2.3 Turbo 5speed Manual Park Distance Control Sunroof Perfect One Low Reserve on 2040-cars

Auto blog

NEV deal to buy Saab delayed

Remember a month and a half ago when we told you that Saab will "soldier on?" Well, we should have written "stand at attention."
According to SaabsUnited, the deal for National Electric Vehicle Sweden to buy the remaining Saab assets didn't close on schedule. In fact, it's been delayed by "a month, perhaps more." NEVS also seems to have indicated that it's not going to be answering any more questions about the deal until it's completed.
NEVS is supposedly planning on building electric cars based on the design that would have been the next-generation 9-3. The company itself is a partnership between a Chinese energy company and a Japanese investment group.

Celebrate Volvo's 89th birthday with some neat facts

Volvo, arguably Sweden's best-known non-ABBA export, will celebrate the big 9-0 next year. The company has always operated somewhat under the radar, but it has its share of stories to tell despite an image formed by decades of solid, safe, and sensible cars. To celebrate the occasion, here are five lesser-known facts about Sweden's last remaining car brand. 1. It opened North America's first foreign car plant. Idyllic Halifax was a small fishing city of about a quarter-million in the early 1960s when Volvo arrived and became the first import brand to build cars en masse in North America. American consumers on the East Coast developed a fondness for the Volvo Amazon line in the late 1950s, leading Volvo to seek out a plant in the Americas. Halifax ponied up incentives, allowing Volvo to take advantage of a pact eliminating tariffs on cars built and exported between the United States and Canada. Volvo built cars there until the end of 1998, when it said its facility was no longer viable compared to larger factories in Europe. That brings us to The Netherlands, where Volvo bought a quirky, innovative automaker that once sold a car called the Daffodil (which was actually its luxury model). 2. You can thank Volvo for CVTs – even though it doesn't use them. Volvo wasn't interested in picking flowers. It wanted the automotive arm of truck manufacturer DAF, which would include its assembly plant, its Renault engines, and the first mainstream application of the CVT gearbox. Volvo acquired DAF's car business over the course of a few years in the early 1970s and, in typical Volvo safety-oriented style, it slapped big bumpers and head restraints on the little DAF 66 and rebadged it as the Volvo 66. The Dutch assembly plant would grow to include a partnership with Mitsubishi in the early '90s. Today, it operates as NedCar and builds Mini Coopers for BMW. Volvo is no longer involved in NedCar or DAF (which sold its CVT division to Bosch, by the way), but its acquisition of DAF helped ensure the success of CVTs. Ironically, even though Volvo's investment helped make CVTs mainstream, the Swedish automaker's affair with them was brief, and today it utilizes only conventional automatics. 3. The Swedish carmakers were pals. Over its 89 years, Volvo has been closely connected to a number of automakers – most notably Ford, which ran the company for a decade, and its current owner Geely. But Volvo is most closely linked to its longtime competitor, Saab.

Victor Muller to pay Sweden back taxes for Saab work

Victor Muller, Saab's CEO from 2010 to 2011, has been ordered by the Swedish court to pay the back taxes he owes the country for his work at Saab, Autoweek and Volkskrant report. When he was the automaker's CEO he received a salary of about 8 million Swedish Krona ($1.25 million), which was recorded as a reward for consultancy work for a company in the US that Muller owns. The move allowed him to evade taxes for awhile, but the court has ordered him to pay taxes on his full salary.
Muller, who is also CEO of Spyker, and two other Saab executives were accused of accounting fraud in May, which took place in 2010 and 2011. According to reports, Muller maintains that he is not subject to taxes in Sweden.