We wrote about the Saab 9000 Bahco years ago because it sits in that rare space between coachbuilt showpiece and working industrial tool: a 9000 Turbo transformed into a gullwing demo van for Bahco, with equipment storage, a presentation setup, and the kind of video hardware you simply didn’t see in passenger cars in the late 1980s. If you want the background story, period context, and earlier restoration arc, here’s our original feature: The Ultimate Custom Built Saab 9000 Bahco.
Now the car is back in the spotlight for a very specific reason: Boråsarna – a Swedish workshop crew best known for hands-on builds and a high output YouTube channel – has started a new restoration push, and it’s not vague. It comes with dates, a venue, a target finish, and a public work plan.
According to a new press release from Verktygsboden, the Bahco car will be worked on live at Restoration Show (part of Custom Motor Show) at Elmia over Easter, with Boråsarna beginning the prep process in front of the crowd.
This is not a repaint – this is an archaeology job
Boråsarna’s video makes one thing obvious: this Saab isn’t being treated like a normal “freshen-up and flip.” They call out the same reality anyone who has stood next to the Bahco 9000 already knows – the body is a layered history of repairs, filler, and changes by multiple hands. In their own words, the hard part isn’t that it’s “custom,” it’s that it’s been customized repeatedly after the original build, and you have to decide which version you’re restoring.
That lines up perfectly with what the press release admits in a more formal tone: the car is “skamfilad” (rough, worn), and the public will follow the process of returning it to top condition.
The important nuance: top condition does not automatically mean “strip every square inch to bare metal.” In the Boråsarna video, you can hear them debating the boundary – how much gets removed, what gets stabilized, and how far you go before you erase the original coachbuilt character.
And this matters more here than on most Saabs, because the Bahco 9000 isn’t valuable for its paint depth. It’s valuable because it’s a surviving Mellberg industrial build that still wears its period solutions.
The owner change is real – and it explains the timing
The press release adds a new owner detail that Saab people will care about: the car is now owned by Oscar Aivert from Knivsta, described as someone raised around Saabs with a taste for the unusual. He reportedly traded into the Bahco car in exchange for a 9000 Aero, and while a previous owner sorted the mechanical side, the body and paint were in need of serious help.
That’s not trivia. It’s the difference between “internet legend” and a car that’s actually on a schedule. A new owner with a defined goal is what turns a stalled project into something you’ll see in public.
Oscar’s quote in the release is the key line: he started sanding and large chunks of filler came off – the moment where DIY turns into “call people who do this for a living.”
What Restoration Show 2026 changes: the work becomes public, fast
Restoration Show isn’t a quiet garage deadline. It’s work under lights, on a calendar, with spectators watching your choices.
The official event page lists Custom Motor Show 2026 as April 3–6 at Elmia. And Restoration Show is positioned as a dedicated section of that larger Easter event.
Boråsarna’s plan – supported by the press release – is to start the paint prep there, with the end goal of returning to a glittering pearl-white finish, “as when the car was new in 1988.”
That sentence sounds simple until you look at the car.
Because a pearl-white finish is unforgiving. It doesn’t hide unevenness. It amplifies panel waves. And on a coachbuilt body with a long history of filler, you either do the prep correctly – or you don’t do it at all.
The line you cannot cross: the bespoke glass
In the Boråsarna video, they point at the extended door glass and make the only statement that matters: break it and you’re not replacing it. That’s not drama. That’s reality.
The press release backs up the physical facts: Mellberg reshaped the entire body with a pointed front, extended front doors, and a smoothly formed cargo section with gullwing openings. When you extend doors, glass becomes a single point of failure – especially if it’s one-off.
So the restoration priority should be obvious:
- protect alignment and seals so the glass is not stressed
- avoid “crowd interaction” that ends with people pushing on doors
- treat the doors as structure, not just panels you sand
If Boråsarna wants to do one thing right on this project, it’s this: save the parts that can’t be remade.
The paint process: why this press release is unusually specific
This is where the new material actually adds value. The press release doesn’t just say “we’ll repaint it.” It lays out a staged system using Novol products, including a hybrid epoxy with different hardeners for different roles, then isolator, spray filler, another isolator, then epoxy again as a sandable anti-corrosion base – before basecoat and two layers of clear.
Whether you’re loyal to these products or not, the point is that Boråsarna is treating the car like a problem that requires process, not enthusiasm.
Also: the press release explicitly states loose filler has to go, and large sections will be sanded to bare metal. That matches what the car needs. Anything not bonded properly is not “patina,” it’s future failure under fresh paint.
The numbers Saab people will repeat: length, weight, power, rear suspension
Here’s what we did not have in our earlier coverage in such a clean summary – and it’s worth adding now.
The press release claims the Bahco car is registered as a light truck, and compared with a standard 9000 Turbo it is:
- 20 cm longer
- 150 kg heavier
- Engine reportedly tuned to 190 hp vs 175 hp stock
- Rear fitted with Monroe self-leveling with compressor-driven air bellows
Whether every number survives scrutiny across all sources, the combination makes sense in context: add weight and length, keep performance acceptable, and give the rear suspension a way to cope with load – especially for a demo vehicle carrying equipment.
It also quietly explains why this car still makes engineering sense: it wasn’t built to be parked. It was built to travel.
The one feature that still embarrasses modern “retro-tech” builds: the VHS backup camera
The Bahco 9000’s rear camera has been the hook for years, but the press release adds the line everyone wanted: it still works. The system is described as a video camera connected to a VHS unit inside the car, feeding a small black-and-white monitor in the center console.
Boråsarna’s video also lingers on the physical camera size – because it looks almost absurd by today’s standards. But that’s the point. This isn’t a modern retrofit. It’s a period solution that is visibly period.
If the restoration preserves one “signature,” it should be this. Even if the car ends up with perfect paint, the camera setup is what makes people stop and ask questions.
The real deadline isn’t Elmia – it’s IntSaab 2026
There’s a second deadline baked into the press release: Oscar’s goal is to have the exterior finished for IntSaab 2026, scheduled for August 7–9, 2026 in Bro Park (Stockholm area).
That matters because it turns Restoration Show into the kickoff, not the finish. Elmia is where the public sees the prep and the direction. IntSaab is where the Saab crowd judges whether the execution respected the car.
And IntSaab 2026 has its own significance: the event site notes it will also celebrate the Swedish Saab Club’s 50th anniversary and highlight Saab 99 milestones. So if the Bahco car shows up looking correct, it won’t just be “a weird 9000.” It becomes a rolling piece of Swedish Saab-adjacent industrial history presented in Sweden, to a global Saab audience.
What to watch for in Boråsarna’s build series
As this project continues on video, the interesting moments won’t be sanding montages. They’ll be the decisions.
- Which “original” are they restoring to?
The press release says 1988 pearl-white. The car’s later paint history complicates that. The best restorations here will be the ones that show evidence – paint layers, photos, measurements – rather than guesses. - How they handle the body filler reality
Removing loose filler is mandatory. But if they chase absolute perfection, they may erase the coachbuilt character that proves it’s a Mellberg piece. - Glass and door alignment
This is the silent killer of gullwing conversions. If those doors shut cleanly and safely after paint, that’s a win you can’t fake. - Whether the VHS camera remains a living system
The release says it works today. Keeping it functioning through a body restoration is a different challenge.
The point of this restoration isn’t beauty – it’s credibility
The Bahco 9000 will never be a “pretty” car in the conventional sense. It’s a shaped tool. A moving display. A one-off built to get attention for equipment and to make demonstrations possible.
What Boråsarna is doing – publicly, on a show schedule – is giving the car something it rarely gets: a documented, accountable path back to a coherent identity.
If they deliver a stable body, a period-correct white finish, intact bespoke glass, and a working VHS camera feed, then Restoration Show 2026 won’t just be a venue. It’ll be the moment the Bahco Saab stops being a half-forgotten oddity and becomes a preserved reference point again.
Another Elmia 2026 restoration car just fired up – a 1966 Saab 96 two-stroke barn find
While the Bahco-built Saab 9000 is being prepped for a public reset at Elmia, another Saab has joined the Restoration Show countdown. A 1966 Saab 96 two-stroke that sat for 48 years in a forest barn was recently dragged back into daylight and pushed through a first start attempt – ignition faults, fuse gremlins, fuel-line leaks, and all. Here is the full story and why it matters for the Elmia 2026 build program.
That’s some fork in the road that led to this.