It’s The Third Anniversary Of The Autopian! Meet Our Third Anniversary Car, The Saab Sonnet III!

Quick! Grab your calendar! Push the little primer bulb a few times to get some fuel into the carb, then yank that starter cord! Okay, try it again. One more time. There you go! Now that it’s running, what does the calendar say? March 32. And you know what that means – it’s the anniversary of The Autopian! Three years! Somehow, we’ve been doing this for the minimum number of years to make a Year Sandwich! And it’s all thanks to you! 

To celebrate and represent this incredible milestone, we’ve picked a Third Year automotive mascot, the Saab Sonett III! You may recall that last year we picked the Ford Mustang II, so, following this logic, those of you who are excited for the BMW 2002 to be our anniversary mascot car will just need to wait for the year, let’s see, 4024. March 32, 4024, to be specific, so pencil that in.

Hot clams, it’s really been three years? When David and Beau and I decided that the world had been deprived long enough of a place for genuine car dorks to really come together and form a strong, supportive, and fun community, we started the Autopian, and the consensus from the world, automotive and otherwise, seemed to be that it simply couldn’t be done.

The Rosicrucians, teaming up for the first time with the Carpet and Rug Institute and the International Union of Notaries, put aside their longstanding differences to issue an extremely forcefully-worded statement condemning our new enterprise, and pledged to “see the destruction of the Autopian before this blighted abomination can pollute the computer networks of this troubled world.”

I’m happy to be here today, still doing what we do, polluting those networks with the love of cars, and the Rosicrucians, Ruggies, and Notaries can lump it.

Speaking of cars, let’s talk a bit about our third anniversary mascot car, the Saab Sonett III. This is the third iteration of Saab’s fantastic little sports car, the Sonett. The Sonett was first introduced as a swoopy little roadster in 1955, with a lean, lovely design by Sixten Sason, and the name, which I can never spell right, isn’t from the type of 14-line poetry, but rather a contraction of the Swedish phrase “Så nätt den är,” which means “it’s so neat.” Which it is!

The early Sonetts had Saab’s traditional DKW-derived two-stroke three-cylinder engine, but the Sonett II could be had with a V4 engine from the Ford Taunus, which eventually turned into the Sonett V4, which is above there, so very yellow.

The engine compartment of the Sonett II was only barely able to fit the V4 engine, and when new emission equipment was needed, there was simply no more room, so the opportunity was taken to re-design the whole car, keeping the same chassis, but making a whole new fiberglass body, which would become the Sonett III in 1970.

The Sonett III was designed by ex-Ghia designer Sergio Coggiola, who also designed another Swedish sporty car icon, the Volvo 262C:

The design of the Sonett III was very inspired by the ’70s wedge phenomenon, and had a more crisp-lined look than previous Sonetts, but retained the dramatic proportions and low-slung stance. There were now manual pop-up headlamps, and a glass hatch that opened to reveal a surprisingly large cargo area at the rear.

Mechanically, the Sonett III was quite close to the V4 that preceded it, and retained the unusual for that era – and, really, for any era of sports car – layout of a longitudinal front-wheel-drive setup.

Even cooler on the Sonnet III was something that is almost never mentioned in the same sentence as “cool”: the radiator overflow tank. I mean, look at it:

See what’s going on there? The radiator overflow tank isn’t just some plastic bottle shoved down into the corner of the engine bay somewhere, it’s inside that cross-brace! Yes, that stiffening brace is hollow and acts as the coolant overflow tank! It’s fantastic!

We’re proud to have the third Sonett be our third-year car mascot, but what I’m feeling more than pride, about tiny V4 Swedes or this very website, is gratitude, and that gratitude is directed squarely at you.

You, those who read our site, hopefully every day, and you who comment, with wit and insight and knowledge, and you who are paying members, helping us keep this bold experiment in loving cars and the people who love them, all of you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

We hit a huge milestone yesterday, reaching over four million pageviews (as measured by Chartbeat, 7.5 million as measured by Google) in a month, and of course, we couldn’t have done that without all of you, viewing all of those pages. The whole point of the Autopian has always been to create and foster a community of people who care deeply about cars and the way cars bring people together, and I believe we have done – and are doing – just that.

So thank you all so very much, thank you for enduring our madness and sloppiness and over-eagerness for these three years, and let’s keep this thing going as long as we can, getting better and better every year! We’ll try our best!

If you’re not a member and would like to become one, click this link to save 13.33% on any annual membership, or go here and use the code threeisamagicnumber.

Top photo: Saab Brochure via Vintage Saab Manuals