This edition of Cold Start is going to be sort of a Saab-flavored grab bag of stuff, so if you’re looking for something more coherent or a theme beyond everyone’s favorite aircraft-inspired kooky Swedish car, I’m afraid you’re out of luck. Maybe one of the other car sites offers an early morning automotive reverie with stricter boundaries and more focus? I won’t stop you from looking at those, if so. But for today, what we’ve got is some Saab-related stuff that caught my attention, so we best get through this.
I’m focusing mostly on very early Saabs for the simple reason that I’m fiercely fond of early Saabs. They’re one of those cars that’s so carefully designed and objectively rational that they wrap around to being just bonkers things. Those early Saabs with their two-stroke DKW-inspired engines and streamlined bodies and oddly roomy interiors have so many qualities that just make sense, yet the complete package feels like a charming alien something hailing from a planet of ice and salted fish.
The first thing that really caught my attention, and what I alluded to first in the headline, is a little illustration of someone really exploring the cargo-hauling options of their Saab 92 and its folding rear seat:
Just take a moment to drink this little illustration in. No idea why this person is so against a pickup truck, because they could clearly make use of one, as those long red 2x4s or giant beef jerky strips are actually about as long as the car itself.
A good quarter-length of the car is sticking out the back there! I mean, sure, they seem to have hung what looks to be a coat hanger on the back there, but this is a gleefully mad act of haulage. I have nothing but respect for this Saab-sanctioned cargo-hauling suggestion.
Let’s get to the other part of the headline, my tease about some Mad magazine content. It’s in here, in this 1963 Saab 96 brochure:
Look at that dapper fella, who seems to think that newsstand is a lending library! Hey, Karl Karlsson! If you’re gonna read more than a paragraph, you gotta buy it! You’re sucking all the information out of that paper!
So, I was looking at all those magazines, and got curious; could I tell when this photo was taken by finding one of the magazine covers? I sure can, thanks to the distinctive Mad cover with the target:
That’s Mad number 71, from June of 1962! That makes sense, if you’re shooting pictures for your 1963 brochure, you’d probably want to do it about six months before 1963 happens! I can’t tell if it was translated to Swedish, like some of the ads behind it. Somehow I doubt Mad was translating their magazines much back then?
Speaking of print publications, I was interested to see this 1960 Auto Age article titled Saab Story, because I think pretty much every automotive publication has used this same punny title. Hell, I can think of about three times it’s been used in some context right here at the Autopian!
I’ll be honest – I can’t recall why I picked this shot, other than I always like luggage-packed trunk shots. This one is a bit less crammed and tetris’d full than they usually are. Is that a reverse lamp in the middle there?
There was some copy that also went on about the handsome taillights, which I agree with, as I’ve always liked those Hella units.
I always thought VW people should have swapped those out more often:
Okay, finally, I found one of those classic picnic shots for the Saab 92:
Like all of these, you’re likely wondering how they hell they ended up driving there, as there’s no road in sight, they’re just sitting there in the forest. This one is a little weirder, because you only see what seems to be a mom and son there, enjoying the picnic.
This wasn’t some early and progressive attempt to market to single moms, because if you look in the upper left you’ll see dad and some other kid, way the hell in the background. Why aren’t they by the car and food and others? What the hell is going on here?
Anyway, old Saabs! So good.
I miss when you could throw a few sheets of 4×8′ ply in the back of a Subaru wagon, so I applaud their hauling suggestion. No need for a pickup if you only need stuff in small batches.
My parents had always spoken fondly of how their first cars when they got married were Saabs. I was recently going through family photos and found one of my Dad in the driver seat of a beige Saab with his arm on the window sill, looking cool. I wish it was a full shot of the car, but whomever took it only got Dad and the door area. Apparently they were inexpensive at the time and broke a lot (according to what I recall my late parents mentioning).
I want to know what’s in that can on the picnic blanket. Everything else is tea and cookies, but graphics suggest a tall boy. Maybe dad insisted on housing a lager after finally getting there.
It’s a packet of biscuits known as “Mariekex” here in Sweden.
The artist helpfully airbrushed in a smoke haze behind the Saab
I can’t figure out what that front piece of chrome side strip is aligning with. The ground maybe? Nothing on the car.
Oh, that’s easy to explain. It’s polished stainless steel, not chrome.
No need to thank me.
Trivia question:
How many car companies starting with the letter S can you name that have had models with a third central headlight at some point?
Three come to mind immediately, but I imagine there are many more?
I’m concerned about the other magazine on the rack; Baby Hunt….
Meanwhile in the US, Ford guys were debating Chevy guys about which brand was best, despite the fact they were pretty much building the same cars. In Sweden, the Big 2 made vastly different cars, and they seemed to peacefully coexist. SAAB was for forward-thinking people and Volvo owners liked having cars that were the same as they ever were, and that was fine with everyone.
One of the big reasons I bought into the redesigned Mazda6 in 2014 was because of the trunk. It was also the best car in its class by a wide margin from pretty much every perspective, but cargo hauling was its secret super power. The rear seats folded mostly flat, and left a hole mostly the width and height of the car (whereas everyone else had a pass through). It was also the biggest car I had ever owned. From the back of the front seats to the back of the trunk was nearly 6 feet. It wasn’t as tall as my wife’s CX-5, but it was longer. IKEA trips were easy. I used it to get bags of mulch every spring, pretty easily fitting 15 ish 3kg bags back there. I was even able to drive with an 8’ 2×4 fully enclosed inside the car. It was awesome. Who needs a pickup?
Ironically, the SUV I have now can’t come close to what the Mazda6 could do.
Working in Los Angeles, the summer of ’77, the Golf/Rabbit diesel had come out and the US was going through a fuel “crisis.” I was curious about the diesel and arranged a test drive at the local VW/Saab dealership. The VW was underwhelming. I got to drive it about four blocks and not on a freeway. Then the salesman pivoted to a Saab 99 and told me to turn right onto a heavily rutted dirt road. He said it would be about the same price as the heavily marked-up VW. That thing was amazing. Smooth ride and it went right where you pointed it regardless of the ruts. I didn’t really have the money for either one, but I did talk an IBM engineer friend into test-driving the 99 and he ended up buying one. So, the salesman’s time was not totally wasted. I remember being in it when the friend took it up to about 100 mph and it was calm and collected.
One of the other auto websites did have an early morning reverie about Saabs. It was talking about the Saab 9-3 and its 2.0L DOHC engine, producing over 28,000 lbf thrust and maxing out at over Mach 2 and a 60,000 foot flight ceiling. I’m pretty sure it was AI generated….
The hubcaps on that news stand photo Saab are pretty decorative/fake-wire-wheel-y for a supposedly-sensible Saab.
The fake-wire-wheel-y parts are accessory trim rings. They’re polished aluminum, quite thin and delicate, and not at all easy to find now in good condition. The picnic photo shows what the wheels look like without them.
That could very well be a Swedish language MAD magazine. Svenska MAD (Swedish MAD) was published 1960 – 2002 (Wikipedia). This version had a Swedish editor and a mix of content from the US version (often including the cover) as well as Swedish cartoonists.
Kurt Vonnegut opened a Saab dealership in 1957 and it was bankrupt by 1961. Following that he started publishing books about mechanical aliens from the planet Tralfamadore whose ways of thinking were completely unlike humans (Sirens of Titan, Slaughterhouse Five) and about car dealers who are experiencing psychotic breakdowns (Breakfast of Champions).
I read that Vonnegut’s correspondence was on stationary from the Saab dealer for years as well-he had a lot of it left over!
Yes! Both of the articles linked in my post feature pictures Vonnegut drew on Saab letterhead.