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Chris Budd - Saab Interview / Globe & Mail Posted by EGD [Email]  (#663) [Profile/Gallery]
(more from EGD) on Thu, 3 Dec 2009 06:35:38
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FWIW, Budd seems to have a good handle on the problem...
December 2, 2009
Thirty-odd years of selling Saabs
By Michael Vaughan
From Thursday's Globe and Mail
A dealer muses on the ups and downs of the quirky Swedish brand
Saab hasn't been put out of its misery yet. General Motors is going to try one more time to sell its Swedish luxury brand.
The Budd family of Oakville, Ont., has been deeply involved in the Saab saga as owners of Canada's longest-established Saab dealership. The father and two sons began selling Saabs in 1977, and have stuck with the quirky brand through its ups - and mostly downs - for the past 30-plus years.
General Motors bought a 50-per-cent stake in Saab in 1990 and bought the rest a decade later and never made a dime on its investment. Sales have gone straight down since GM announced it was bailing out of Saab as GM itself approached bankruptcy protection.
Saabs have always been, well, interesting. They arrived in North America as odd-looking, front-wheel-drive cars with noisy two-stroke engines. They developed a cult following, particularly in New England, where you can still find Saabs from the 1950s and 1960s spewing smoke and heading for the ski hills.
Chris Budd never gave up on the brand. He and his brother are making lots of money with a string of dealerships in Oakville and Hamilton, but he thinks Saab should still have a small, slightly unusual place in the automotive world.
Vaughan: Well, the official name is Budds' Saturn Saab, but Saturn's toast.
Budd: We're done. All our Saturns are sold. If there's 300 [new] cars left in the country, I'd be surprised.
V: Which leaves you with Saab.
B: We have 11 left and they haven't shipped us any more because it's been so dicey.
The Saabs we have are $10,000 or $11,000 off and you know how much damage that does to the brand.
V: What were Saabs like in '77 when you started selling them?
B: In 1977, the only car Saab had was the 99 in a couple of different versions.
This was the car that evolved from the early 95 and the 96 and was their first new body after the funny-looking ones.
V: Did it have a two-stroke engine?
B: It did in the European version for a short while, but not in North America. It was actually a four-cylinder Triumph engine. Saab didn't build their first engine until 1981.
V: What were Saab's glory years? There must have been some.
The best years were 1989 through to about '93 or '94.
They had some new product. They brought out the larger 9000 in 1985, which did pretty well because there wasn't too much competition in those days.
The Japanese really hadn't started into luxury cars. There weren't as many players and so Saab became that niche car that wasn't a BMW.
They had some good years. When General Motors took it over, I think their intentions were good, but I don't think they ever really understood the brand. I don't think they ever really understood what people were looking for from the brand.
V: An enthusiast's brand?
B: That's what the brand really is.
For guys and ladies who want a safe car but one that's different. They don't want to be the person in the parking lot that has the third BMW. They just don't want that.
V: But there were never any new ones.
B: The cars have been fine.
They're great cars. There's nothing wrong with the cars. They just didn't evolve enough or quickly enough and bring the right models.
When everybody else was bringing in sport utilities, Saab didn't have the investment to do it. If you think back to the late '70s, early '80s, everybody thought of Saabs as a skier's car.
But as SUVs came out, Saab didn't have one, so they lost all their consumers who went off and bought other things.
V: I'm amazed you stayed with Saab as long as you did.
B: Our best year, I think, we sold 196 cars. Typically, we've done 135.
But it was pretty good sharing product with Saturn because we would do 350 or 400 Saturns. It worked well.
Saab customers are nice people and they brought their cars back for servicing.
V: But it must have been deadly when GM announced it was dumping Saab. That doesn't give a potential customer much confidence.
B: That's the biggest problem.
If you go back to a year-ago June, when the rumours started that they would move Saab, the client base started to erode.
People would come in the door and say they would like one, but they were fearful. They'd say that they don't want to buy a product that's disappearing.
Maybe that's what happened to the deal to acquire the company that fell apart - the fear factor. Maybe sales eroded so much that numbers didn't work any more. That's how much the brand is damaged.
V: Would you hang in if someone decided to give Saab another try?
B: We would find a home for it.
There is a new 9-5 that is ready. If it came out, I think there are people who would buy that car.
It might take a while. I don't think it's impossible.
In the whole world, 130,000 to 160,000 cars is a good business and you can make money provided you have premium cars. You can do some quirky things.
When the economy comes back and people have a few more dollars, I think there would be room for Saab.
posted by 76.232.19...
, Thu, 3 Dec 2009 06:35:38 <-- Viewing This Message, Thu, 3 Dec 2009 17:21:12, Fri, 4 Dec 2009 11:43:40
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