SaabPlanet has previously documented several attempts to create a longer Saab, from the discreet Saab 99 and 900 Finlandia executive cars assembled in Finland to independently converted Saab 9000 limousines. We have also featured the elongated Saab 9-5 Long and the corresponding Coleman Milne Saab 9-5 hearse.
Photographs, however, reveal only the conspicuous part of the conversion: three doors on each side and a roofline that appears to continue long after a normal 9-5 should have ended. They do not explain why these cars were built, what Coleman Milne changed beneath the extended body, or whether the finished vehicle retained any of the road manners that distinguished the standard Saab.
A particularly valuable answer came from the Netherlands in 2021, when Dutch magazine AutoWeek tested a 2004 Saab 9-5 2.3t Limousine owned by Amsterdam collector Hans Jorritsma. Unlike auction listings and brief walkaround videos, AutoWeek’s Blits Bezit feature examined the car as a functioning vehicle and spoke with someone who had imported, repaired, modified, and driven it for thousands of miles.
The complete AutoWeek video review can be watched below:
It Was Not Built for Weddings, Celebrities, or Airport Transfers
A six-door limousine often suggests rental fleets, wedding parties, or an extravagant private commission. This Saab had a considerably more specific assignment.
It was built as a funeral following limousine, the vehicle that traveled behind the hearse carrying the immediate family and other mourners. In the British funeral trade, the hearse and following cars were commonly ordered as a coordinated fleet, sharing the same front-end design, paint finish, interior character, and coachbuilder.
That explains why Coleman Milne produced both an elongated Saab 9-5 limousine and a much more extensively altered 9-5 hearse. The limousine was not intended to carry the coffin. Its role was to provide dignified, private transportation for up to eight people, with easier access than a conventional four-door stretch conversion could offer.
The middle pair of doors was therefore functional rather than decorative. Passengers could enter the additional seating area directly, without climbing through the rear doorway or folding seats out of the way.
Hans’s car had spent its working life with a funeral operator in northwestern England, near the Lake District. He purchased it in Britain in 2020 and imported it to the Netherlands himself. Its history explains both its formal black finish and its unusually low mileage: funeral vehicles generally cover short, carefully driven journeys rather than long-distance commercial routes.
Coleman Milne Did Not Simply Lengthen the Rear Doors
The starting point was a regular 2004 Saab 9-5 2.3t sedan, equipped with the 185-hp version of Saab’s turbocharged four-cylinder engine. Hans emphasizes in the video that it was not an Aero and did not leave Trollhättan with an unusual performance specification.
The substantial engineering work began after Saab had completed the standard car.
British coachbuilder Coleman Milne specialized in hearses, limousines, and other low-volume professional vehicles. Its current operation remains centered on purpose-built funeral vehicles, produced through a dedicated engineering and manufacturing facility in Westhoughton, near Bolton.
For the 9-5 conversion, a 1.16-meter center section was inserted into the original body structure. That one change altered every major dimension that mattered to the limousine’s role.
| Specification | Standard Saab 9-5 | Coleman Milne Limousine |
| Wheelbase | 2.70 meters | 3.86 meters |
| Overall length | 4.83 meters | 5.99 meters |
| Added body length | – | 1.16 meters |
| Curb weight | Model-dependent | 1,807 kg |
| Seating capacity | Five | Eight |
| Number of side doors | Four | Six |
At 5.99 meters, or nearly 20 feet, the Coleman Milne car is more than a meter longer than the original sedan. AutoWeek describes the conversion in direct terms: the 9-5 was effectively cut through its central structure before the new section was fitted between the original front and rear portions.
The process also increased the legal maximum weight. Hans points out in the video that the revised vehicle identification plate specifies a gross vehicle weight of 2,510 kg, allowing the limousine to carry its full eight-person complement legally. This is a detail often missed when an old funeral limousine enters private ownership. Adding seats is easy; providing the necessary approved carrying capacity, structural reinforcement, access, and passenger protection is the real conversion.
The Divider Glass Explains the Interior Layout
The driver remains in the familiar front section of the Saab 9-5, surrounded by the standard dashboard, center console, seats, and controls. Behind the front compartment, however, Coleman Milne installed an electrically retractable privacy partition.
Its purpose was not the theatrical isolation associated with Hollywood limousines. During a funeral procession, the partition allowed relatives to travel together without their conversation being audible to the driver.
Behind it, the inserted middle section accommodates the additional seating required for the eight-person layout. The arrangement gives the interior a very different character from the standard 9-5, but much of what passengers touch and see still comes from Saab’s production car.
That use of recognizable Saab components helped the Coleman Milne conversion retain visual continuity. The car did not receive a completely unrelated custom cabin behind the driver. Its switchgear, door furniture, trim materials, windows, and much of its architecture still belong to the first-generation 9-5.
The result is peculiar from a Saab owner’s perspective. Everything appears familiar, but familiar elements occur one door and one seating row beyond their expected position.
Why Hans Removed the Most Obvious Limousine Detail
When Hans bought the car, each side displayed three conventional Saab door handles in a row. That arrangement advertised the construction method immediately: the middle body section was not a fixed extension but another pair of full-size passenger doors.
He felt that the sequence of three protruding handles made the car resemble a practical six-door people carrier rather than a formal limousine.
At Beerten Autoschade in Borculo, the middle doors were fitted with recessed handles inspired by the hardware used by Kindig Customs. The modification makes the inserted section appear almost like a fixed body panel when viewed from a distance.
Hans initially considered removing the handles altogether and opening the center doors by remote control. He rejected that solution because an electrically operated release could fail. The recessed handles preserved a direct mechanical means of opening the doors, an especially sensible decision in a passenger vehicle with a heavily modified electrical and body system.
It is a small alteration, but it demonstrates how the car’s identity changed after leaving funeral service. Coleman Milne prioritized rapid access for mourners. Its private owner wanted the extended body to read more clearly as a limousine.
A Low-Mileage Car Shaped by Short Trips
The Saab showed approximately 32,000 miles when Hans bought it. By the time of the AutoWeek test, the odometer had reached roughly 38,000 miles, equivalent to less than 62,000 kilometers.
Those numbers suggest an almost unused 2004 9-5, but Hans noticed several minor faults associated with its previous working pattern. Funeral vehicles may accumulate little mileage, yet they spend much of their life starting from cold, traveling slowly for short distances, idling during ceremonies, and returning to storage before the engine and exhaust system have experienced a sustained journey.
The car felt remarkably fresh, but low mileage had not exempted it from maintenance. Hans entrusted its mechanical care to SaabWorld in Voorst, while the Borculo body shop repaired small dents and an early corrosion spot in addition to modifying the door handles.
This combination is typical of surviving professional vehicles. The standard Saab components can still be serviced through established specialists; the coachbuilt center section requires fabrication skills and knowledge that ordinary replacement-parts catalogs cannot provide.
The Unexpected Verdict: It Still Feels Like a Saab
Hans was well placed to judge how the Coleman Milne conversion affected the car because the Saab was not his only stretched Swedish sedan. His regular transport in Amsterdam was an extended Volvo S80 built by Nilsson, another established Scandinavian coachbuilder. The Volvo was larger, heavier, roomier, and closer to the traditional limousine experience. It also had more power than the Saab.Yet Hans gave the Saab the more interesting dynamic verdict.
According to him, the 9-5 felt lighter on its feet, quicker, and substantially more enjoyable to drive. Despite carrying an extra body section, additional doors, another seating row, structural reinforcement, and a privacy partition, it retained enough of the standard 9-5’s responses to feel recognizably different from the heavier Volvo.
That does not mean a six-meter 9-5 handles like a regular Aero. The wheelbase has grown by approximately 43 percent, curb weight has increased, the turning circle is inevitably larger, and the driver must account for a center section that follows well behind the normal B-pillar.
The important point is that the conversion did not reduce the car to an anonymous platform carrying a limousine body. Hans could still detect the chassis character, turbocharged performance, and comparative agility of the original Saab.
For an owner whose primary enthusiasm was actually directed toward Volvo, his admission was particularly revealing: he had more fun driving the Saab.
Right-Hand Drive Was Not the Main Difficulty
The limousine retained its British right-hand-drive configuration after being imported into the Netherlands.
Hans regarded this as a relatively minor adjustment. In his experience, a driver becomes accustomed to sitting on the right within 10 or 20 minutes. Overtaking requires greater care and a better view around the vehicle ahead, while the driving position can be helpful when checking for cyclists on the right side of the road.
The car’s length also proved less troublesome than expected. Hans had driven it along Amsterdam’s canals and into the underground parking garage beneath his apartment. Despite the steep access ramp, neither this Saab nor his other limousines had created the clearance problem he initially feared.
The harder issue was administrative rather than physical. During the 2021 AutoWeek interview, Hans observed that importing another example from Britain had become more complicated following Brexit. Dutch authorities could require an individual approval process, particularly because the Coleman Milne conversion apparently did not have a conventional European type approval that covered later private imports.
The Greatest Preservation Risk Is in the Added Meter
AutoWeek reported that 75 Saab 9-5 limousines were converted, including a small number based on the later “Dame Edna” facelift model. The exact number still surviving is unknown.
Hans knew of another car previously held by SaabWorld that had been exported to Denmark, as well as three examples in Sweden. At the time of filming, he believed his might have been the only one registered in the Netherlands.
Corrosion is likely to determine how many remain.
A normal 9-5 already demands careful inspection as it ages, but the Coleman Milne limousine introduces additional welds, seams, cavities, reinforcement points, doors, drainage routes, and transitions between factory and coachbuilt metalwork. Hans warned that the British conversion work was not always finished to the same corrosion-protection standard as a production body assembled entirely in Trollhättan.
The crucial inspection areas are therefore not limited to familiar 9-5 trouble spots. A prospective restorer would need to examine the entire inserted section, including its floors, sills, roof joints, door apertures, lower seams, and the points where the original shell meets the extension.
This also complicates restoration. Standard front and rear body panels can still be sourced from donor cars, but the center doors, glass, trim, seals, structural pieces, and partition mechanism are specific to the conversion. Losing one car to rust does not necessarily create a useful parts donor if the same coachbuilt components are already damaged.
Four Times as Many Scale Models as Real Limousines
Hans collects miniature versions of the cars he owns. He could not find the Coleman Milne 9-5 in his preferred 1:18 scale, but he did locate a 1:43 model.
Only 75 full-size limousines were reportedly converted, while 300 miniature examples were produced. The model is therefore four times more common than the car it represents.
That imbalance neatly summarizes the problem surrounding these Saabs. Many enthusiasts have seen photographs, scale models, auction advertisements, or the occasional funeral-fleet brochure. Very few have sat inside one, driven one, or received a detailed explanation of how the standard 9-5 was transformed.
The AutoWeek test fills that gap. It establishes that the Coleman Milne Saab was not conceived as a novelty or an oversized executive toy. It was a working professional vehicle designed around the requirements of the British funeral procession: six doors for dignified access, eight seats for mourners, a partition for privacy, and enough approved carrying capacity to perform the job legally.
What makes the conversion especially interesting is what remained after all those changes. Beneath nearly six meters of black coachwork, Hans Jorritsma could still recognize – and prefer – the way a Saab 9-5 drove.
