The future of the Saab 9-5
The Saab 9-5 is the automotive equivalent of an octogenarian. Most manufacturers debut a revised model every four years, sometimes three, sometimes five, but the 9-5 has been around for over eight years now and it shows.The UK's Car magazine cobbled together what facts are already known and combined them with some insider knowledge to come up with a few renderings of the future of the 9-5. The article itself isn't just pure stylist speculation, but gives a rough idea of both the looks and underpinnings of Saab's new mid-size sedan.
The styling takes cues from the AeroX concept car from this year's Geneva show and is clearly trying to get some of that coupe-meets-sedan cred that Mercedes made so popular with the CLS. As for mechanicals, you can expect that the new 9-5 will be based off GM's Epsilon II platform that will underpin the Opel/Saturn side of things. The platform will likey undergo some serious revisions, namely to the suspension and steering components, before being employed into the new Saab.
Naturally, FWD will be the order of the day, but AWD will be an option, as will the choice of either a common rail diesel V6 or turbo'd V6 that is expected to put out over 350 HP.
[Source: Car]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
iQuack 7:29PM (11/03/2006)
Too bad GM won't bury the body. Saab has been a corpse for years and it's a waste for GM to pour more money into this hole.
Saabs are decent cars but nothing special since the 3 cylinder, 2 cycle Saabs of the late '50s to mid '60s.
Current Saabs offer no advantages over most other cars except what's been a quirky image for a few people who think they're individualists, or otherwise unique (they're not).
Better to lay Saab to rest and put GM's scarce resources elsewhere. Even without Saab, GM still has too many brands to support.
Reply
pauln 7:34PM (11/03/2006)
Eight years? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm quite certain the 9-5 is a direct evolution of the old 900 that first saw the light of day in 1984 or 1985.
Reply
Howard Kerr 7:49PM (11/03/2006)
A not too insignificant point:
the name of the journal mentioned in this article is CAR not CAR MAGAZINE. Does anyone call it CAR AND MAGAZINE...no, they call it the magazine named Car and Driver. or Car and Driver magazine (the word magazine is not part of the name of either of these journals).
I agree somewhat with iQuack, in that Saab's "claim to fame" was in building cars no one else was building. A areodynamically shaped small FWD sedan (at first powered by a 2 stroke 3 cylinder engine), in a period of VW Beetles and Ford Falcons...this was REALLY quirky. Then, a small FWD station wagon...it took VW and Audi 10 years to build a small wagon. After that came the Sonnet...a revolutionary FWD sports coupe? And later adding a hatch to the previously "trunkless" Sonnet. Again beating VW and Audi to the punch. Then the hatchback 99.
But GM decided that quirky could be added-on to an otherwise mainstream sedan and perhaps the end of Saab was started. It's unfortunate that Saab never was able to, for whatever reasons, retain quirkiness while expanding into untapped niches. Saab should have built a CUV along the lines of the Mazda CX-7 years ago, or a Sonnet successor along the lines of the Audi TT. GM both "saved" and killed Saab by their lack of investment at a pivotal (for Saab) time period. Saab's time is probably past.
Reply
JON 7:50PM (11/03/2006)
The SAAB 900 of it's day was unique unto itself with it's curved windshield that dominated the design of the car and it's utilitarian design(spacious 2 and 4 dr.hatchbacks).SAABs were also high performance car that handled inclement weather with ease and bravado.Quite and dynamic combination.We didn,t call it that back then but it was kinda the first SPORT UTILITY CAR with a performance edge.
Reply
narcszm 9:18PM (11/03/2006)
Interesting conjecture. Poorly done photochop. The Phaeton roof compressed just does not match what's going on below the belt line.
Reply
RZ 9:20PM (11/03/2006)
SAAB is going down as fast as a Sweedish jet hit by a US made missile
Reply
Josh E. Oliver 9:40PM (11/03/2006)
Epsilon II has yet to make it's debut and Saturn/Opel do not currently ride on it.
There is no EPII vehicle currenty on the market.
Reply
tr 10:49PM (11/03/2006)
"the name of the journal mentioned in this article is CAR not CAR MAGAZINE. Does anyone call it CAR AND MAGAZINE...no, they call it the magazine named Car and Driver. or Car and Driver magazine (the word magazine is not part of the name of either of these journals)."
umm, if it's just CAR, then how come on their own site (www.carmagazine.co.uk, or hell, just click on the Read link above, and look to left side of the page), they refer to themselves as "CAR magazine"? perhaps they themselves are wrong about their name.
as for Saab, just bring back the hatchbacks.
Reply
Adam 11:06PM (11/03/2006)
"Eight years? Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm quite certain the 9-5 is a direct evolution of the old 900 that first saw the light of day in 1984 or 1985."
I'm pretty sure the Saab 900 became the 9-3 and the 9000 got the axe at the intro of the 9-5.
Reply
thomas 11:22PM (11/03/2006)
The 9-5 is a completely new car from the 900 or 9-3. That underpinning died in 2002. I think the 9-5 is a very handsome and still perfectly good car. It rides quietly, it has been deemed one of the safest cars on the road, and is very reliable, even according to CR. Plus, because its has had the same design since 1999, it makes a great used car.
Reply
MikeW 11:38PM (11/03/2006)
Two rear anti-roll bars, that is quirk.
Reply
Dinger 2:17AM (11/04/2006)
pauln -
You are wrong.
The 900 of the 80's, the "C900" (c denotes "classic" to seperate it from the Opel based 900 made form 94-98) was made from 1979 to 1993 ('94 for the convertible). The C900 was based on the 99 which was introduced in 1969. In fact the door from a 1969 Saab 99 will bolt on to a 1993 Saab 900 and fit perfectly.
However they have nothing, except engine bore diameter, in common with the GM built 9-5.
Reply
Jason 3:27AM (11/04/2006)
Those a-pilars are all wrong. That is Buick La Sabre styling from the 90's! Who at GM acutally thought Buick retro styling would work for Saab? And btw, the chopped up grille is something that puts the whole front end down. On the current model and on this. It is too hard on the eyes and mind to digest at a quick glance. Never going to make any friends when you make it a hard read at first blush. Sorry to see Saab die a slow death.
Reply
mark 7:28AM (11/04/2006)
Saab lost everything but it's name when GM took over. Th c900s were fantastics cars, the next generation 900 under GM was sold with the tag 'the very new, very saab 900' on the tax disc holders (UK). A poor attempt at convincing pople it was still a saab. The only thing i think left of saab might have been the interior build quality back then. What did GM do with the ingenuity of the SAAB engineers?
Reply
Trollhattan Saab 7:31AM (11/04/2006)
I'm glad a few of you sorted out that "900 became the 9-5 thing". Dead wrong.
The 9-5 needs a change only because change is the accepted norm. It's still a great car but the market expects more. The market ain't necessarily right, but the market does pay the bills.
Don't take this as what the car's going to be. It ain't a GM-Saab rendering, just an artist's impression. The word going around is that this next 9-5 is going to be a killer. And boy, do they need it.
Reply
Howard Kerr 8:09AM (11/04/2006)
Re tr (and Damon Lavrinc?):
Go to a decent sized, metropolitan newstand. If they have the magazine, in the top left hand corner...where it's been on every month's cover for DECADES is the name of the magazine mentioned here.
IT SAYS CAR, NOT CAR MAGAZINE.
Reply
Bookalon 8:39AM (11/04/2006)
it was the AeroX concept car from this year's Geneva show not the 9x, you have cover it enought times to have known it.
Reply
Andy Rupert 9:59AM (11/04/2006)
I've owned three Classic 900s and a 9000 and have been disappointed by some of the things done by GM. However, I actually like this artist's rendition of the new 9-5. Three keys to success in my opinion: (1) turbocharged engine, (2) key in between the seats, and (3) clam shell hood. Take it or leave it, that's what I like about Saabs.
Reply
Roger Pfeiffer 3:30AM (11/05/2006)
Saab is still leading the way in emissions and performance technology.
Alternative fuels for an automobile are certainly becoming increasingly important as time goes on. Eventually, we are bound to run out of fossil fuel on this planet, as there is a finite amount to pump from underground. Additionally, the rate at which we use it up will be increasing, especially since China is just beginning its rapid expansion in the use of cars. Also, the way things have been going in recent years, the carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuel, fuel that has been buried for millions of years underground, is causing “the greenhouse effect” to be of major concern because of the global warming it causes. Clearly, the polar ice caps are melting at an increasingly alarming rate, and not as much of the water is re-freezing in the “winter months” (depending on the pole). If we don’t do something about it soon, like within about 20 years, we will find our cities on the coasts buried under water. Also, as I understand it, the warming of the oceans will cause quite dramatic shifts in weather patterns, meaning more hurricanes and stormy weather. I’m not writing this for the purpose of extolling gloom and doom, but rather to point out that we human beings in the near future need to be altering our ways of burning such large amounts of fossil fuel. We need to ramp-up the development of new technology and methods to power our cars and to be less reliant on cars in general. Of course public transportation helps, but we need to develop the technology and efficiency of using alternative sources of energy soon. In my opinion, ethanol is an important component of the bridge needed to get us to the use of hydrogen cells, and beyond, to power our vehicles. The beauty of burning ethanol, being that it comes from the fermentation of vegetative sources such as corn, wood pulp, and many other plant sources, in effect recycles the carbon dioxide present in our atmosphere. Plants use it to grow in the process of photosynthesis. Brazil uses almost exclusively ethanol that is derived from sugarcane grown there.
Here in the U.S. and elsewhere, the auto makers are producing more and more cars that will run on “E85” fuel, composed of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. Gasohol (10% ethanol) has been a good start, but E85 is even better in my opinion. Vehicles that will run on either gasoline or E85 are called “flex-fuel vehicles” (FFVs). In the latest issue of the leading consumer magazine is a front-page article about what they deem, “the ethanol myth”. They came to the conclusion that it is disadvantageous to run a FFV vehicle on E85 fuel instead of gasoline. Both the fuel economy and acceleration of the 2007 SUV tested dropped when running on E85 compared with gasoline.
From this, it seems apparent to me that the U.S. needs to catch up to Sweden, General Motor's Saab in particular. Running on E85, the Saab 9-5 "BioPower" Turbo model delivers a significant 20 percent increase in maximum power and 16 percent more torque while emitting 80% less CO2 into the environment compared to running it on gasoline. Running E85 compared to gasoline takes about a second off the 0-60 mph time, and there is a 15 percent gain in fuel economy on the open road where fuel-enrichment for engine cooling is no longer necessary when a vehicle is run on ethanol. The 9-5 BioPower has taken the Swedish market by storm this year, outselling its full-year 2006 sales target in just four months. Sweden has a long cultural and political tradition of respect for the environment, and this is reflected in Saab's achievements of the pioneering of asbestos-free brake linings and the removal of CFCs from air conditioning systems, and now Saab’s Trionic 7 BioPower engines. I remember back in 1973, when the oil embargo hit and additional "smog control" devices (i.e., the EGR valve and air pump) were required on new cars, their performance declined significantly. Many people at the time, including mechanics and engineers, thought the performance and efficiency of cars had been dealt a lethal blow. This is when I bought my first Saab, a 99 EMS. Saab, with the development of the "lambda sond" oxygen sensor (keeps the correct stoichiometric ratio of 14.5 to 1 in the air-fuel mixture) in 1976 along with electronic fuel injection, required no such smog control devices. It was the beginning of electronics-to-the-rescue for car performance. This technology, along with concern for safety and functionality, enamored me with the cars. I was impressed that they did this because they wanted to, as opposed to doing it because they had to. Seemingly at odds with one another, performance and fuel economy were blended together in a practical and distinctive car.
So here we are, forty years later, and Saab is still leading the way in emissions and performance technology. All Saabs are turbocharged and have direct ignition, and the engine’s combustion process is very precisely controlled by a powerful 32-bit microprocessor controlled system called, "Trionic 7". This unit monitors the combustion process in each cylinder a million times per second for optimum efficiency. It precisely regulates the fuel-air mixture in each cylinder, the ignition timing, and the amount of turbo boost pressure allowed. And(!), very significantly, it automatically adjusts itself to any proportion of gasoline and ethanol.
How does Saab achieve higher performance using E85 compared to gasoline, you might ask? It stems from the octane rating of E85 being about 10% higher than that of gasoline. The Trionic system thus allows more advanced ignition timing, a higher compression ratio, and a higher turbo boost pressure, all of which increase the performance and efficiency of the engine.
There are two driving forces behind the adoption of a renewable and sustainable fuel such as “bioethanol” E85: The environmental need to combat climate change from the greenhouse effect and the strategic need to overcome dependency on oil, a finite resource for which global demand will exceed supply, not to mention the world tensions related to it’s procurement. Sweden plans on being free of dependency on oil by the year 2020. Let's hope that the same will be true of the U.S. It appears to me that General Motors, especially with Saab’s traditional engine know-how, is leading the way.
Reply
Steven T. 1:46PM (11/04/2006)
GM should sell Saab to an automaker that knows what to do with it. I think Saab could still be viable if it returned to its roots of concentrating on advanced engineering.
There's plenty that can be done, but it will never happen under GM, which has great difficulty seeing any value in innovation that ventures much beyond trendy stylistic flourishes and cheap exercises in "branding."
Reply