Saab History

Saab Automobile AB’s very own Björn Berglöf, Manager Saab Motorsport, has recently provided Saab history an exclusive historical account of his background in motorsport with Saab Automobile.

We are very priveledged to receive this information and a tremendous thank you goes to Mr. Berglöf for sharing this information to the Saab community here on Saab History. As they say in Sweden, Tack Så Mycket! (Thank you Very Much!)

Please enjoy his writeup in his own words below:

Saab’s Motorsport Manager on Saab Motorsport Today

To start with myself, I entered Saab in 1964, when we still had the two-stroke Saab 96 and 95 in production. The development work of Saab 99 had just started and I was a part of the Interior Design Team, responsible for seat belts, mirrors, front seats etc.

In 1971 I became the supervisor of the department, responsible for the complete interior design work. The department was later on divided in groups and I was the group leader for seat belts, air bag and instrument panel.

After a short stay on the purchasing department, I went back, in 1985, to the technical department to start up the Accessories Development and some years later was Saab Special Vehicles included as well.

In 1994 we were contacted by Anders Norstedt who had won the Rally Cross European Championship, for three years, with the Saab 900 Classic. He wanted to build a new car based on the new Saab 900, for the highest division, with four wheel drive. We had an AWD-concept for Saab 9000 going on and found it interesting to test it on a race car. I got the job to my department! :)

Today Anders has a rally team, Team Motorsport (http://www.teammotorsport.net/) with a Saab 9-3 CC, participating in the Swedish Championship, on ethanol of course. We still support him!

In 1996 Erik Carlsson asked Per Eklund if he was interested to change over from Subaru to Saab in rally cross, and come back to the family. I was asked to investigate the possibility with Per and one year later we had the car finished and he won the Swedish Championship the same year. In 1999 he also won the European Championship. As a bonus for that, we promised him to support a start in Pikes Peak and a hectic job started to build a complete new car for the race.

The car was built in Per’s garage in Arvika with support from us. You have probably seen the film? In his first race 2000 he won his class, Pike Peak Open, in 11 min. and 22 sec, witch still is the record. The car was rebuilt for the Unlimited Class and 2002 he won that class as well.

Today Per is participating in the Swedish and European Championships with a Saab 9-3 Aero SportSedan (http://home.ict.nl/~mikjager/). We still support him!

We also support a rally team, Green Rally (http://www.greenrally.nu/). In 2003 they were the first racing team, in the world, running on ethanol. As we worked with the BioPower concept at that time, it was interesting for us to support the team and show the potential of the fuel.
They have been very successful and won the Swedish Super Cup in 2005. The first victory with an ethanol car.

In track racing we support two teams.

Swede Team Motor (http://www.swedeteammotor.com/) participates in endurance racing with a Saab 9-3 TiD. They introduced diesel cars on the track in 2003 and had the first diesel car on the podium ever. This year the team won their class and were on the third place totally in tough fights with Porsche, BMW and other high performance cars. With a diesel engine!

Swede Team Motor also participates in Historic Racing with a Saab 96. In 2003 they won the Historic 1000cc-Cup in Sweden

Anders Weglin Racing (http://www.awr.nu/) runs the Nordic Super Car in a Saab 9-3 SportSedan BioPower. It is a high performance car in a very tough competition with Viper, Porsche and Ferrari. They won the last race of the season and will use the winter to reduce the weight of the car, with more carbon fibre parts. So perhaps next year!

The support the teams get is in form of technical know how, standard parts and racing parts produced in our prototype shop.

Björn Berglöf

Manager Motor Sport
Saab Automobile AB