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Where do you think GM going to put its future priorities in deciding what brand to fix? Fix SAAB, and maybe get up to the 200,000 sales mark in 4 or 5 years? Or fix Opel/Vauxhall, which already sell humdreds of thousands more cars than SAAB. Fix SAAB, the brand with a quirky reputation and a mid-luxury car price, or fix Opel/Vauxhall, the brands with a much wider range of product and prices? Given limited resources and a softening world car market, which option do you think will make more sense to GM (or would make sense to any major car producer)? Anyone who has been to business school knows what the realistic answer is.
I have been a SAAB owner for 38 years, and no one would like to see SAAB succeed, with its own personality and products, than I would. But let's face reality. The market that SAAB competes in is very competitive - there are lots of excellent entry level and mid-level luxury cars out there, and most of them are lots better than they were just a few years ago. Have you driven the new Mazda "6", Mazda's replacement for the 626? It's about the same size as the new 9-3, and it handles just as well and has, IMO, slightly more pep than the 9-3 Linear. Fit and finish are excellent, and the cars sells for considerably less than the 9-3 SS. There are other examples, plus SAAB's traditional competition of Volvo, Audi, etc.
I know, I know, "That's an unfair comparison - you're considering only the Linear model. Wait until the Arc and Vector models get here." But they aren't here now - big mistake by SAAB. With lots of buyers you get only one chance to make a good impression with a new model, and if a potential customer doesn't like the Linear, or doesn't think it competes with other cars he/she is looking at, then it's going to be hard to get him back in the showroom next Spring. How would you react if a salesperson said to you, "You don't like the finish/power/whatever of the Linear model? Well, come back in the Spring when we'll have two additional models with better quality interiors/more power. Oh, and by the way, they'll cost considerably more, too." Most of those potential customers won't wait for SAAB to get its act together next Spring.
Hindsight is 20/20, but I think SAAB, and GM, missed the boat in not expanding its product offerings in the early '90s. At that time they were just coming off the "high" of the '80s record sales of the classic 900, and SAAB was an "in" car to have in the mid to late '80s. I think the problem was that GM only owned 50% of SAAB at that time, and was probably reluctant to dump a lot of money into a company they didn't wholly own for new product. Also, GM management at that time was pretty poor and not at all innovating, so they probably took a "let's just wait and see" attitude toward SAAB then. I know, they did invest in the new (1994) 900, but that product introduction was a disaster in terms of what it did to SAAB's previous reputation for a quality product. Yes, the later new 900 and 9-3 were much better cars, but the impression had already been made on many customers and potential customers. And, as much as I love my 9000, it was never a popular car in the U.S., and probably should have been replaced long before it was.
Predictions?? I think it may be too late for SAAB to save itself as an individual brand producing its own products. The car market is intensely competitive, and getting more so. SAAB seems to be in a Catch 22 situation - sales are low, so staff and new product plans have to be reduced or shelved, advertising budgets cut, which leads to lower sales because of less competitive products and less advertising (although how there could be much less advertising than there is now is a mystery to me). See the link below, which is a reiteration of the Wall Street Journal article posted here previously. My guess is that within 10 years, SAAB, if it exists at all, will exist only as re-branded other GM products/models, to fit into a particular financial niche (entry-luxury, mid-luxury, etc). I fully expect that GM's bean counters will decide that producing cars in Sweden is too expensive compared to producing them in eastern Europe or Asia, and thus the SAAB Swedish factory will be closed sometime within the next 10 years. (By the way, I expect the same thing to happen to Volvo - production in multi-national companies usually moves to the lowest cost areas of the world. There is no national loyalty in a multi-national corporation. It may even happen to brands like Opel.) This is what is happening world-wide to smaller companies that are absorbed by large, multi-national corporations. Why should we think anything different will happen with SAAB?
I'm sure lots of you will disagree with me, but that's my opinion. At least we can thank GM for 12 additional years of SAAB products. Back in the late '80s, and despite the record sales of classic 900s in the mid '80s, SAAB didn't even have enough capital to complete development of the new 900 model until GM came along. As for me, I plan to keep my '96 9000, with its roomier-than-a-9-5 interior and its "weird" hatchback, as long as I can.
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