Happy 80th, Pekka: Per Eklund, the Saab Driver Who Never Let Go

On June 21, Per “Pekka” Eklund turned 80. For Saab enthusiasts, it was not just a birthday note. It marked 80 years of a driver whose career runs through almost every serious Saab competition chapter – from the 96 V4 forest stages of the early 1970s to a 750 hp Viggen on a Colorado mountain in 2002.

Born in Eda, Värmland, Eklund grew up around cars and engines from the start. As he once put it: “I started reading pace notes at age 13, so I’ve never done anything other than drive cars and work in the garage.” That focus became the defining thread of a career that has, by any honest count, still not ended.

The Saab Works Years: 1970–1982

Eklund joined Saab as a factory driver in 1970, alongside a young Stig Blomqvist, and competed in the World Rally Championship from 1973 piloting the Saab 96 V4. His breakthrough came at the 1976 Swedish Rally – his only WRC victory, and one of the final great works-era results for the Saab 96 V4. Two years later, in 1978, he became Swedish Rally Champion, beating his own teammate Blomqvist to the title.

When Saab closed its official motorsport department in 1979, that might have been the end. Instead, Eklund went out and produced perhaps the most memorable result of his rally career. In 1982 – the year after factory support ended – he drove a privately entered, Clarion-sponsored Saab 99 Turbo to fourth place overall at the Swedish Rally, against a field of advanced four-wheel-drive machinery, on snow. He finished fifth in the overall FIA World Rally Championship for Drivers that season – Saab’s finest-ever WRC standings result. He was always proud of that fourth place, knowing what it cost to defend the Saab badge against the odds.

Eklund eventually returned to WRC one final time in 1997, driving an officially entered Saab 900 Turbo in the British round. Across 83 WRC starts, he accumulated 13 podiums and 73 stage wins. Not the career of someone who was just there to participate.

Rallycross: The Long Championship

Eklund had actually been competing in rallycross since 1971, when he won the first Swedish Rallycross event ever held, at Hedemora on October 17 that year. He arrived as one of the discipline’s pioneers and did not stop for four decades.

Through the 1990s and into the 2000s, he became one of the most consistent frontrunners in the FIA European Championship for Rallycross Drivers. The title came in 1999: Per Eklund became FIA European Rallycross Champion driving a Saab 9-3 T16 4×4 producing around 530 hp. He then finished second in the championship in 1998, 2002, and 2003, and third in both 2000 and 2001 – a run of consistency that is easy to understate. The Swedish Rallycross Championship title followed in 2004.

The machine behind those results – the bright yellow and blue Clarion Team Europe Saab 9-3 T16 – became one of the most recognizable competition cars the brand ever produced. A Saab, campaigned by an independent operation, winning Europe’s hardest short-circuit discipline. That is what it was.

Pikes Peak: The Record That Stood for 12 Years

The Pikes Peak International Hill Climb – 156 corners, 12.42 miles, nearly 5,000 feet of elevation gain in Colorado – is where Eklund’s Saab story reached its widest audience. He competed there in 2000 and again in 2002, both times in a purpose-built Saab 9-3 Viggen 4×4.

For 2000, engineer Tommy Karlsson had extracted 760 hp from a stock-based 2.0-litre turbocharged Saab four-cylinder using a Garrett T04S turbocharger running over 2 bars of boost. On long-travel rally suspension with Michelin radials, Eklund set a time of 11:21.58 in the Open category – second-fastest overall at the entire event. A tire puncture and transmission trouble on race day cost a class win, but the time stood as a record.

In 2002, he returned with an upgraded machine producing 750 hp at 8,000 rpm – now built by Saab tuner TrollSpeed – mated to a Prodrive 6-speed sequential gearbox and all-wheel-drive system, the whole package weighing 950 kg. This time he entered the Unlimited class, not aiming for a category win but for fastest overall time. His calculation: the 156 corners made up 40% of the track, so the aerodynamic downforce additions – including a solid diffuser – would gain more time in the turns than they lost on the straights.

His Swedish rival Blomqvist was also on the mountain, in a Ford RS200. Eklund’s run of 11:13.20 beat him by over 34 seconds. Another competitor, David Donner, set the fastest overall time that day with a V8 that was visibly losing water by the top, but Eklund’s Unlimited class win – and the fact that a 950 kg Saab had gone faster than a Prodrive-built Subaru WRX by 39 seconds – went into competition history.

That 2000 Open class record of 11:21.58 was not bettered until 2012, when Romain Dumas finally broke it. Twelve years.

You can watch the in-car footage from the 2002 run here on SaabPlanet.

Still Behind the Wheel

The Swedish article at Sportbibeln notes that in 2020, at 74, Eklund made a competitive return in the Supercar class at RallyX Nordic in Arvika. In May 2024, he was at Rally Magic with co-driver Peter Friberg, in a Saab 99 EMS.

His personal motto – also the title of his 1998 autobiography – is a phrase from his native Värmland dialect: “En får inte ge sig.” It means: one must not give up.

Why Eklund Matters for Saab History

For Saab enthusiasts, Eklund is significant precisely because he did not belong to only one period of the brand’s competition history. He was there for the 96 V4 forest stages. He kept the 99 Turbo in WRC contention after the factory program closed. He turned the 9-3 T16 into a European Rallycross champion. And he gave the Viggen name one of its loudest competition results on a mountain in Colorado.

That single through-line – one driver, one brand, five decades, multiple disciplines – is rare. Happy 80th, Pekka. En får inte ge sig.