Saab

Those of you who have followed the saga of the MGF in the last few months may be interested to know that it has been sold and replaced - with a Saab. It's my fourth Saab. The first two I bought, from a dealer, were stinkers. That is, Saabs are tough as old boots; you can abuse them, do 250,000 miles without putting any oil in them or bothering to check under the bonnet, and the poor old girl will soldier on, like a stranded Lesbian who is the only survivor in a plane crash. Then, if you are a dealer, you can clock them back to 93,000 and nobody will be any the wiser. At least one of my Saabs turned out to be an insurance write-off. The third Saab was a 9000 (the first two were 900's) and was pleasant enough but not very Saaby. It broke down on the day I planned to move to Scotland, and eventually gave up a few months later. So you would think I would be a bit wiser. No, not really.

You see, I am a Scandiphile. When I was six years-old I preferred Ingmar Bergman films to the Wooden Tops. I eat a lot of pickled herrings and have lots of things with IIttala engraved on them. And Gustavsberg, and JIE Gantofta, and Arabia, and Kosta, and Figgjo, etc, etc, get the drift?  A thing may that is made can be beautiful or ugly, and it may as well be the former rather than the latter. And so it is with things Swedish.

There is something, oh so very dutiful and solid about Swedish things as well as their beauty. Even their woman can open beer bottles with their teeth. So, I am sort of hooked.

This time I bought privately. This time I have benefited, I think from the care and attention lavished on this particular car since it was born in Trollhattan in 1999. This time it's a 9-3 Turbo in immaculate condition: two owners, full Saab service history, all the receipts. all the MOTs with the mileage, all the work that should have been done has been done, four newish tyres and it comes in at 115,000, which for a Saab is just about run-in. All the electrics are perfect, including the air con, which strangely, I have had to use this week. Taxed and MOT'd, I drove it away for less than a grand. The previous owner had a company allowance to keep it spick and span. It's never been a tower and it goes like stink.


This is pretty much what it looks like.