A Secret Warsaw Collection Just Revealed Where the One-Off Saab EX Ended Up

Per Ekstrøm is not a name that appears in Saab’s official history. He holds no place in the company’s engineering records, no credit in its design lineage. He was a car body specialist from Oslo – a craftsman with a professional workshop, an extraordinary command of Saab’s parts catalogue, and a compulsion to do something that the factory itself never attempted.

Between 1992 and 1997, he built two cars from scratch. Both were constructed entirely from Saab production components. Both carried the proportional logic of a concept programme – sketches, clay models, technical calculations before a single panel was touched. And both, when they eventually appeared in public, drew a response that production cars rarely manage.

The CX: Where It Began

The first was the Saab CX, completed in 1992. Its starting point was a 1975 Saab 99 – a platform that by the early nineties had been out of production for over a decade. Ekstrøm rebuilt it using body components drawn from both the Classic 900 and the 9000, shortening the wheelbase considerably in the process. The finished car measured 3.90 metres in length, notably more compact than the 99 it was derived from. The roof sat seven centimetres lower than standard. The hood was extended to accommodate 9000-sourced headlights, with the spoilers coming from the same model. Power came from a 900 Turbo 16 engine from 1991, developed to approximately 200 horsepower.

The result looked like something Saab’s design department might have sketched on a Friday afternoon and quietly filed away – recognisably from the family, but sharper and more aggressive than the production range ever reached. Ekstrøm spent approximately 2,500 hours on the CX alone.

The EX: Built for the 50th Anniversary

Five years later, with Saab approaching its 50th anniversary in 1997, Ekstrøm returned to the same methodology and raised the stakes considerably. This time, the factory in Trollhättan was actively involved – not merely aware of the project, but providing cooperation, guidance, and official blessing throughout the build. Norwegian road authorities were also consulted from the outset, with the explicit goal of producing a car that would be fully street-legal upon completion.

The process consumed between 3,000 and 4,000 working hours.

The EX’s platform is a 1987 Saab 9000 CC floorpan. The body shell began life as a second-generation 900, but the roofline was reduced by seven centimetres – the same signature chop Ekstrøm had applied to the CX – giving the car a deliberately low, swept silhouette that no production NG 900 ever wore. Rear glass and elements of the tail came from a 900 Cabriolet. The flared wheel arches, front and rear, are 9000 CS units. Every component came from existing Saab production models, more or less modified to purpose. Nothing was fabricated from non-Saab material.

The 2.3-litre turbocharged four-cylinder at its heart produces 220 horsepower in the Bonhams-documented specification, sourced directly from the production parts bin. The interior remains substantially standard NG 900 in character – leather, wood trim, the distinctive ergonomic switchgear that Saab designed to be operable while wearing gloves. The red and grey paint finish is a deliberate reference to the colour combination associated with the 900 SPG. Door sill engravings mark the car’s jubilee origins. Bonhams described the panel gaps as superior to many contemporary production cars at the time of its 2023 sale.

Both Cars at Trollhättan

When the CX and EX appeared together at events in Trollhättan – including Saab’s jubilee gathering – the reception was consistent. Björn Enwall, who served as a Saab designer from 1969 to 1992, was among those who acknowledged the quality of what Ekstrøm had produced. These were not vanity projects or garage curiosities. They were finished cars, built to a professional standard, that happened to have been commissioned by one person rather than a manufacturer.

Bonhams, October 2023

The EX eventually made its way to Belgium, where for a period it was maintained as an exhibit at Leif Gjestrum Larsen AS in Larvik, Norway – one of the country’s remaining Saab specialists – before being consigned to auction.

On 8 October 2023, the Saab EX entered the Bonhams sale in Knokke-Heist, Belgium, alongside consignments from Bugatti, Ferrari, Aston Martin, and Porsche. It was offered without reserve, with a pre-sale estimate of €60,000–€90,000. At the time of sale the car carried 154,000 kilometres on the engine, with a fresh EU technical inspection completed in July 2023. It was registered on a 1987 Saab 9000 CC VIN, granting it Oldtimer status across much of Europe.

The hammer fell at the equivalent of approximately $62,000 USD. The lot included the complete build archive: original correspondence with Saab, technical drawings, build calculations, press material, and a 40-minute video documenting the construction from beginning to end.

Warsaw, 2025

The buyer was from Poland. What that meant in practice became clear when Daily Driven Exotics – a Canadian automotive YouTube channel with tens of millions of subscribers, founded by Damon Fryer – visited a private collection in Warsaw that had never previously been filmed. The collection, operated under the NAC Racing name and owned by a collector identified as Favoto, had refused access to journalists and cameras alike until that visit.

 

The Saab EX was there, in the company of a Ford RS 200, a Peugeot 206 WRC driven by Marcus Grönholm to his 2001 championship, a Mitsubishi Lancer WRC 05 – number 15 of 16 built – and a Lancia 037, among others. Every car in the collection, as the owner explained, is original, carries documented history, and is driven. The EX is no exception: it has been prepared for use in historical rallies in Poland, registered with Polish historical licence plates and Polish insurance.

Introducing the car to the DDE crew, the owner was precise: “This is Saab EX. The only ever produced EX. This is a prototype. The only one.” Damon Fryer noted the lowered roofline, the three-spoke wheels, the standard Saab key placement above the steering column. The car was described as being in very good condition.

It was, for most of the DDE audience, their first encounter with the Saab EX. For anyone who had followed the Bonhams sale, it was confirmation that the car had found the right home – one where one-of-one machines are acquired with intent to understand them, not simply to possess them.