
The only car I didn’t drive was the MB. I drove the 9-3 Vector once, and the 9-5 Aero 3 times. I drove the BMW, Audi, and Volvo once each. Here are my impressions:
* BMW felt light and nimble, especially in the slalom. But the slalom is the only place I felt it out drove either of the Saabs
* Audi felt very "squishy." I didn't really care for the Audi much (note however, that the Audi and the Volvo both had stock tires on them, which were not as performance oriented as the Saab tires).
* Volvo a bit "squishy" but not as objectionable as the Audi. I still felt pretty comfortable pushing it a little. The seats in the Volvo were very comfortable, but not as supportive (side bolstering in particular) as the Saabs
All in all, it provided a good opportunity to compare the cars side by side in the same environment. And I think the Saabs had a very good showing. Most of the comments I overheard were very positive with regards to the Saabs. Some other information I picked up was:
- No navigation for 9-5 in 2004
- Next gen 9-5 will most likely be built on stretched Epsilon, allowing
the Trollhättan factory to produce it without too much revamping
- The Saabauru (9-2) is the begging of a long reaching cooperation between Saab and Subaru (next gen 9-2, possibly an SUV, a larger Subaru...)
- I was surprised to see how many current Saab owners were present (I'd say about 25% were current Saab owners, ranging from a 9-3SS to a 1986 900)
That's about it. Thanks for reading and sorry this was kinda' long...
Alan
posted by 216.142.74...
_______________________________________ Current Saabs ================= 1997 900SE Talladega Previous Saabs ============== 1995 900SEv6 2010 9-3 2.0T Convertible 2011 9-4X Premium 2004 9-5 Aero SW (Manual) 2004 9-5 Aero SW (Manual swap)
, Fri, 16 May 2003 09:16:33 <-- Viewing This Message
, Fri, 16 May 2003 18:09:16, Fri, 16 May 2003 13:54:17, Fri, 16 May 2003 12:44:51
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