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The dealer emailed me today and told me that they got some Arcs and Vectors in, so I decided to stop by on the way home from work to take a look. They apparently were delivered today, but the salesman was only able to locate one of them, a Laser Red/parchment Arc with automatic, Touring package, sport suspension, and heated seats & headlamp washers.
The car still had the carboard and plastic inside to protect the interior, so we had to pull them out so we could sit in it. The salesman took it off the lot and we went to the Kmart parking lot down the street and he let me drive.
Here's my impressions:
1. Engine -- the 2.0T does seem more powerful than the 2.0t. I got a chance to blast onto the freeway and got up to about 80 on the on-ramp before I merged. The Linear I drove in October seemed pretty fast too, so I suppose I should have done a back-to-back test drive.
2. Interior -- the leather arm rest and door inserts were very nice, making this seem more like a real luxury car compared to the Linear. The poplar wood was present on the doors and the shifter, and it had a matte finish, but still looked synthetic. It doesn't look like the kind of wood you'd find in other Luxury cars, but I guess it looks nicer than the high-gloss wood you find in the 9-5. The interior was parchment leather, and already some of the light-colored plastics were scuffed up where someone's shoes rubbed against it, near the bottom of the doors. Also, the shifer lever had the silver insert, not the wood like that seen in the accessories catalog.
3. Stereo -- unfortunately, I didn't get to test it out. I wish I did so I could see how much better it was compared to the Linear's lousy unit. I didn't bring any CDs with me though, and FM radio really isn't a good source for testing it.
4. Fit and Finish -- aside from the additional interior trim, the car seemed to be put together considerably better than the Linear I previously drove. I wouldn't attribute this to an Arc vs Linear thing, but I think Saab may have worked out some of the early issues regarding this. The plastic unit containing the map lights and sunroof switch looked a little different; not as cheap-looking.
5. Handling/ride -- I didn't really get a good test in the turns but I did do a wide u-turn to get back on the freeway from a standing stop to a rather high speed (can't tell though because the sun was in my eyes). The sport suspension rode pretty smooth, relatively speaking, compared to the Mustang GT which I am currently driving.
Overall, the car feels very well put together and perhaps if it wasn't the wrong color for my tastes, I might have tried to buy it. The salesman asked me if I'd like to be the first owner of an Arc in the state...I did have him look at the incoming shipments and they have only a few cars coming. He said if I decided to order one from the factory, I might have to wait 3-4 months to get it, where 60 days were strictly getting the car from Sweden to the U.S.
posted by 68.3.99...
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