[Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
Members do not see ads below this line. - Help Keep This Site Online - Signup
Hello board.. I've never posted here before but I've been by once or twice and I know if there's anyplace on the 'net where Saab fanaticism is alive and well, this is the place. I'm recovering from the loss of my first and best car, a '79 900 GLE, and I thought this might be a nice place to share the story of a wonderful, wonderful car and a piece of saab history, if you will all excuse it.
My car was one of the first models of the popular Saab 900 to come out of Sweden, and certainly one of the first to hit US soil. 1979 was the first model year of the Saab 900. According to a small plate screwed into the inside of the driver's door, my car was manufactured in October, 1978 in Trollhättan, Sweden. The fact that it was in the US at all is something of a mystery. It probably entered the country through Connecticut, or so I seem to remember my father postulating.
1979 Saab 900 GLE. Paint color: Marble white. Four doors, hatchback. Brand-new, state-of-the-art Lambda computer on board (under the front passenger seat). My parents bought it in 1986 or 1987, soon after we moved into our current house in Wisconsin. I have a very vague memory of the lady we bought it from. I guess my father saw it sitting on the side of the road with a FOR SALE sign in the window, and as my parents were already Saab nuts, and their old, orange, two-door hatchback, 1976 Saab 99 was getting on in miles and years.. they got a new family car. This would have been a few months after the birth of my youngest sister in July of 1986.
We used the car for a couple years, until my father was able to purchase a brand-new company car with a little help from his new firm. This car was a 1989 Saab 900, bright white, and I think the only brand new car my family ever had. Both of the other cars went unused after this purchase; my future car, with a number of problems under the hood, would sit untouched and undriven in the garage for nearly 10 years.
Flash forward! It's 1998: I'm 16 in September, and I want a car. Naturally, I fix my attention on that lunk of metal that's been sitting in the garage for as long as I can remember.
It's not too rusty, but the glass in one of the manual windows is sliding down into the door. The fabric glued to the car's headliner, or the ceiling, is sagging down over the back seats. But the biggest problem is that all of the metal parts in the engine have seized together--the car has sat in the garage, unused, for so long, that the metal parts have developed a kind of magnetic glue. The engine won't turn over.
So I start working on my dad to see about fixing it up. My father has a real soft spot in his heart for old, uncomplicated cars, which he has undoubtedly passed on to me, and I think he always liked that car (obviously, otherwise I doubt he'd've let it sit quietly in the garage, taking up space, for so many years), so soon we were discussing shipping it off to Larry's.
Larry is the go-to guy for Saabs in southeastern Wisconsin. He has a boneyard of tens of old cars so he can rip out their used parts and charge less money. If anyone could get this car up and running, it'd be Larry.
The car is towed off to Larry's. It needs a lot of work. Most notably, a new transmission. None of us see it for about four months.
Finally, my dad and I pick it up. It's weird, since I'm used to driving my dad's (aging) "company car," but.. IT WORKS! I'm in love.
It had so many unique features. Sure, the windows and door locks were manual, but it had a sun roof. And a huge trunk, with a full-sized spare. And a little secret compartment in the trunk, where you could store bottles of oil and coolant, a car jack, and all of the proper tools. With the back seat folded down, the trunk was big enough that someone could sleep in it comfortably. There were two extra windows at the back of the body--"opera windows," my father called them. The hood opened backwards. The upholstry was velour, and the whole interior, in fact, was this sort of a minty-green color, to go with the slightly green hue of the exterior paint. It still had its original tape deck: a Blaupunkt, a German model. And instead of a tachometer on the dash.. it had a huge, analog clock, blending in with the other dials.
This is all besides the coolest feature of all: the front seatbelts.
http://nausicaa.wanfear.com/webmistress/Saabsb.jpg (a picture of said seatbelts)
I scanned that picture out of the user's manual in 1999, back when I had thoughts about making a webpage all about my car. Yes, I have been insanely in love with it for many years.
Anyway, after a year of driving, the rusty spots in the body of the car started to be rather noticeable, so my father and I (but mostly my father) spent the summer knocking out the rusty pieces, patching them with Bondo, and, ultimately, entirely sanding down, priming, and repainting the car. I also applied metallic tape to the trim around the windshield and back window to bring back its luster. Wow. After that, she looked like a dream.
http://nausicaa.wanfear.com/webmistress/mybaby.jpg (my car)
This is the only full-sized picture I have of my car on this computer. It's actually from a photograph, scanned on a really crummy scanner. I wish I had a better one. X( At the least, I wish I had a picture of the grille, which was very unusual and rare, with this kind of trapezoidal shape.
My car got me through the rest of high school better than ANY Mercedes or Beemer in the lot. (I attended a private high school. Many kids had doctors for parents, fully willing to give their children outlandishly expensive cars to drive.) In fact, my junior year, it very nearly won Best Car for the yearbook poll (except some awful sophomore girl got it instead. Why?? Because she was driving a new, yellow VW Bug.). It didn't matter that its official Blue Book value was under $950. It was my baby. My love for it inspired such drawings as this bizarre picture of my car, perched upon an Easter egg, wearing rabbit ears. (The "Bunsaab" is born.)
http://nausicaa.wanfear.com/webmistress/bunsaabtrib.jpg (the Bunsaab... look if you dare)
But the car started to decline in health after my freshman year of college. That summer, I had an internship a few miles away from home, and either the commute or the sultry temperatures seem to have hastened it to its demise. It had a rash of problems, from the water pump to the radiator to vacuum leaks to the fuel distributor. Last summer, I was scarcely able to drive it at all.
And now, with a crack in the head, needing a new engine, the car must retire. There are no new engines to put under the hood, to replace the bad one, and there are no wrecks of cars of that vintage with parts in good enough shape to transplant. In the end, this sweet piece of machinery must be put down.
Well, I'll just have to remind myself that attachment to material things is bad, and that for all of the wonderful things about that car, it was still just a car. But it was my first car, my pride and joy, my unusual, unique set of wheels, better than anything else on the road now or ever, as far as I'm concerned.
thanks for reading. I just want to give my car a proper memorial. :)
-Emilie
posted by 130.49.79...
, Mon, 2 Feb 2004 18:00:18
, Mon, 2 Feb 2004 03:43:52
, Sun, 1 Feb 2004 22:54:22, Mon, 2 Feb 2004 15:25:30
No Site Registration is Required to Post - Site Membership is optional (Member Features List), but helps to keep the site online
for all Saabers. If the site helps you, please consider helping the site by becoming a member.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
