There are Saab stories built around chassis codes, engine maps, production numbers and auction results. This one started with a young visitor at the Frankfurt International Motor Show in 1993, a simple point-and-shoot camera, and a Saab employee who noticed that a 20-year-old enthusiast wanted a clean photograph of the new Saab 9000 CD on the stand.
That small moment, photographed almost by accident, became the winning entry in the Saab Car Museum’s photo contest under the theme “Saabandan” – the Saab spirit. This past weekend, the prize came full circle. Jan Goldenbaum and his brother made the trip from Germany to Trollhättan for their VIP Saab weekend, guided by Mikael Granberg, with the Saab Car Museum and NEVS turning a decades-old memory into a living experience in the home city of Saab.
Table of Contents
The Photograph That Won
The winning image was not chosen because it was the sharpest, rarest or most technically polished Saab photograph in the contest. Its strength was different. It captured a moment that many Saab people recognize immediately: a brand representative taking a young enthusiast seriously, even when that visitor was not a buyer, not a journalist and not someone likely to place an order for a 9000 CD.
Jan later described the moment precisely. In 1993, he visited the Saab booth in Frankfurt as a 20-year-old, with no signs of wealth and no realistic ability to buy the car on display. Even his camera was modest – a simple point-and-shoot. Still, the Saab employee tried to clear space so he could take his photograph. That gesture stayed with him long after the motor show closed.
The jury explained their decision clearly: a small gesture in a snapshot that meant a lot to Jan. One day, he did eventually buy a Saab 9000 and remained loyal to the brand. The prize was therefore not just a museum reward. It was a delayed thank-you for a moment of hospitality that had quietly done its work over more than thirty years.
For a Saab audience, that framing matters. The photograph is about a Saab 9000 CD, but the winning subject is the human exchange around it.ž
Seven Visits and a VIP Weekend
This weekend’s trip to Trollhättan was not Jan’s first. According to Saab Car Museum director Mikael Granberg, Jan has now visited the city on seven separate occasions. The contest prize gave the latest visit a different structure – a full VIP program rather than a self-organized enthusiast trip – but the commitment to Trollhättan was already well established long before the photo contest.
Together with his brother, Jan visited the Saab Car Museum and then moved to the NEVS facilities at Community THN, the building that stands on the grounds of the former Saab Design Center. That itinerary was well chosen. It did not simply place Jan in front of old cars. It connected the 1993 Saab 9000 CD memory to the later chapters of Trollhättan engineering, from the design culture of the old Saab organization to the unrealized but deeply serious Emily GT program.
Inside the Former Saab Design Center
One of the most significant stops was at NEVS, inside Community THN. For anyone who follows Trollhättan beyond nostalgia, that place carries particular weight. It stands on the landscape of the former Saab Design Center, where many ideas were once shaped, tested, argued over and translated into production cars.
For Jan and his brother, the visit placed them inside a setting that is normally discussed from the outside by enthusiasts: the design and development atmosphere left behind after Saab Automobile’s collapse and the subsequent NEVS activity. The photographs from the visit show a small, attentive group in that environment, studying boards, design material and engineering presentations rather than walking through a conventional tourist display.
That distinction matters. A museum preserves finished objects. A design center preserves a different kind of memory: unfinished thinking, abandoned routes, technical decisions, sketches, models, contradictions and ambitions that never became dealership stock. The strongest Saab memories rarely come from velvet ropes and polished scripts.
Frank Smit and the Emily GT
A major highlight of the day was a presentation by Frank Smit on the Emily GT project. That alone would be enough to interest many SaabPlanet readers.
Emily GT has become one of the most discussed projects in the post-Saab Trollhättan story because it occupies a difficult position. It was not a Saab production model. It was not a museum fantasy either. It was a real engineering program developed under NEVS, with serious work behind its electric drivetrain concept, packaging and long-range grand tourer ambition.
Hearing that story from someone directly involved changes the texture completely. For enthusiasts, Emily GT is often processed through leaked photographs, auction references, prototype appearances, corporate silence and fragments of technical context. During Jan’s visit, the project was presented as lived engineering work – not as internet mythology. Frank Smit explained how the project was carried through against considerable odds, in a difficult industrial period, after the Saab factory had already passed through several identities and uncertainties.
The car still exists as evidence that Trollhättan’s engineering culture did not disappear the moment the Saab badge stopped appearing on new production vehicles.
Red, LaserRed and a Small Car with a Large Role
A detail from the day that runs through several of the visit photographs: Jan’s clear preference for red, in all its variations.
He brought a red miniature car from home. The photographs show it beside a tablet displaying the original 1993 Frankfurt Motor Show images – a compact timeline sitting on a counter at Community THN. NEVS added a fitting companion piece: a Stallbacka Cast miniature finished in LaserRed, color code 278, painted at Stallbacka in the original shade.
For Saab people, the color code matters. LaserRed is not just “red” in a caption. It belongs to the vocabulary of owners who know paint codes, model years and the small factory details that separate a proper keepsake from a generic souvenir. One of the visit photographs places the LaserRed miniature in the foreground with the red Emily GT blurred behind it. The small car and the full-size prototype mirror each other across scale and across the gap between the Saab era and what came after.
A Ride in Emily GT
The day did not end with a presentation. Jan and his brother also received a ride in the Emily GT – a detail that gives the story its strongest emotional closure.
The original 1993 photograph was about a young man being allowed to get close enough to a Saab 9000 CD to take a proper picture. More than three decades later, the same person was not only welcomed in Trollhättan but also given a seat in one of the most significant NEVS-era prototypes.
The distance between those two moments is considerable. In 1993, Saab still stood as an active manufacturer presenting cars at major international shows. In 2026, the brand exists through museums, clubs, specialists, private owners, engineering remnants and the people who still keep the story moving.
Yet the thread is recognizable. Someone made room for Jan in 1993. This weekend, Trollhättan made room for him again.
Why This Visit Resonates
The strongest element of the weekend is that it did not centre on a celebrity visitor or a collector with a high-value garage. Jan’s winning photograph came from a modest position: a young fan at a motor show, hoping to photograph a car he could not buy. The Saab employee’s response mattered precisely because it was unnecessary. Nobody would have blamed him for ignoring a young spectator with a basic camera.
Instead, he helped.
That kind of gesture is easy to underestimate. Brands invest heavily in design language, advertising tone and corporate identity, but long-term loyalty is often shaped in moments that never appear in official campaign reports. A conversation at a motor show. A technician explaining something properly. A guide recognizing why a visitor came from another country.
Jan’s story captures exactly that kind of loyalty. It also explains why the Saab Car Museum’s contest theme was well chosen. Saabandan can sound abstract until a photograph gives it a face. In this case, the face is not only the young Jan behind the camera. It is also the Saab employee on the stand, making space around a 9000 CD.
This weekend in Trollhättan, that same idea was returned with interest.
