When We first covered the seven-kilometer Saab 96 that triggered a bidding war in January 2022, the story seemed to have an obvious center of gravity: an almost-unused 1980 Saab 96 GL V4 Super, finished in Acacia Green 148B, had spent roughly 42 years stored on a rural property in western Sweden. The auction was already at 410,000 SEK when our article was published, and the final minutes pushed the hammer price to 500,000 SEK (or 51,470.91 US Dollars). A further 25,000 SEK buyer’s fee was reported by Swedish classic-car magazine Klassiker.
At the time, the seven kilometers were the headline. Four years later, that number is no longer the most important one attached to FLW073. The owner’s will directed his estate to medical research, and official regional reporting stated that the bequest was worth nearly 3 million SEK. In July 2026, hematologist Ulf-Henrik Mellqvist told Carup that the money had made a substantial contribution to research and had helped finance two PhD candidates. That later development gives this Saab a follow-up story that the auction result alone could not tell.
The 2022 Auction Was Only the First Chapter
The car appeared on Netauktion’s online auction platform as FLW073, a Saab 96 GL V4 Super from model year 1980. The listing gave an odometer reading of only 7 km and described the car as having zero registered users, while also listing three registered owners: a car company, the estate, and the beneficiary named in the will. This distinction matters because later media reports often describe the deceased man as the car’s first and only owner in the everyday sense. The official-style ownership wording and the practical history are not identical, and they should not be collapsed into a single simplified claim.
The auction ended on January 24, 2022. Klassiker reported a winning bid of 500,000 SEK plus a 25,000 SEK fee, while Dagens PS said the buyer was an anonymous collector and that the car remained in Sweden. The price was remarkable, but any claim that it was the absolute highest price ever paid for any Saab needs qualification. Contemporary coverage generally framed it as a record for this kind of low-mileage Saab, and Klassiker specifically called it a new record for low-mileage Saabs.
The most precise way to describe the sale is therefore simple: FLW073 sold for a 500,000-SEK hammer price, with a reported 25,000-SEK buyer’s fee. That was the result SaabPlanet added to its original 2022 article after the auction closed.
FLW073: The Details That Made This Saab So Difficult to Compare
The specifications are unusually well documented. The auction listing identifies chassis number 96806000858, a model-year 1980 Saab 96 GL V4 Super built during the final phase of 96 production in Finland. Its Acacia Green paint, code 148B, is paired with matching green upholstery. The listing also records a manual transmission, a curb weight of 1,000 kg, and engine output of 50 kW. Contemporary Swedish reports often converted that output to 68 hp.
Later reporting added a delivery date: October 17, 1979. Carup stated that the car arrived by truck from the Saab-Valmet factory in Uusikaupunki, Finland, and was delivered to the owner at a rural property outside Vårgårda in Västergötland. The same report said the factory delivery tag was still in the window when the car was recovered from the deteriorating barn decades later.
The auction data also contain an odd chronological detail. FLW073 was recorded as taken off the road on September 17, 1979, one month before the delivery date later reported by Carup. That does not automatically indicate an error: Swedish registration records, dealer handling, production timing, and later reporting may use different reference dates. Without the underlying Transportstyrelsen file and original delivery documentation in hand, the safest editorial approach is to present the dates as the sources give them rather than invent a reconciliation.
Nor was this a pristine museum object despite the almost nonexistent mileage. SVT noted surface rust and the need for a thorough mechanical inspection, while Klassiker described corrosion on painted metal under the hood and at the lower parts of the wheels where damp leaves had retained moisture. Netauktion explicitly said the engine had not been started and recommended service and inspection before any attempt to run it. In other words, seven kilometers measured use, not condition.
A Barn Full of Vehicles, but One Saab Changed the Entire Estate Sale
According to Frank Gausland of Netauktion, the Saab was only one vehicle among roughly 100 vehicles on the property. Most were in poor condition, many stored outside, and some had effectively become parts donors. The 96 was different. It had remained under cover, even if the building itself was in poor shape and the storage environment was far from ideal.
Gausland later described how the auction team first noticed the car’s registration number and rear end in photographs of the estate. On site, they found the Saab sunken into the ground inside the barn, with the Uusikaupunki delivery material still attached. Once the significance of the car became clear and media attention accelerated, the auction company moved it to a secure location until the documentation and sale process were complete.
What remains unknown is just as important as what is documented. No reliable source reviewed for this article explains why the owner never used the Saab. Carup’s 2026 follow-up states that the motive died with him. The car should not be turned into a psychological mystery with invented explanations about fear, preservation, investment, or obsession. The record supports only the physical facts: the Saab was delivered in 1979, accumulated seven kilometers, and then remained stored until the estate was processed after the owner’s death.
The Owner Left More Than a Seven-Kilometer Saab Behind
The decisive follow-up came not from the car market but from the owner’s will. Västra Götalandsregionen’s own news service reported in February 2022 that the unique Saab and the rest of the estate had been bequeathed to Stiftelsen medicinsk forskning och utveckling i Borås, a foundation supporting medical research connected with Södra Älvsborgs sjukhus, known as SÄS.
Ulf-Henrik Mellqvist, a senior physician and chairman of the foundation, said the donor had been a former patient and that the estate brought the foundation nearly 3 million SEK. The will set out a clear order of priority: first, research into myeloma, a blood cancer; second, research into other blood cancers; and third, other medical research within the relevant clinical area.
This is also where the numbers need to be handled carefully. The Saab itself sold for 500,000 SEK at hammer, but the nearly 3-million-SEK figure referred to the entire estate, not to the car alone. The auction proceeds formed one part of the bequest. Conflating the sale price with the total donation would turn a documented human story into a misleading one.
The scale of the gift was significant for the foundation. In the same 2022 regional report, Mellqvist said that in ordinary years the foundation typically distributed up to about 400,000 SEK per year in research grants. A bequest approaching 3 million SEK therefore represented several years’ worth of normal annual grantmaking capacity.
From Auction Proceeds to Two PhD Candidates
The new piece of the story surfaced on July 11, 2026. In a follow-up interview published by Carup, Mellqvist said the money had been put to substantial use and had helped finance two PhD candidates who were preparing to defend their dissertations. He also said the funds had contributed to ongoing research into myeloma.
That claim should remain attributed to Mellqvist. The publicly accessible material reviewed for this article does not independently identify the two doctoral candidates or establish which specific dissertations were financed by the bequest. The correct journalistic formulation is therefore not that the Saab directly produced two named doctoral theses, but that Mellqvist says the bequest helped finance two PhD candidates.
The medical context predates the Saab auction by years. SÄS has participated in myeloma research and clinical studies; for example, SVT reported in 2013 on the hospital’s participation in an early-phase international myeloma drug study led locally by Mellqvist. The 2022 bequest did not create the research program, but it added private funding to an existing clinical and scientific effort.
Why the Follow-Up Matters to the Saab Story
FLW073 was already historically interesting before the will became public. It belongs to the final production period of the Saab 96, when assembly had long been established at Saab-Valmet in Uusikaupunki. SaabPlanet has separately documented the final Saab 96 completed there on January 8, 1980, and the broader Finnish production history began with the first Finnish-built Saab 96 in November 1969. FLW073 sits close to the end of that manufacturing timeline, but it should not be called one of the very last examples without a production-order comparison against factory records.
Its seven-kilometer odometer reading, factory delivery material, original 148B paint, and long storage make it unusually easy to identify and unusually hard to value by normal collector-car standards. Yet the later history changes the editorial emphasis. The car’s sale price became part of a much larger estate, and that estate was directed by the owner toward a specific medical purpose.
For Us, that does not reduce the importance of the car. It makes the paper trail more demanding. The most useful version of the story keeps the technical facts, the auction facts, the ownership discrepancies, and the research claims in their proper categories. A seven-kilometer odometer is a confirmed feature. The reason for 42 years of storage is unknown. The 500,000-SEK hammer price is documented. The nearly 3-million-SEK bequest is documented by regional reporting. The two-PhD-candidate outcome is a 2026 statement from the foundation’s chairman and should be attributed accordingly.
Where Is FLW073 Now?
The buyer was reported as an anonymous collector, and contemporary Swedish coverage said the car remained in Sweden. Current public vehicle-data pages still identify FLW073 as a green 1980 Saab 96, but public aggregators should not be treated as a substitute for a fresh official Transportstyrelsen extract when establishing current legal ownership or exact registration history.
One current database shows four owners or users, while the 2022 auction listing stated three registered owners and zero registered users before the sale. That difference is plausible after a completed transfer, but we has not independently verified the present owner’s identity or whether the car has changed hands again since 2022. There is also no reliable public evidence in the reviewed sources confirming whether the V4 has since been started, mechanically recommissioned, restored, or left in its auction-state preservation condition.
The Number That Matters Most Is No Longer Seven
In 2022, FLW073 was defined by 7 km and a 500,000-SEK hammer price ($ 51,000). The follow-up adds a larger figure and a more lasting consequence: nearly 3 million SEK from the owner’s estate went to medical research, with myeloma research given first priority. Four years after the auction, Mellqvist says that funding helped support two PhD candidates and ongoing research work.
The car remains an extraordinary Saab artifact because of its specification, timing, documentation, and near-zero use. But the strongest reason to revisit it now is not that the auction record still looks impressive. It is that the story continued after the hammer fell, and the consequences of the owner’s will became more important than the bidding war that first brought FLW073 to international attention.
