Production
Saab Product Variety within U.S. Saab Dealerships
April 2nd, 2008, 10:26pm by Ryan - 1 Comments
Photo Credit: Saab History (Caption: New Salem Saab, Albany, New York)
There has been a lot of dialog lately about our Saab dealerships, and even more specifically, those 235-238 Saab dealerships in the United States. Each dealership that contacts Saab History tells me that, “we’d be doing even better if we had more product to sell and not more volume on the existing model lineup, but separate and disctintive models in addition to the current lineup.”
I have been thinking about this a lot lately and, especially after reading a piece from Business Week titled “Engineering a Saab Turnaround”
I am hoping this snippet below is not a true indicator that the end of 2009 is the earliest that Saab dealerships in the United States will see a new product. I should clarify that when I mean a new product, I am not talking the XWD technology for the 2008 9-3, but a completely new product in addition to the 9-3, 9-5 (10-years) and 9-7x.
Still, the company faces an uphill battle. Economic malaise in the U.S. is only likely to continue shrinking a tightening automobile market. If the designs are a hit, the company will still have to strike a delicate balance between gaining back the trust and enthusiasm of loyalists while also expanding the nameplate with new models — something it failed to do with the 9-7X and 9-2X. And the company’s rollout plans will still leave dealers waiting for new product until the end of 2009.
So the question for you the reader is, when do you think that the new products in production form, will be in dealership showrooms that may include the Saab 9-4x BioPower, 9-X BioHybrid and new 9-5, etc?
I look forward to the results of your voting in the poll below and please feel free to post your comments in this thread to let us know why you chose what you did.
Update: Many of you have e-mailed me lately and the poll below is certainly starting to show, that you want more months to be added to the list, as if 20 months is too little timeframe for new Saabs to come to market? Why do you believe this is the case here?
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Categories: 2000-2009, Dealerships
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