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What motivated me to get the Viggen recently instead of wait longer was that import quantities will make it hard to find really good Viggens in the not too distant future.
To my knowledge, there were 7625 SPGs imported to the US between '85 and '91 (someone please correct me if they know better). Between 99-02 I believe there were only 2932 Viggens imported (again, correction requested). Now here is the kicker, I'm guessing since you love the SPG, you want a Viggen coupe. Of these 2932 Viggens, only 764 of them were coupes! (BTW, the figures I have are 863 sedans and 1305 converts.)
So, you have to find 1 of 764 cars and find one in good condition, that is not going to be easy--especially in 5 years!
To paint a worse picture (depending on your preference of color), in its infinate wisdom, SAAB USA decided to only bring in 400 Lightning Blue Viggen coupes in '99 (I think in the end for '99 there were really something around 410 blue plus a few black and 3 silvers which were used at the Viggen flight academy). The rest of the world had other colors in '99. We got the other colors and body styles in the US in 2000 (including Monte Carlo Yellow--my fav). Then the GM bean counters got full control of SAAB in the middle of 2000 (and the ability to influence the 2001 model year). Well, bean counters were not big on colors that were not widely used in the product line (costs too much), so in '01, out went Lightning Blue and Monte Carlo Yellow and Viggens only came in the colors put on every 9-3 (Steel Grey, Black, Red, Silver).
There are only 764 Viggen coupes in the US. Over 400 are blue (making it by far the most common Viggen coupe color). I wanted a Monte Carlo Yellow Viggen. There are 138 2000 Viggen coupes (the only year of yellow in the US) in the U.S. I have not been able to find out how many were yellow, but of 138, I'm pretty confident that less than 100 were yellow. That means I was looking for 1 of fewer than 100 cars! If I waited 5 more years, it would be VERY hard to find a really good one.
Right now, there are lots (relatively speaking) of Viggens on the market because they are coming off lease or they are not owned by SAAB enthusiasts who want to keep them for awhile (they are owned by the typical new car buyer that flips there car every 3-5 years). Right now is probably going to be your best time to find a reasonably priced and very good condition Viggen. You could wait 5 years and only pay $10,000 for the Viggen, but good luck finding a good one!
posted by 66.2.10...
, Thu, 29 Apr 2004 08:30:09, Wed, 28 Apr 2004 10:52:37
, Wed, 28 Apr 2004 08:21:16, Tue, 27 Apr 2004 17:51:35
, Tue, 27 Apr 2004 18:16:03
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