Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Not another 9-5 ?!?!?! - Saab 9-5 Griffin Edition

To be frank, I'm very much a Saab fan, given a Saab or a BMW, I'd take the former anytime - Anytime before year 2000 that is.

Under the leaking umbrella of GM, this glorified brand with a cult like fan base developed during Saab's golden days had remained practically loyal, however, most of their fans are in their 50s nowadays, thinking about retirement, thinking about whether getting a Honda or a Toyota for their kids.

In short, baby boomers who were born in the 50s, awed over a Saab in the 70s, and finally capable of affording one in the 80s.

Honestly speaking, the only positive thing that GM had ever did for Saab is to feature their logo on their corporate website increasing traffic flow to the sunken Swedish brand.

This particular 9-5, is the exact same 9-5 sold in 1998, scoring maximum Euro Ncap crash test points (they still do now), given a good fight with the then BMW E39 5 Series and top end 3 Series by slotting in snugly between them, however plenty had happened in the course of 10 years, in fact the current 9-3, which was launched in year 2003 already grew so much in size and length that the 9-5 and 9-3 would puzzle those who couldn't figure what Trollhattan is in the sense that you can hardly distinguish which is the flagship.

So does launching another special edition of the 9-5 would help much? NO, and its a definite N O, first of all, the price of more than $40,000 USD would've been an optimistic figure, moreover a matt chrome job and a fancy name with an engine not better than the Saab 9-3 Turbo X just further complicates things and simplify customer's decision to walk out of dealers showroom right after popping in.

Yes, Griffin sounds cool, buying a 10 year old car isn't. As for GM, stop destroying these wonderful brands. (What cha laughing Ford? You as well)

3 comments:

m75 said...

and they will made those for 50% next year 18cars/hour nine 9-3 and nine 9-5

lowprofile said...

saab needs to wake up and shove more models. they can't survive on a 2 car range. they also need to shorten their product lifecycle from 10 years to 4 or 5.

Bobby said...

Yes, but I can understand the Swedes had plenty ambitions and capabilities, just that their owners were still thinking of ways to baffle us why wouldn't they want to focus on brands that had so much heritage and are able to market well in the world such as Saab, as oppose to fiddling with rubbish brands such as Pontiacs and Saturn.

Imagine GM putting all its efforts in pushing Chevrolet for low end and mass market, and using Saab to attack higher end toyotas to BMW, but always a price bracket lower than BMWs. If GM could complete Saab's portfolio by having a 9 model range starting from 9-1 to 9-9, they'll be able to really step up the ante.

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