The Swedish company Saab is best known as a defense giant that has produced some of the most advanced warplanes in the world. However, the company also has a forgotten past in the automotive industry.
Saab’s aerospace industry has produced some of the most cutting-edge fighter jets in history, including its iconic Saab 35 Draken and 37 Viggen, as well as early warning aircraft like the Saab 340 AEW&C.
The company is currently most renowned for its JAS-39 Gripen fighter jet, which was designed to fight Russia in a way that American F-16s could not.
The aircraft could land and take off from civilian roads and soon became a marvel of Swedish aviation. The Gripen has been produced in several upgraded variants, with the Gripen-E/F being the series’s latest and most advanced aircraft to date.
Sweden sold the Gripen-E/F to Brazil in 2014. However, in the next decade, Saab faced many disappointments and a waning global presence as rivals like the F-35 and Rafale continued to dominate the market.
However, after struggling for nearly a decade, the Royal Thai Air Force (RTAF) selected the Gripen-E over Lockheed Martin’s F-16 Block 70. Since then, Saab has been optimistic about the aircraft’s revival in the export market, and the company’s shares have also witnessed healthy growth over the last year.
In fact, Saab has been making concerted efforts to sell the aircraft to India for the latter’s Multi Role Fighter Aircraft (MRFA) contract. Saab is also marketing the aircraft to some other countries.
In addition to the Gripen, Saab has also impressed global customers with its state-of-the-art early warning aircraft—the GlobalEye multi-domain Airborne Early Warning and Control (AEW&C) aircraft whose popularity has seen an upward trajectory in sales in the last few years.
The Global Eye has been a saving grace for Saab’s plummeting reputation. This aircraft has allowed Saab to re-enter the global AEW market, building on the success of its previous Erieye-equipped regional airliners, the Saab 340, 2000, and Embraer 145, as previously explained by the EurAsian Times. The GlobalEye has been sold to the UAE and is being pitched to Denmark, Finland, and South Korea.
In addition, the company has also produced the world’s latest advanced trainer aircraft, the T-7 Red Hawk, in collaboration with Boeing.
However, the company produces more than just aircraft. It also produces equipment for air, ground, and naval warfare domains. While Saab continues to be one of the companies that dominate global aviation and defense manufacturing, its history with automobile production is not very well known.
EurAsian Times drives through the lanes of history to explore the rise and fall of Saab as an automobile manufacturer.
Before Gripens, Saab Made Cars
In the 1930s, Sweden had been a neutral state for about 100 years. However, as the world came to the brink of the Second World War, the leaders in Stockholm realized that the country needed robust defenses to protect its national autonomy and neutrality.
In 1936, the Swedish Parliament Riksdag decided to invest heavily in defense. As a result, the Swedish Air Force received the most significant funding.
Sweden did not have a strong air force that could defend the country, and it was precisely this lacuna that led to the birth of SAAB. The inability to get a significant number of Seversky P-35 aircraft from the United States served as the final trigger for manufacturing of combat aircraft domestically.
The firm was initially established in 1937 by AB Bofors, who transformed the aero engine branch of the Trollhättan-based NOHAB (established in 1930) into a legitimate aircraft builder. From that point on, Saab became involved in the Swedish government’s focus on developing and producing military aircraft domestically.
Saab developed the SAAB 17 light bomber, followed by the SAAB 18 bomber, and then the SAAB-21 fighter jet. However, the development of newer aircraft slowed down as the war approached its end.
After the war ended, the demand for military aircraft collapsed, and the company needed additional revenues to stay afloat. So, it decided to venture into the automobile industry.
Most vehicles in Sweden were imported from the United States before World War II. During the war, American automakers produced tanks, and by the late 1940s, the domestic market had absorbed all of the US auto industry’s output. As a result, there was a significant scarcity of private automobiles in Sweden and Europe, and customers had to wait years for new models.
This is where Saab saw a window of opportunity and started producing automobiles at its Trollhättan-based Saab Automobile subsidiary in the late 1940s.
Saab’s first car was a strange-looking Ursaab. Four prototypes of this car were produced, all of them bearing a peculiar aerodynamic appearance. It had front-wheel drive and two-stroke engines.
Based on this design, Saab produced the Saab-92. It was called the 92 simply because that was the next number in Saab’s sequence for civilian vehicles—90 was a two-engine passenger plane and 91 was a single-engine training aircraft.
After this came the Saab 92B in 1953, featuring a boot lid and a significantly larger back window. The 92B also featured a greater selection of body colors and additional luggage space—not because the boot was bigger, but rather because the spare wheel and battery that had been kept there were moved to a new location.
Saab then produced Saab 93, followed by Saab Sonnet, which was a two-seater sports car with features common with the Saab 93B. A few years later, in 1960, Saab launched a car that brought it global recognition and attention—the Saab 96. “The first taste of success came at the beginning of the 1960s, when Saab launched the 96 – a car that would make the Swedish brand known worldwide for its safe and rally-capable vehicles,” writes Top Speed.
The Swedish company had also started producing computers in the 1950s and rose to prominence in the aircraft computer industry in the 1960s.
In 1965, the firm was renamed Saab AB to better represent its wide variety of activities, including car manufacturing. However, three years later, Saab AB became Saab-Scania AB after merging with Scania-Vabis, a Swedish producer of buses, trucks, and heavy-duty diesel engines.
Over the years, Saab produced several cars that became cult favorites in Sweden and across Europe.
For instance, the company produced the Saab 99 Turbo in 1978, which used turbocharging to increase an engine’s power output. Later, in 1984, it collaborated with Fiat to develop a new platform for executive cars and made the Saab 9000.
The company had a watershed moment in 1990 when US-based General Motors (GM) purchased 51% stakes in the Swedish company. This partnership is said to have altered the company’s direction and is believed to be the reason behind Saab’s fall from grace.
According to one account, the merger gave GM a strong presence in Europe and an entry into the European luxury market while providing the Swedish company access to American knowledge, funding, and distribution networks. However, in the end, the collaboration would turn out to be a fiasco that would destroy the Swedish brand.
Saab was a well-known automotive manufacturer that specialized in producing exquisitely designed vehicles and upheld its values by prioritizing safety and design before profit. However, for the American behemoth, it was all about earnings, sales, and big profits. This is believed to be the reason behind Saab’s demise as a car manufacturer.
Before GM, Saab had distinguished itself by engineering cars in a way that had never been seen before and created designs that were visually arresting but aerodynamic.
“Typical of Old GM, the company pressured Saab to become another brand of badge-engineered appliance work, much like what plagued Oldsmobile, Pontiac and Buick for a greater part of the 1990s and 2000s,” said GM Authority. “GM envisioned Saab to become a rebadged Opel, something it would fight to the bitter end.”
The Swedish manufacturer was forced to compromise and produce cars that lacked the aesthetic appeal of the Saab 96, Saab 99, and Saab 900. Some of Saab’s less impressive models were introduced during the GM years, including the 1994-launched redesigned 900, which shared a platform with the Opel Vectra, the Saab 9-2X, which was based on the Subaru Impreza, and the Saab 9-7X, which was based on the Chevy TrailBlazer.
The company had American consumers in mind while designing the Saab 9-2X and Saab 9-7X, but their poor market performance fell short of GM’s goals, further causing Saab’s downfall.
In 2000, GM took over Saab and made it a wholly-owned subsidiary.
A decade later, Saab Automobile’s ownership changed again when it was sold by GM to a Dutch company named Spyker Cars N.V. in 2010. By this time, the popularity of Saab cars had plummeted, and the market had gone dry.
Spyker tried to get funding for Saab for a very long time. Finally, a Chinese carmaker, Youngman, and the Chinese automotive retailer Pang Dato agreed to a joint US$140 million takeover of Saab Automobile and its UK dealer network unit from Swedish Automobile.
However, GM tried to block this deal by threatening that it would not continue its licenses to GM patents and technology to Saab if the company was sold to the Chinese.
After struggling to stay afloat for three years, Saab finally declared bankruptcy on December 19, 2011. No other options were available after GM persisted in preventing any kind of engagement with a Chinese partner.
In the words of Saab: “Saab cars’ future was therefore wrapped up with that of General Motors, and when the American parent company’s own fortunes began to nosedive in 2008, so did its Swedish subsidiary. A change of ownership to include Dutch car maker Spyker could not halt the decline, and the Saab cars business was lost for good when Saab Automobile AB filed for bankruptcy in December 2011.”
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