It started as a routine parts run. A Saab 9-3 Vector SportCombi needed a brake booster before delivery to its new owner, so used-car dealer Mingsung headed to Fu He — Taiwan’s long-established official Saab representative in Neihu, Taipei. The brake booster alone cost NT$15,000. “Still thinking about it,” the driver mutters on camera. What nobody planned was that the staff would then pull out the keys to cars that haven’t been shown to anyone in years.
Table of Contents
- 1 Taipei Once Had Four Saab Showrooms
- 2 The 1976 Saab 99: Road-Ready, Not Showroom-Ready
- 3 The Classic 900: Why It’s Hard to Work On (And Why That’s the Point)
- 4 The Saab 900 CD: Commissioned for Swedish Royalty
- 5 Workshop Chief Hong Guo-Cheng: There Since Day One
- 6 Shang Fu and Neihu Chang Lian: A Clarification on the Taiwan Saab Network
Taipei Once Had Four Saab Showrooms
That surprises most people. Fu He ran locations in Neihu, Shilin, Minsheng East Road, and Xizhi. During Saab’s better years in Taiwan, volume came primarily from 9-3s and 9-5s – around 2,000 to 3,000 units annually in the 9-3’s strongest period. Before that, total Taiwan sales across all models barely reached a few hundred cars a year.
Wagons were never strong sellers at the time. One of the staff mentions that with a slight smile – because today, of course, everyone wants one.
The 1976 Saab 99: Road-Ready, Not Showroom-Ready
The first car they bring out is a 1976 Saab 99. Two liters, naturally aspirated – the turbo didn’t arrive until 1978, so this one predates all of that. It came to Fu He around 2000 as a gift from a customer to the general manager. By 2017, the decision was made to get it back on the road – properly, not just cosmetically.
The problem was air conditioning. European cars of the mid-1970s rarely had it, and without it a car in Taiwan’s summers is genuinely unusable. As one technician puts it: “Like selling sesame-oil chicken – only good in winter, can’t go out in the rain.” So the workshop built their own system from scratch.
The compressor comes from a Peugeot 206 – compact enough to fit where the original space constraints demanded. The condensation tray is fabricated from Lock & Lock plastic containers, shaped and fitted so naturally you wouldn’t notice unless someone pointed it out. The vent housing and outlet panels were designed in-house using plastic rather than aluminum, deliberately: in a collision, metal interior components become cutting edges. Even the improvised parts follow a logic.
The ignition system was left entirely stock – points ignition, unmodified. Converting to electronic would have been easier. They chose not to.
Everything else is original. The leather, after nearly fifty years, is intact. The key sits in the floor console between the seats, interlocked with the transmission so it cannot be removed unless the gear selector is in reverse – Saab’s mechanical reminder to the driver, built in before most manufacturers were thinking about such things. The cassette holder is still in place.
The Classic 900: Why It’s Hard to Work On (And Why That’s the Point)
Next up is a classic long-hood Saab 900, and the workshop team explains it the way people do who have actually spent years underneath one.
The 900 used double-wishbone suspension at the front. That geometry needs space – roughly 40 centimeters of wheel-arch width on each side. With both corners occupied by wishbones, there was no room for a transverse engine. So the engine went longitudinal. But a longitudinal engine in a front-wheel-drive car puts the drivetrain in the wrong place, so Saab angled it and positioned the gearbox forward of the axle, underneath the engine. Every unusual thing about working on a 900 flows from that chain of decisions.
“That’s why people think Saab is difficult to work on. But it’s not a flaw – it’s the price of not compromising on the suspension.”
The structural side of the 900 gets the same direct treatment. One of the staff recalls the old sales demonstration: open the door, stand on it, jump twice in front of the customer, close it. No deformation. He also recalls a collision between a 900 and a large truck – Saab’s front end crumpled significantly, but the cabin held and the occupants walked away. The truck driver came over, looked at what remained, and asked how the car was still in one piece.
The Saab 900 CD: Commissioned for Swedish Royalty
Further back in the facility sits a Saab 900 CD – the coachbuilt four-door variant, commissioned for Scandinavian royal use. Extended doors, repositioned B-pillar, different roofline, different glass, substantially different proportions. All hand-built. The original price, according to those present, was enough to buy a house.
The detail that stands out isn’t the provenance. It’s the engineering decision behind it. A cost-conscious manufacturer would have simply moved the B-pillar outward, reused the standard door sections, and nobody outside the factory would have known. Saab built a new roof, new glass, new door geometry – different wheelbase, different everything except the engine and the front and rear ends. As Mingsung puts it: “It’s like BMW just bolting on one extra piece and calling it done. Saab refused to do that.”
The rear legroom reflects that decision. Sitting in the back is a noticeably different experience from any standard 900.
Workshop Chief Hong Guo-Cheng: There Since Day One
The visit ends with a sit-down interview with workshop chief Hong Guo-Cheng (洪國城), who joined Fu He in ROC year 70 – 1981 – when the company first opened. He is still there, in the same white Saab coat, in the same building.
Fu He’s approach from the beginning was unusual: they built and staffed the workshop before importing any cars. Preparations started in 1979. Technicians were trained, tools were sourced, protocols established – and only then did the first Saabs arrive. “We weren’t like other dealers who import the cars first and figure it out later.”
Approximately 90 percent of Fu He’s long-term employees are still there, most with over 20 years of tenure. The general manager kept the full team together through years with no new product to sell, after Saab’s bankruptcy in 2011. The workshop building itself tells the same story: the roof runs the full length without a single interior column or seam, purpose-designed so cars can maneuver freely inside, heated in winter and cooled in summer. BMW dealerships came to tour it as a benchmark.
Thirteen years after Saab’s last new car, the service bays are still full.
Shang Fu and Neihu Chang Lian: A Clarification on the Taiwan Saab Network
One detail in this story deserves to be stated precisely. The video description does not actually point to a company called “Fu He” as a single Saab entity. Instead, the wording thanks Shang Fu, Saab’s longtime official representative in Taiwan, and the staff at Neihu Chang Lian separately. That distinction matters, because Shang Fu (商富) has been identified for decades as Saab’s Taiwan representative dating back to 1981, while Chang Lian (長連) appears as the Neihu service operation where this visit takes place. In other words, the workshop shown in the video is best understood not as “Fu He,” but as Neihu Chang Lian within Taiwan’s broader Saab support network shaped by Shang Fu.
Video: 『特別企劃』開箱Saab原廠經典老車收藏 – Foot Dance Motor / Mingsung Car Shop (明松汽車商行), published April 18, 2024. Watch on YouTube. Thanks to the team at Fu He Neihu and workshop chief Hong Guo-Cheng.
