The unexpected speed, the quiet confidence, and the Irish enthusiast who brought his Saab to the Green Hell
Few things challenge a car’s engineering – or a driver’s nerve – quite like the Nürburgring Nordschleife. The 20.8-km ribbon of forest asphalt has humbled supercars, overloaded brakes, boiled coolant, and carved reputations into the history of performance motoring. And then, once in a while, something happens on the Ring that feels beautifully out of place: a “nearly” OEM-spec Saab 9-3 Aero storms into frame and begins upsetting machines worth ten times its value.
That moment arrived courtesy of Misha Charoudin, one of Europe’s most experienced track commentators and Nürburgring instructors, whose channel nears two million subscribers. With hundreds of laps behind him in GT3s, track-prepped BMW M cars, modified Porsches, and exotic machinery from across the continent, Misha knows immediately when a car has more pace than its badge suggests.
This week, his passenger seat belonged to Shane Conway, an Irish Saab enthusiast who crossed the sea to give his 9-3 Aero the lap of its life. The video is one of the quietest, cleanest, and most Saab-like moments on Misha’s channel: a refined Swedish sedan with calm exhaust note and factory interior calmly hunting down cars that should have disappeared into the distance.
A Nordic Sedan Arrives At The Green Hell
The day Shane rolled into the Nürburgring paddock, conditions were already shifting. Thin drizzle, isolated dark clouds, and patches of steam rising from earlier showers – the classic Nordschleife roulette. Misha greeted him with genuine surprise: Saabs almost never appear on his channel.
The last Saab we saw there was a laid-back convertible cruise, documented earlier on SaabPlanet, and that run was more about nostalgia than speed. This time was different. This time, the Saab brought purpose.
Shane’s car looked like what any enthusiast would recognize as a well-kept, lightly modified 9-3 Aero:
- Factory bodywork
- Team Dynamics wheels
- NS2R semi-slicks
- EBC Yellowstuff pads with upgraded discs
- Bilstein-based suspension with Ironback springs
- Minimal weight trim (including one extremely Saab owner–style move: removing a piece that protruded just enough to create drag)
From a distance, nothing about the car screamed “Ring weapon.” No wings, no gutted interior, no screaming exhaust. This is the kind of car you might see at a Cars & Coffee meet, parked between an old 900 Turbo and a well-loved OG 9-5 Aero.
And yet under the hood sat a familiar surprise.
Inside The Engine Bay: The Forged Heart Of An Ecotec
When Misha asked what lived under the bonnet, Shane’s answer made him laugh. Saab people know this story all too well: the late-GM-era 2.0 Ecotec in the 9-3 Aero is far stronger than it needed to be for factory output.
From the factory, the engine produced around 210 hp, but Saab – in classic Trollhättan fashion – overengineered it. Pistons, rods, and crank strength were far beyond the sedan’s intended duty cycle. As Shane puts it, Saab “forged a lot of the engine just for the why not,” a line that perfectly captures the brand’s engineering mindset.
Shane’s car sits at what the community calls Stage 3+, breathing somewhere between 270 and 280 hp, with 420 Nm of torque – all dumped through the front wheels and an open differential.
That torque is where the real story begins. On a narrow German forest track filled with elevation changes, off-camber dives, sudden grip transitions, and soaking wet patches, torque is either your friend or your downfall.
Misha discovered quickly that, in this Saab, it was the former.
The Lap Begins: A Saab In The Hands Of A Nürburgring Veteran
The lap opens with a classic Misha warning: “Thunderstorms incoming.” Saabs aren’t boats – though some old 900 owners might disagree – but on the Nürburgring, heavy rain turns the track into a dark river. Leaving the pits, Misha goes straight to work:
Traction control off.
Tires warming.
Light drizzle forming patterns on the windshield.
What follows isn’t a manic lap or a show-off sprint. It’s something more interesting: a composed Saab steadily revealing it can dance far beyond expectations.
The NS2R tires begin to complain, but the chassis answers faithfully. Even on an open diff, the torque distribution looks surprisingly clean on throttle exit. Grip is inconsistent across the circuit, with some sections freshly soaked and others bone dry.
Shane remains calm in the passenger seat; you can tell he’s feeling the car settle into its rhythm.
Then the first unexpected moment arrives: a trail of coolant across the racing line.
Any Ring veteran knows this is worse than rain and worse than oil – a liquid that acts like a lubricant while removing grip asymmetrically across the car. Misha avoids it with reflexive precision. The Saab remains unbothered.
Moments later, the Aero begins its quiet hunt.
When The Saab Starts Catching Cars It Shouldn’t
This is the segment that has Saab fans around the world grinning.
As the lap progresses, the 9-3 begins gaining momentum on cars that should have disappeared into the distance. It carries speed through mid-range corners effortlessly, taking full advantage of its front-heavy but extremely stable balance, a characteristic well known to owners who’ve pushed Aeros on winding roads.
Even Misha is caught off-guard by how confidently the car rotates into medium-speed bends, especially given the mixed surface conditions. His commentary shifts from playful to impressed, then quietly analytical – the tone he uses when a car is giving him more than the spec sheet predicts.
Shane laughs at one point, explaining that this is his first time running proper semi-slicks. Even he’s recalibrating what the car can do.
This is also where Misha delivers one of the most meaningful observations about Saabs ever said on his channel:
“It has comfort, something unique, something rare, something not being made anymore.”
That, in one sentence, captures why so many Saab owners remain fiercely loyal long after the brand’s final production day.
Before diving into the final segments of the lap, take a moment to experience it yourself. Watch the full onboard here and enjoy how this calm Swedish sedan starts embarrassing faster cars on the world’s most demanding circuit.
The Wet Sections, The Wheelspin, And The Strange Magic Of A FWD Saab
Heading deeper into the forest, wet patches hit without warning.
This is where every Saab owner instinctively leans forward a bit.
Saab made its reputation in rally conditions and winter testing sites far north of the Arctic Circle, but Nürburgring wet grip is a different beast entirely.
The NS2Rs begin to break away at the worst possible moments, particularly in third-gear sweeps where the front tires must carry the full load of turning, braking, and dragging 420 Nm of torque through damp asphalt.
And yet – the car never feels out of control.
Misha talks through every transition, every slip, every on-the-edge moment, keeping the Aero perfectly oriented while the track changes its personality every few hundred meters.
Shane laughs again during one of the wilder wheelspin bursts: “That wheel spin on the last moment got us!”
It’s a spontaneous, honest reaction that shows exactly why people bring normal cars to the Nordschleife: not to set records, but to feel alive.
A Quiet Sedan With The Pace To Make People Stare
Near the end of the lap, the surface is 80% dry, and the pace rises.
With more confidence and more consistent grip, the 9-3 Aero becomes what Saab engineers always designed it to be: a stable, fast long-legged machine built to cruise huge distances at high speed.
Misha’s commentary becomes more admiring as the Aero begins overtaking cars more aggressively:
- clean braking
- balanced turn-in
- consistent mid-corner grip
- strong acceleration even on uphill segments
But the most Saab-like part of the entire lap isn’t the speed – it’s the restraint.
The car never shouts, never pops, never crackles. Even Shane jokes about the one noise people heard: a single pop around the 13-minute mark – the exhaust gasket giving up. After the lap, the car limped home to Ireland at 60 km/h, wounded but not defeated.
“It’s still not bad for a shitbox,” he wrote later, lovingly. Every Saab owner reading this knows exactly what he meant.
What Misha Saw In The Saab – And Why It Matters
After the lap, Misha offers a conclusion that every Saab enthusiast should hear:
“It has enough power. Enough brakes. It stops, it turns, it passes everything. What else do you want?”
This, coming from a man who drives GT3 RSs and full track builds daily, is validation not just of Shane’s car — but of Saab’s core philosophy.
Today, 280 hp is average hot hatch output. But in a Saab, that power arrives with character:
- a chassis tuned for real roads
- torque that arrives early and predictably
- stability that doesn’t need electronic theatrics
- a quiet interior that still feels distinct two decades later
Then Misha reflects on the brand itself:
“You have something unique… something rare… something not being made anymore.”
It’s not sentimental. It’s the truth.
The fact that Saabs are gone makes each well-kept example more meaningful.
It makes every Nürburgring lap by a Saab enthusiast feel like a small act of preservation — a reminder of what a different kind of car company once dared to build.
A Lap That Captured What Saab Ownership Feels Like
By the end of the video, the Saab isn’t just a car anymore.It’s a symbol of something more subtle: understated capability, resilience, and the quiet pride Saab owners carry when their cars outperform expectations.
Shane’s 9-3 Aero didn’t arrive at the Nürburgring to set a record. It arrived to show that even a nearly OEM-spec Swedish sedan can surprise seasoned drivers, pass prestigious metal, and remain composed in conditions that cause trouble for far quicker machines.
And thanks to Misha’s skill, that truth is now recorded for millions to see. This lap will likely become one of the most-shared Saab moments of the year — not because the car was loud or extreme, but because it represented exactly what makes Saab special.
Elegance. Torque. Balance. And the ability to embarrass a few supercars on a damp day at the Green Hell.
