Saab Story Comes to a Happy Conclusion

Saab Automobile AB, the other Swedish automaker, apparently will live on after all. Since last summer the Saab brand has been on a roller coaster, only in this case the car left the tracks a couple of times before finally being put back on for one final time and whooshing to the finish line.

On Tuesday, General Motors and Spyker Cars NV confirmed that they reached a binding agreement on the purchase of Saab Automobile AB. The deal, which may be concluded in matter of days, will close a chapter on American ownership that began back in 1990 when GM purchased a 50 percent stake in the company.

Forgettable Saab Models

A decade later GM took complete control of Saab, bringing to the world the Saab brand while bringing to customers several forgettable models including the “Saabaru” 9-2X and the Chevy TrailBlazer-inspired 9-7X SUV. More recently, Saab has been in a transition, dumping aged models in favor of all things new including an all-new 9-5 and, perhaps soon, its 9-4X crossover. That transition was threatened when the brand was courted and later dumped by Koenigsegg.

Spyker is a curious match for Saab, a Dutch manufacturer of ultra exotic supercars, hand built masterpieces of which only 50 models are assembled each year. Though Saab has shrunken considerably in recent years to where they currently sell fewer than 100,000 units globally, the brand is a much bigger name than Spyker with far more employees too.

Saab Spyker Automobiles

Yet, Spyker has been itching to buy Saab, even when an earlier deal with GM fell through and the automaker declared Saab dead. Once that declaration was made, Spyker pushed to rectify the issues which led to GM backing away from the deal which brings us to our present point: a newly minted company by the name of Saab Spyker Automobiles.

There are a few hurdles which remain before the deal can be inked. Those hurdles involve regulatory, court, and government review, in addition to a review by the Swedish government which is backing a loan which will be used to fund Saab going forward.

GM has not made known the terms of the agreement which had GM officials saying at one time that they would accept just $1 from a serious bidder to close the operation (see SaabsUnited: The $1 Saab Story).

Had GM followed through on its promise to wind down Saab, that move would have cost the automaker in excess of $100 million to bring to finalization. In effect, Spyker has done GM a huge favor while allowing Saab workers to continue on with what they are doing at least for the short term.

Source: GM Corp.