Despite unwillingly flirting with death due to being full-on ignored from former parent company GM, Saab’s lack of sales in the past decade haven’t stopped the Swedish auto maker from continuing on in a niche market: the luxury cabriolet market.
In fact, Saab has had quite a bit of success with its topless offerings dating all the way back to 1986 when the 900 convertible first flew onto the scene (flew, because Saabs are born from jets, don’t ya know). It was a risky move back then as most Saabs were considered to be a good sturdy ride for adverse weather conditions and not much else. But Saab quickly shut critics up with a 12 month waiting list for the original 900 convertible. The second generation, which spanned incredibly from 1994 to 2002, sold a respectable 149,000 units. The next generation from 2003 until today has sold 100,000 units giving a total of around 300,000 units of Saab convertibles sold in 25 years. Not too shabby at all, in fact that gives Saab a bit of a stranglehold on the premium convertible segment.
Saab is now celebrating 25 years of topless driving (get your mind out of the gutter). With this success and news that Saab was saved, once again, by the Chinese, it seems as though we can expect convertible variant of the 2013 9-3, which is expect to debut in a years time.
[Saab]
