A Jetsons-Style Oddity Suddenly Available to Buy
Every so often, a Saab reappears from the fringes of Nordic car culture and instantly captures attention far beyond its region. This time, the surprise comes from Köln, where a small, long-established dealership has listed a vehicle that looks more like a prop from a retro sci-fi film than a classic Swedish sedan. The ad introduces it with a single word – “Cosmonaut” – yet anyone who has followed Scandinavian shows in the last few years will recognize the silhouette long before reading the description.
This is the Finnish bubble-top Saab 96, a creation that once toured events across Finland and Sweden, drawing crowds because it didn’t pretend to be anything it wasn’t. Its builders embraced the surreal. They didn’t attempt to modernize the 96 or give it motorsport credentials. Their intention was far stranger, and far more charming: to build a small, fully usable vehicle that looked like it rolled straight out of the Jetsons universe.
Now it is sitting under the lights of a German showroom, resting on Finnish paperwork, and waiting for a new owner willing to bring home a Saab that resembles a spacecraft more than a road car.
The Finnish Beginning: When a Roof Chop Became a Spacecraft
The story behind the car is surprisingly grounded considering the final result. A father and son started with a simple idea – lowering the roof of their 1975 Saab 96. The 96 is a pragmatic machine with upright pillars, thick steel, and a visual weight that makes such experiments difficult to execute cleanly. Yet as the project progressed and the roofline sank lower, a pivotal moment arrived. When the roof finally disappeared entirely, the car suddenly gained a different personality. The long fenders, the curved beltline, and the compact cabin made the body look lighter, as if it could support a canopy instead of a steel structure.
That realization changed the project’s direction overnight. Instead of reinstating a conventional roof, the pair envisioned something bolder – a transparent dome, lifted straight from mid-century concept cars, early Cold War aircraft canopies, and American animation fantasies that defined the future as something cheerful rather than dystopian. The Saab’s new identity fell naturally into place.
What emerged was a fully hand-built bubble top that could rise electrically, seal the passenger compartment, or be removed entirely to turn the car into a roadgoing capsule with the airflow of a convertible. The transformation was so complete that even those familiar with 96s struggled to recognize its original form at first glance.
The builders embraced the absurdity and painted the car in a shade that could have been chosen for a spaceship mock-up in 1962. They finished the project, toured it for a few years, and unintentionally created one of the most recognizable modified Saabs in the region.
Why the Car Matters – And Why Its Appearance in Germany Is a Surprise
Many custom Saabs rely on performance upgrades, rally replicas, or period-correct restorations. This one moved in an entirely different direction: it became a piece of rolling imagination. For years, the bubble-top Saab appeared at Scandinavian exhibitions not as a technical showpiece, but as an example of creativity – the kind of creativity that lives in small workshops, where projects evolve not from budgets or blueprints but from ideas that refuse to be ordinary.
Because of its visibility at Nordic shows, the car developed a recognizable presence. It wasn’t famous in the mainstream sense, but inside the Saab community it had a certain mythic quality – “that Jetsons Saab,” as people often called it. No one expected it to migrate south, and even fewer expected to find it for sale at a German dealership better known for classic cars, weekend roadsters, and aging sedans.
Yet here it is, displayed among perfectly conventional vehicles, its glass dome resting beside cars that could not be more different in purpose or personality.
How the German Dealer Presents It
The dealership’s description is unusually candid. After listing the basic data – the 1975 registration, the 1.7-liter V4, the Finnish documents – the seller makes no attempt to explain the car in technical detail. Instead, he shrugs in text form, admitting that the modification “cannot really be explained,” and suggesting that buyers simply see it as it is. He also states plainly that the car is fully drivable but unlikely to receive formal approval for registration. TÜV and bubble-top custom Saabs rarely meet halfway.
Yet even with that honesty, the dealer lets his enthusiasm slip through one sentence: if he were a Saab enthusiast, he would add this “thing” to his own collection without hesitation. It’s a rare moment when a seller openly acknowledges the irrational appeal of an object. But perhaps that is the most accurate way to describe this machine – a Saab that defies rational categories, whose value lies in its singularity rather than in its usability.
Driving a Car That Belongs to Another Era
Anyone who has ever driven a classic Saab 96 knows the charm of the V4 engine, the steady torque, and the unmistakable character of the car’s front end. But inside the Cosmonaut, those familiar traits fade behind a more unusual sensation. The cockpit feels like the inside of a small observation pod. Light enters from every angle. Reflections bend across the surface of the dome. The outside world appears closer, as if the glass mediates space differently.
With the canopy removed, the driving experience changes again. The outer silhouette remains futuristic, but the airflow turns the car into a strangely modern interpretation of a 96 cabriolet – something Saab never produced, yet somehow feels believable in this context.
It is not a car one drives quickly. It is a car one drives slowly, because every stoplight, every parking space, every fuel station becomes a conversation. People do not ignore a 96 with a transparent bubble for a roof. They stare. Then they walk toward it. Then they ask questions that cannot be answered with specifications alone.
Why €12,900 Is Not the Point – But Still Makes Sense
The price inevitably catches attention. Twelve thousand nine hundred euros for a modified 96 is not an impulse purchase, but it is also not inflated when viewed through the lens of the collector world. One-off custom builds with documented histories have their own economies. This particular car has toured shows, appeared in media, and developed a recognizable identity. It is not an abandoned project or a backyard experiment. It is a finished piece, shaped by a narrative, and that makes it stand apart.
Its value is less about performance or practicality and more about its status as an artifact — a small chapter in Saab’s unofficial cultural history, preserved not by the factory but by enthusiasts who believed that the future could look playful again.
A Rare Chance to Own a Moving Work of Retro-Futurist Imagination
Cars like this do not circulate often. They tend to disappear into private collections, museums, or storage units where they become the quiet possessions of people who understand their niche appeal. The Cosmonaut, however, has returned to the open world.
Its new home could be a film studio, a museum dedicated to design, a marketing agency looking for an attention magnet – or a Saab collector willing to expand their definition of what a 96 can be.
Whatever the destination, it will not be forgettable. And that is the real point.
