Analytical Wealth

As I've discussed before I was a fan of Saab in the 80s and early 90s, an enthusiasm that has waned over the years as Saabs turned into Frankenstein assemblages of what was once Saab and the GM spare parts bin.

That being said I do rather like the new Saab 9-3 and have high hopes for the next 9-5, which leads me to a question: assuming that GM has to dump Saab in order to focus on its core brands, who would be a good suitor for the company? Better yet: who is a synergistic fit with respect to technology, a dealer network and the right sort of mindset to guide the company back to prominence?

As I'm more interested in seeing the company thrive as opposed to simply being absorbed into another automaker's product portfolio, I'm looking at this purely from the perspective of a company whose technologies could take the product to another level.

I.e. whose power trains, suspensions, interiors, etc, would I like to see mated with Saab?

After mulling it over for a bit VW seems like an obvious choice to me, as they seem quiet adept (in my eyes at least) with collaborating technology wise across their various brands, and with Porsche (AKA the company's frequent development partner and likely future overlords). The collaboration skill is of particular importance, as technologies, design skills, etc, which benefit Audi could also be used to benefit Saab as well. Finally they pulled off arguably one of the greatest automotive brand resurrections of the last 20-30 years, when they took Audi from a place that wasn't that much better than where Saab is now to being a major player in the luxury sports sedan world.

Once you accept that whomever takes over Saab is likely to use a lot of their spare parts bin to produce the cars, it doesn’t take a genius to realize that a 9-3 built on a similar platform (and with similar technologies) as an Audi 9-3 is likely to be an instant player. A Saab built on an A3 (or A4) platform, utilizing a form of Audi's Quattro AWD system, sharing engines, transmissions, etc, and leveraging Audi's interior design expertise would undoubtedly be a marked improvement over the current vehicles. Plus these technologies could conceivably be introduced without ruining the little quirks that make Saab, well, Saab.

At the moment Saab is producing a solid car but one that just lags behind its key competitors in the areas of performance, refinement, luxury, etc, a collaboration with VW/Audi could be just the thing to get the company into a position where it's competing with the big boys.

Plus VW and Saab dealers would probably go quite well together as people who are willing to pay over $30k for a Passat might also be interested in giving a 9-3 or a 9-5 a once over before making a decision, especially if they know the car is full of the German DNA they already love as opposed to being a weird offspring of Saab and the GM spare parts bin. 

Of course this is all speculation and dream work at this point, because with Saab sales in the cellar and dealerships disappearing on a regular basis (the Saab dealership I mentioned over the summer is now defunct), the question offered is: who would want to invest in Saab in the first place, especially in the current climate? Not to mention the fact that the people who bought those Bavarian-Swedish Saabs may very well be the same people who would buy Audis anyway, as opposed to winning sales away from BMW or Lexus.

So the key to an existing luxury car company revitalizing Saab would be not only to endow the company with technologies from its existing products to dramatically improve the car, but to do it in a way that allows them to either compete within a new price point or pursue the customers that tend to pick their competitors cars.

This idea (of course) suggests that BMW might be a better choice than VW because even though their existing technologies aren't as synergistic a fit, a very competitive yet lower priced sports sedan could conceivably allow them to pursue customers who would like a BMW but find them too expensive, or need something more practical as far as trunk space, passenger room, etc.

No matter what happens I think the key to Saab's long-term survival is to pare up with an automaker who already has very competitive products within the segments they aspire to, thus giving Saab the extra push it needs (from platforms, engines, etc) to make the company competitive again.

Still, only time will tell, I sincerely hope that 10 years from now that Saab hasn't gone the way of the Packard.

Disclosure: at the time of publishing the author didn't own a position in any of the companies mentioned in this article; the ideas expressed are solely the opinions of the author and shouldn't be viewed as financial or investment advice.