A winter Ad designed for Norway
Volkswagen Norway knows exactly what it’s doing when it builds a winter campaign around traction. In a country where road conditions can flip from wet asphalt to polished ice within minutes, the ability to keep moving is not a lifestyle promise but a daily requirement. That context frames the short video “Off the road again,” created to highlight the advantages of Volkswagen’s 4MOTION all-wheel drive on its electric ID lineup, with the ID.4 as the hero of the story.
The setup is deliberately simple: a snowy incline, a front-wheel-drive car that fails to climb it (?!), and an ID.4 4MOTION that drives up without drama. The message is clear, quick, and easy to understand – even before you notice which car has been cast in the losing role.
Watch the ad before reading further
Before diving into reactions and context, it’s worth seeing the video itself. The scene, the timing, and the punchline all matter here, and they explain why this particular commercial sparked more discussion than Volkswagen probably expected.
Once you’ve watched it, the reason for the reaction becomes obvious.
Why the choice of car matters
The struggling car in the video is unmistakably a Saab 9-3, even though all badges and identifiers have been removed. For a casual viewer, it might register simply as “an older sedan with front-wheel drive.” For anyone even mildly familiar with Scandinavian car culture, it registers as something else entirely: a brand that spent decades building its reputation on winter competence.
Volkswagen didn’t pick Saab at random. As Motor.no noted in its coverage of the campaign, Saab famously marketed itself for years as “the winter car.” By referencing that legacy, Volkswagen borrows a well-known narrative and flips it for contrast. When asked directly, Volkswagen representatives reportedly explained that the comparison felt safe because Saab is no longer an active manufacturer – there is no competing brand left to object, respond, or escalate.
From a marketing standpoint, that logic is understandable. From a community standpoint, it is precisely why the reaction was so strong.
Saab owners push back – harder than expected
Almost immediately after the video circulated, Saab enthusiasts across Norway, Denmark, and beyond began commenting, sharing, and dissecting the clip. The tone varied from playful to openly irritated, but the underlying message was consistent: this is not how a Saab typically behaves on snow.
Some reactions focused on the principle, questioning the fairness of making fun of a brand that no longer exists. Others went straight for the credibility angle, arguing that the ad risks misleading viewers by presenting a staged failure as a general truth. A few flipped the joke entirely, pointing out that ending up stuck on snow often says more about tires and driver input than about the badge on the trunk – and joking that they have seen plenty of Volkswagens in ditches over the years as well.
What none of the reactions did was deny the basic advantage of all-wheel drive. The pushback wasn’t “AWD doesn’t work.” It was “this comparison is too convenient.”
The winter reality behind a Saab 9-3
Part of the frustration comes from the gap between the ad’s simplicity and real-world winter driving. A Saab 9-3 is not relying on blind hope when traction is limited. Its traction and stability systems (TCS/ESP) continuously monitor wheel speed and vehicle behavior, reducing engine torque and, on many versions, applying brake intervention to manage wheelspin and maintain forward motion on slippery surfaces – especially at the low speeds where getting stuck is most likely. Combined with proper winter tires, this calibration is why many owners experience these cars as predictable and composed in snow, rather than helplessly spinning in place.
To understand why many Saab drivers questioned the premise of Volkswagen Norway’s ad, it helps to look briefly at how a Saab 9-3 actually manages traction and stability in low-grip conditions.
That doesn’t mean a front-wheel-drive Saab is unstoppable, or that it can defy physics. It does mean that the video’s portrayal feels incomplete to drivers who know how these systems behave outside a controlled filming scenario.
The comparison Volkswagen carefully avoided
Several commenters also pointed out the elephant not present in the video: Saab’s own all-wheel-drive solution. A 9-3 equipped with XWD would have complicated the narrative significantly. At that point, the comparison would shift from AWD versus FWD to AWD versus AWD, where tires, ground clearance, and system tuning start to matter more than drivetrain layout alone.
From an advertising perspective, that’s a much harder story to control. The clean, guaranteed outcome disappears, and so does the tidy punchline. Choosing a front-wheel-drive 9-3 keeps the message simple, even if it makes the setup feel selective.
A harmless joke – or a misjudged reference?
Viewed generously, “Off the road again” is a lighthearted winter gag designed to underline a product feature, not a technical verdict on Saab engineering. Volkswagen Norway succeeded in making its point about 4MOTION, and the video does exactly what advertising is meant to do: it’s short, memorable, and shareable.
At the same time, the campaign underestimated the emotional and experiential weight that the Saab name still carries in winter markets. By choosing a Saab as the foil, Volkswagen didn’t just demonstrate AWD capability – it reopened a long-standing conversation about what actually makes a good winter car.
What the ad accidentally proved
In the end, the most interesting outcome isn’t whether the ID.4 can climb a snowy hill – it can. The real takeaway is that Saab remains a reference point for winter driving long after the brand itself stopped building cars. Volkswagen may have chosen Saab because it seemed like a safe, silent comparison, but the reaction showed otherwise.
Saab doesn’t answer back through press releases anymore. It answers through owners, forums, and decades of accumulated winter stories. And that’s why a short AWD commercial ended up doing something unexpected: reminding everyone that Saab’s reputation on snow is still very much alive.
They should’ve put Turbo X there
No wonder that the comments were turned off.
Even Volkswagen went from the traditional and best ever Syncro system to the 4 motion.
It would not have happened in Sweden.
Gave up my Toyota Landcruiser, years ago, for a more comfortable, and safer, Saab with winter tires. Many blizzards later, I’ve always had to get to work, and never needed AWD! I LOVE it when I’m passing SUVs, as they white knuckle it, trying not to slide off the road!
I used to love seeing all the soccer mom Land Grovers spun out on to the median
in the early 2000s
Yeh!Saab is a superb winther car! Stupid VW
I recall a massive snowstorm here in Indiana years ago. My wife, who worked at the local hospital at the time was offered to stay until the plows could clear the streets. She went outside, cleared the windows of snow while others were shoveling their vehicles, hopped into our 900 and drove (without hesitation, slipping, or spinning the tires) onto the street and away. She said that she looked into her rear view mirror and saw those left shoveling out their cars had stopped shoveling and stood awestruck. The following week, one of the men left shoveling out his car bought himself a Saab. It’s the best car I’ve ever owned and currently drive a 2002 9-3 daily.
Id rather push my saabs then drive these new ugly vw Suvs. Now the older vw i like anything mk4 and older.
I always was in the road again back in times we had snowy winters in germany. My several VW Käfer took me everywhere. Now I am a Saab owner and we have no snow anymore here, so sad !
I think this ad is funny, but not nice and not the truth. 😣
There are couple f###ups in this clip.No ABS in SAAB is one. And watch closely the tires when It slides down. Rims are steady but tires roll and the snow moves..