Table of Contents
Shopping with some character
Buying a car is a strange process:
You start with logic. Engine size, reliability, fuel economy, practicality. You build a neat little checklist in your head like a responsible adult.
And then you ignore it completely, because in reality, one thing always ends up deciding everything.
Maybe it’s the engine. Maybe it’s the shape of the car that makes your heart beat a little faster – or, let’s be honest, excites certain other regions of the body slightly more than it probably should.
Maybe it’s the interior, that moment when you sit down and think:
“Yes. I could absolutely spend five hours stuck in traffic in here.”
But sometimes – just sometimes – you find a car that checks every box at once.
Looks.
Engine.
Character.
Driving experience.
And then, just to make things even better, it turns out to be rarer than most hypercars. Which brings us to today’s subject, the Saab 9-3 Aero Cabriolet – 25th Anniversary Edition.
(And no, I’m not exaggerating about the rarity.)
Rarer Than a Hypercar (Yes, Really)
Let’s play a quick numbers game.
A Bugatti Chiron? About 500 built.
A Ferrari LaFerrari? Around 500.
A Koenigsegg Regera? 80 cars.
This Saab?
Just 27.
That’s not a production run, rather a family reunion.
The car you’re looking at is a Saab 9-3 Aero Cabriolet with the 25th Anniversary package, finished in Champagne Metallic – a color that sounds fancy because, well, it actually is.
Only 27 examples were ever produced in this exact configuration. And yet, to most people walking past it on the street, it’s just… an old Swedish car at best.
Which is precisely what makes it so cool. It’s automotive stealth wealth. The kind of car that only enthusiasts notice – and when they do, they suddenly become very interested.
The Heart of the Machine
Under the hood sits a 2-liter turbocharged inline-four, producing 210 horsepower. Now, in today’s world where even family SUVs seem to have the power output of a small hydroelectric plant, that number may not sound particularly exciting.
But remember two things. First: this is a Saab turbo engine, and Saab knew a thing or two about turbos.
Second: the car weighs about 1.5 tons, which means the performance is perfectly respectable.
For comparison, this vehicle has the same 0-to-60 times as a Porsche 944 (according to Saab, this number ranges from 6.7 – 8.3 seconds), which is also acknowledged by Marcell from Sidepod in his extensive review about this very vehicle, combined with some fresh energy and a slightly “familiar” presenting style, while having a very German accent.
If you would like to watch his review, please follow the link below:
So, where were we?
Ahh yes, the Porsche. Well, it’s never a bad look when you are on the safe shelf as a 944, is it? Especially, for a convertible designed in a country where the sun appears roughly three times a year.
The chief designer, a British fellow named Simon Padian (the man responsible for the design language of many Saab models, primarily within the Saab 9-3 family), said that this is the most streamlined and aerodynamic front end he ever created. According to him, his cars are the ultimate Scandinavian — or Swedish — expression of design. Well, the deeper meaning of that statement is something for you at home to figure out.
The headlights have that distinctive icy Saaby appearance, like they were carved out of a glacier. The hood lines are strong but elegant, and the front grille carries just enough aggression to keep things interesting.
Some of these design inspirations also came from the Saab Aero-X concept, which remains one of the most beautiful concept cars Saab ever produced, but that is a blog post for another day.
As I’ve already mentioned, this is the special edition of the Saab 9-3 Cabriolet, which means different styling compared to your average Saab – featuring this beautiful gray front grille surround, and some quite striking carbon elements inside at the shifter knob and above the glove compartment.
Nothing flashy.
Nothing loud.
Very Saab.
A Story-Driven Drive
It is 10 am, on Sunday – March 15th. Some people get up and walk their dog, yet others go and visit their relatives, certain individuals might be still asleep, but that’s not someone like you and me. We are an endangered, petrol and Saab loving species.
So we get up, look out of our window, and there it is:
The 9-3 Cabriolet, sitting quietly in the driveway.
Waiting…
Breakfast disappears quickly. Coffee disappears even faster. I grab car keys and navigation device from a company whose name begins with “G” and suspiciously ends with “armin”, type in the destination, and set off toward one of the best driving areas in Hungary:
The Danube Bend.
Autobahn Therapy
The journey begins in the suburbs.
Traffic lights, roundabouts, and people driving SUVs large enough to require their own postal code. Sounds of angry delivery drivers shouting at the scared grandma who is doing her best to pick up the coins she dropped at the crosswalk.
Hmm… Quite an experience.
But eventually the road opens up.
And suddenly I find myself on something the Germans lovingly call the Autobahn and I’m stuck there for 45 minutes…
Many cars — in fact, too many. Some drivers are patient, others not so much, some who hate it, but that’s not quite me.
And I have a great reason: my surroundings, also known as the Saab, I’m sitting in.
As I look around, I can only see SUVs, pickup trucks, and a concerningly high number of Skoda Octavias.
Those things might be the best choice for the corporate financier: They filter out noise, vibration, and feedback until driving feels like operating a very comfortable washing machine.
Saab did the opposite.
When the manufacturer sold us these vehicles, they did so while making us believe that these things are fighter jets for the roads, and I’m happy to say this car won’t disappoint. You can feel every little crack and rock on the tarmac due to the “old school” hydraulic servo, and sporty double wishbone suspension, which connects you with the road like in no other vehicle.
And suddenly the traffic doesn’t matter anymore.
The Traffic Light Incident
Eventually I leave the highway and approach a traffic light.
Next to me pulls up a tuned Volkswagen Golf.
The driver glances over: turned back cap, a hoodie which has seen better days, and teeth as yellow as… Well, I will let you think of an example.
I return the look with a very small smile. Not an arrogant smile.
Just the kind of smile that says: You don’t know what this car is, do you?
A few seconds pass and suddenly the Golf launches forward like a caffeinated rabbit. But then the Saab’s turbo wakes up.
And suddenly the Volkswagen is becoming a much smaller object in the rear-view mirror, although every single one teaches us from a young age that: “objects may look closer than they appear”.
Saab spent decades perfecting their turbo technology, and by the time the final generation of the 9-3 arrived, they had largely eliminated turbo lag, although some might strongly disagree.
Which is engineering language for: Press the pedal, and things happen mostly immediately.
But It’s Front-Wheel Drive…
Well, there must be a compromise when driving on twisty roads, right? It is a front wheel drive car after all…
This isn’t really the case. When Saab produced this model, they were eager to perfect the driving experience.
One way they did this was by equipping the car with a so-called “passive rear-wheel steering” mechanism, which means that at high speeds this vehicle will be surprisingly controllable (mainly to avoid high-speed incidents), due to the special wishbone geometry, adding about 3° of steering angle to the rear tires.
Which means that, theoretically speaking, the Golf never stood a chance.
At least that’s the version of the story I prefer.
Coffee, Friends, and Saab People
As the drive continues, I stop at a small café where a few friends are waiting. We talk about cars, life, and the usual nonsense.
One of them drives a Toyota Prius, which means he may soon be downgraded from “friend” to “person I occasionally acknowledge in public.”
After a bit of time passes, the sun starts to set, so we head to the most beautiful place we know… Roof down, music blasting, golden sunlight reflecting on the water – and that’s when it truly hit me.
Saabs are truly great, because of us… The community that keeps the story alive, and the friends we make along the way. That is why we believe that one day, maybe one day this quirky Swedish thing called Saab, will come back from the dead. Just maybe.
A fairy tale with a sad ending…
Emphasizing safety and innovation, Saab struck their first major success with the Saab 99 Turbo in 1978, which was actually the first ever mass-produced vehicle (available to the average buyer) fitted with a turbocharger.
After this came the successor to the original turbo, the 900 Turbo, which reached truly fascinating heights, vastly exceeding the company’s expectations. It had the same engine, only a bit refined, with astonishing design and sometimes questionable reliability.
Then the Saab 9000 followed, which had such large demand on international markets that there was about a year-long waiting list at the start of the vehicle’s production.
After this, the proud American company General Motors saw huge potential and wanted to get in on the business, and so they did. The first part of the acquisition took place in 1990, with the Americans taking over 50 percent of full ownership, and slowly but surely starting to reshape Saab’s company structure, which admittedly was a bit like a limping dog.
Meanwhile in Trollhättan the good times continued as they released the GM platform-based 9-5 and 9-3, which are the best-selling and most beloved models of the manufacturer, besides some other questionable models, like the almost infamous Saabaru or the Saab 9-7X, which actually looked more American than any freedom-lover’s SUV at the time. This somehow convinced the executives in Detroit to buy out the company completely in 2000.
Wait, how much!?
One day a General Motors representative visited the Saab factory in Trollhättan to investigate why Saab was costing them so much. He went to the main entrance, had his coat and bag politely taken from him, and entered what we might call the dragon’s den.
He did his routine inspections, finding a noticeably different navigation system than the one General Motors provided, along with completely different and vastly more expensive cable ties, which according to our beloved brand “weren’t good enough in the cold”.
Another revealing story involves the same representative walking into a large open engineering hall, reviewing the company’s inventory, and discovering that Saab only used 35% of the parts GM provided from the Vauxhall Astra. This is probably why most 9-3s are still on the road to this day.As one would expect, these operations cost Saab so much money that they basically ran out of it.
Slowly but surely, due to financial troubles, times seemed to get darker in Trollhättan. A last-resort acquisition plan emerged from Koenigsegg, but due to financial hurdles the deal fell through, leaving the brand hopelessly in General Motors’ hands, only waiting for them to pull the plug.
And so, the Americans did.
They sold the company to Spyker Cars in 2012, who couldn’t pay the $1.5 billion in debt accumulated by the Swedes — and the rest is history.
In closing, I’d like to share this quote from Marcell’s review:
“One of the brand’s main slogans was: “The car that will die for you, so you can walk away unharmed.” Quite poetically, the company did the same thing to preserve their identity, quirkiness, and innovativeness, but most importantly the culture of making truly amazing cars.
Dear Saab, we truly miss you.”
