1979-1993 & 94 Conv [Subscribe to Daily Digest] |
If you look at the source cited in the Wiki, the sentence is poorly written and vague:
"The Chinese carmaker bought intellectual property relating to the old 9-5 model and to Saab 9-3 models up until 1994, explains Mr Muller."
(From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8512224.stm)
I interpret the phrase, "and to Saab 9-3 models up until 1994" to mean that they purchased IP back to the beginning of the NG900 run -- 1994 -- not any IP prior to then. It's confusing but, even as written, if you parse the sentence, there really is no way to interpret it as referring to classic 900s unless the "9-3" is an error.
Furthermore, while this is not a direct quote from Mr. Muller, it's entirely possible that it's a close paraphrase; that is, they could be mostly (and perhaps almost completely) his own words. He is not a native English speaker, which may explain the clumsy use of the phrase "up until 1994." On the other hand, it may, in fact, be a direct quote but the quotation marks simply didn't make it into the article when edited.
Bla bla bla -- the point is, the sentence does not explicitly mention the classic 900, it appears to instead refer to NG900/9-3 models, and grammatically cannot reasonably be interpreted to refer to c900s. In any case, the sentence says IP *relating* to those models -- for all we know, this refers only to, say, Trionic 5, which came out in 1994. Finally, the c900 was designed in the 1970s and sold less than a million cars from 79-93; compared to the other IP they purchased, it's ancient, so what's the point?
posted by 24.17.5...
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