2007 Saab 9-3 2.0t Convertible 2-door 2.0l on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Junkyard Gem: 1987 Saab 900 4-Door Sedan

Saab sold the original 900 in the United States from the 1979 through 1993 model years (followed by another few years of Opel Vectra-based 900s), and most of the 900s you'll find today are the higher-end models with 16-valve engines and/or turbochargers. Last year in this series, we saw a 900 Turbo and a 900 Turbo Convertible in Colorado car graveyards, and now it's time to take a look at a used-up Colorado 900 with the base 8-valve engine and few extras. The cheapest new 1987 Saab available here was the base three-door hatchback with 5-speed manual transmission, which had an MSRP of $14,395 (about $39,497 in 2023 dollars). If you wanted a new 900 with four doors that year, the price of admission started at $14,805 ($40,622 after inflation). That's the car we've got here. The engine is a 2.0-liter SOHC slant-four, the direct descendant of the engine originally developed in partnership with Triumph for use in the Saab 99 and Triumph Dolomite. The Triumph TR7 used members of this engine family as well. This engine was rated at 110 horsepower and 118 pound-feet. The naturally-aspirated 16-valve version in the '87 900S made 125 horses, while the 900 Turbo had 160 horsepower. The automatic transmission cost an extra $430 (about $1,180 now); most 900 buyers chose the five-on-the-floor manual. In fact, I have never documented a junked 1979-1993 Saab 900 with an automatic. This one came close to the 175,000-mile mark during its life. The paint is somewhat faded, but the interior looks good for a car this age. Its owner or owners took good care of it. The body has a few dents but no rust worth mentioning. If it had been a 900S or a 900 Turbo, it would have had a better chance of avoiding this fate. Saab's innovative technology for 1987 starts at around $15,000 and goes up to the $20,000,000 Viggen (the fighter plane, not the later hot-rod 9-3 that borrowed the Viggen name).

Koenigsegg plans a ‘CO2 neutral’ hybrid supercar

Fresh from receiving a 150 million-euro infusion from National Electric Vehicle Sweden, the Chinese-backed company that bought up Saab's assets out of bankruptcy, supercar maker Koenigsegg has signaled just what it plans to do under the new joint venture. Christian von Koenigsegg gave an interview to Top Gear in which he said he wants to develop an all-new supercar to sit below ultra-exclusive models like the Agera RS and Regera, priced at around ˆ1 million (about $1.15 million) to grow sales from 20 a year into the hundreds, because "our brand has outgrown our production volumes by quite a big margin." And it will feature a novel, "completely CO2 neutral" hybrid powrtrain using the "freevalve" camless combustion engine technology the company has been developing in concert with battery-electric power. "Given the freevalve technology, we can actually cold-start the car on pure alcohol, down to -30 degrees Celsius, so there's no need for any fossil fuel mix then," he told Top Gear. "The idea is to prove to the world that even a combustion engine can be completely CO2 neutral." Von Koenigsegg previously hinted at the setup after talking about how his engineers were responding to Tesla's claims that its forthcoming next-generation Roadster would be capable of a 1.9-second 0-60 mph time. He further hints that the new hybridized supercar will look unmistakably like a Keonigsegg but be in a different segment altogether from either the Agera RS or plug-in hybrid Regera. Consider us very much intrigued and eager to hear more. Meanwhile, Koenigsegg has said it plans to reveal the successor to the Agera RS next month at the Geneva Motor Show based on a refined version of the same supercharged V8 combustion engine. The new joint venture with NEVS, meanwhile, sees that company take a 65 percent ownership stake, with Koenigsegg holding the rest and contributing its trove of intellectual property, technology licenses and product design. NEVS also gets a 20 percent stake in Koenigsegg itself. Related Video: This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. News Source: Top GearImage Credit: Drew Phillips Green Automakers Koenigsegg Saab Alternative Fuels Emissions Ethanol Hybrid Performance Supercars supercar NEVS koenigsegg agera rs koenigsegg regera

Junkyard Gem: 1989 Saab 900 Turbo Convertible

I live in Colorado, where Saabs were loved deeply by residents going way back to the 96 (and I'm sure a few 92s were sold here in the 1950s, though I haven't found any in local car graveyards … yet). By far the easiest pre-GM Trollhattanites to find in Centennial State wrecking yards these days are the 1978-1993 900s, and I walk by a half-dozen for each one that I document as a Junkyard Gem. We admired a gloriously brown 900 Turbo two-door a few months back, but today's 900 Turbo is an extremely rare cabriolet version, the first I've found in a boneyard in at least 15 years. The convertible 900 was available only as a turbocharged version in the United States when it was introduced for the 1986 model year, and that continued through 1991. After that, a naturally-aspirated 900 convertible could be bought here. When in very nice condition, these cars can bring tidy sums. A super-low-mile '87 900 Turbo convertible just sold for $145,000 recently, in fact. This car has more than 843 times as many miles on the odometer as that car, however, and it shows every one of them. It's not terribly rusty, considering, but the sheet metal shows many battle scars, and the interior is about what you'd expect with 33-year-old leather. Last year's film adaptation of Haruki Murakami's short story, "Drive My Car," put the Saab 900 Turbo back into mainstream cultural awareness. However, that car is a two-door sedan; the best-known Saab 900 Turbo Convertible in cinema history is the one driven by Iben Hjelje's character in the film adaptation of the Nick Hornby novel, "High Fidelity." These cars were fairly quick for their time, with 160 horsepower from this DOHC 2.0-liter straight-four in 1989. Having seen more than my share of 900 Turbos going up against same-era BMW E30s and Acura Integras on road courses, I'd put my money on the Saab in a wheel-to-wheel race (that is, in a race short enough to keep the Swede's nervous engine alive). While a three-speed automatic was available on this car, the kind of Americans odd enough to buy Saabs in 1989 also tended to be the type that wanted manual transmissions. In fact, I can't recall ever seeing a (non-Opel-based) 900 with a slushbox. Yes, Opel! Starting in the 1994 model year, the 900 name went on a car based on the Opel Vectra platform. Later on, the Saab 9-5 and Saturn L-Series lived on the same chassis. Given all the luxury features and genuine performance, this car was a pretty good value for the price in 1989.