Photo Credit: Saab History

This past week, I saw a great 1992 Saab 900 4-door sedan in front of the Harbor Fish Market in Portland, Maine.

I frequent this fish market as it provides some of the healthiest local seafood in the area at good prices and it’s clear that other Saab owners feel the same!

A nice Saab Sighting Of The Week, I hope to see this one driving around again!

Photo Credit: Saab History

The Saab 900, a staple of preferred transportation in academia for years, was recently spotted at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine, making it this week’s Saab sighting of the week.

This 1987 Saab 900 Turbo parked in front of the museum of art at the college, was quite unique with it’s Koenigsegg orange inspired wheels, which makes for quite a good connection with the pumpkin colored side marker and turn signals normally found on these vehicles originally destined for the North American market.

This Saab sighting of the week is the third sighting of a classic Saab 900 at a reputable art museum, where we’ve previously seen a Saab 900 at the Portland Museum of Art in Maine as well as the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

It’s one thing to see just another Saab, and another for a classic Saab 900, but it’s quite a nice sight to see both complete with an artistic touch, because we know there are only artist inspired Saabs around.

Photo Credit: Saab History

This weekend was the annual summer kick-off “Old Port Festival” that my wife and I attended. The event, was great fun with vendors, music, plenty of food, fun, etc.

At this event, there were numerous Saab sightings, but this one was by far one of the best, although I think the driver was quite surprised!

Photo Credit: Saab History

This past weekend, my wife and I went to pick up some fresh produce at the local farmers market here in New England.

While we were heading over, I noticed a good photo opportunity of a Saab, the most intelligent car ever built next to a Smart car, so I appropriately titled the photo as “Intelligent Car Vs. Smart Car”.

I thought this photo opportunity was good enough for a Saab Sighting of the week!

Photo Credit: Saab History

The Saab Sighting of the week this week was captured this past weekend in New Hampshire during a parade.

As the parade began, I was delightfully surprised a new generation Saab 900 SE, leading the pack (naturally fitting for Saab).

The Saab Convertible seems to be a given for parades in my opinion, top down, first in line, nice to see so many others think the same way!

Photo Credit: Saab History

While grocery shopping today, I noticed a beautiful Saab 9-3 5-door hatchback parked in a Hannafords parking lot with the Vermont vanity tags “PR Buz”, so I saw this is a perfect candidate for Saab Sighting of the week!

It’s really nice to see people with exciting vanity plates on their Saabs no matter what. I feel that it somehow sends a message that they like their car enough to feel happy and liberated to tell us about what they do or what they like.

Saab Automobile really needs some “PR Buzz” these days in the United States, hopefully it will be back later this year for the 2009 relaunch I have previously suggested!.

Photo Credit: Saab History

On Saturday morning before I headed out to the Springtime in Sweden event, I noticed a beautiful Saab 9-3 Sport Sedan purchased at Saab History site sponsor, Shaw Saab in Norwell, Massachusetts!

This sighting with the Portland Museum of Art in the background was a good qualifier for this week’s Saab Sighting of the week!

If you are interested in buying a new or previous owned Saab at Shaw Saab, please check out their website directly http://www.shawsaab.com

Photo Credit: Saab History

Saab Sightings, a feature I started when living in Washington, D.C. has come back around in a recent movie featuring Russell Crowe in “State of Play” who I covered back in April of last year during their filming.

In this film that I managed to catch over the weekend, I saw Crowe driving a light blue 1990 Saab c900 3-door hatchback. I was really impressed that it was not just one scene but many scenes with the Saab throughout the entire movie as he works as a journalist in the made up “Washington Globe”, a take off of the Washington Post.

This sighting/movie review this week really captures the true essence of traditional journalism against the backdrop of the impending new media industry, now keeping many traditional newspaper companies in business today.

I was very happy to see this film as it was well done in so many ways, but one thing I did not appreciate was Ben Affleck’s reference to Crowe’s Saab in the film sounding like a “lawn mower”!

All in all, State of Play was a very satisfying story of traditional journalism and a true and honest Saab story of the state of the newspaper industry today. Furthermore, a great Saab sighting of the week in such an impressive context!

I suggest you also read the Washington Post’s review and get out and see this film!

Photo Credit: Saab History

As part of the Saab 9-3 SportCombi XWD test drive I recently covered, I noticed during my drive as I approached the white mountains of New Hampshire, a brilliant classic Saab 900.

This Saab 900, in Platinum Blue that resembled the same color as the Saab I was driving even though mine was named “glass grey”, was a perfect photo opportunity side-by-side.

I think this was a good photo for the Saab sighting of the week, celebrating 4 generations of the lineage of the C900/NG900/9-3/9-3SS models over the years.

Photo Credit: Saab History

The Saab 9-5 SportCombi that I spotted back in January of 2007 at Sunday River, was spotted almost 2 years later today in Portland, Maine during what looked to be a winter festival, complete with a ski jump in the center of the city!

This vehicle is one of three vehicles at Sunday River ski resort, one of the premiere ski resorts in Maine for their marketing department. The other two vehicles is another 9-5, but a sedan (shown in previously linked photo), also in black as well as a silver Saab 9-7x as rumored.

I hope that more ski resorts continue to focus on utilizing Saab as their corporate vehicle fleet as the folks at both Aspen & Vale ski towns have long since used them for their activities as well.

With the launch of the new Saab 9-3x Cross-Combi with a BioPower variant, perhaps this possibility is right around the corner for many resorts in the near future!

At the end of this sighting, following the photograph I took above, I thought it was only logical to leave a card in the driver’s side window. Here’s hoping they come back and visit SaabHistory.com on Tuesday to see their car & resort, featured here as the Saab Sighting of the week!

Photo Credit: Jan-Willem Vester/ Saab Automobile USA

Jan-Willem Vester, the Communications Director for Saab Automobile USA, since replacing Kevin Smith in 2004, has kindly provided Saab History a wonderful photo of his 2004 9-5 Wagon CPO for the Saab Sighting Of The Week.

He has also provided us a little insight into his background with Saab and how he acquired this beautiful 9-5!

Thank you Jan-Willem for your contribution!

First and foremost, my European background has provided us with many postive experiences with Stationwagons as they tend to offer plenty of useful extras - often including better looks — on the same “real estate” as a comperable sedan. Having started with a couple of C900 5-doors (’79 GLs and ‘84 GLi), I’ve been looking forward to a true full-size Saab wagon for my growing family - so, when the 9-5 was announced with that beautifully extended body designed by Simon Padian, I sort of knew that over time, I had to have one.

This 2004 2.3T Arc was offered as a Certified Pre-Owned vehicle in early 2007 by Saab of Lakeside in Macomb, Michigan. The records showed that this very car had started its life as a display vehicle for Saab Cars USA prior to my assignment here, and may have been shown at the 2003 Owners Convention and other publicity events. True its calling, this car has almost every available option including the 17-inch sport wheel package, giving it a sporty and unique appearance. The Laser Red paint is also rather rare on a 9-5, I believe, and almost litterally puts the Sport in this Wagon. Plus, absolutely ideal of course when presenting it to my wife and three kids on the occasion of Valentine’s day — love on first sight!

On the practical side, the car is always very visible even in Michigan’s most dreary weather, attributing to its safety appeal as daily transportation for my most precious cargo. In the past two years of ownership, our 9-5 quickly became a valued family member and hasn’t missed a beat under any of the circumstances it has been exposed to. Regular service at Saab of Troy as the 30,000 mile mark passed by uneventfully last summer, wasn’t cheap but definitely worth it as the car got fresh fluids all over and immediately felt ready for the next 30,000 miles — and then some… Clearly, this 9-5 still has lots of life left in it, and we look forward keeping it in our family as long as we can imagine. So if you happen to toy with a similar idea, we can certainly recommend it!

Jan-Willem Vester
Manager, Saab Automobile USA Corporate Communications

Photo Credit: Saab History

This past weekend, I hit a great combination “Saab Sighting of the week“. This was a Saab 9-3 Sport Sedan, in front of the Apple store in Boston, Massachusetts!

What is so great about this sighting is that Saab has recently been mentioned as being the “Apple of the Automotive business“. Secondly, Saab is still heavily advertised and marketed in Boston ever since it started here in 1956. In fact, Saab was going to be the official vehicle of the Boston Red Sox!

There are so many more cross-related areas to talk about here here, but for the time being I will hold off on them. I am glad however that I had enough time to snap this photo the other day, because this Saab parked in an area where there are “Saab parking meters! I wonder if they got a discount on their parking given that their make was indicated on the meter itself or that they parked in front of the Apple Store?

I hope to see some more cross-promotional activities between Apple & Saab much like the Saab-Salomon partnership.