How green was my Saab . . .
Today’s question is how did a kid raised on a ranch in southern Idaho come to acquire such an odd lot of funny foreign cars? After a Simca 1204 and a Ford (Mercury!) Capri, I had moved on to an apple-green Saab 99. If a French Simca was an odd choice for the nosebleed high Rocky Mountains, what on earth was I doing with a Swedish auto sporting a Triumph-designed (the horror!) motor?
The story I told my therapist went like this: first, our little village of three hundred hardy if isolated souls happened to straddle U.S. Route 89, which was the main north-south route to Yellowstone National Park, which meant a steady flow of summer tourist traffic. As it happened, I myself was a major bottleneck both morning and afternoon on this well-traveled highway during the summer months as one of my appointed tasks was to shepherd (wrangle?) our dairy herd to and from its summer pasture. I did my best to keep my herd out of the middle of the road, but for those unacquainted with bovine habits, the average cow is a stubborn and immovable object. It does no good to honk at her; such provocation only makes her more determined not to be moved from her path. This was a hard lesson for many weary and impatient travelers. I shudder to think what would happen in this day and age with every other car or truck packing heat, but in those times even the most short-tempered driver had to adjust, at least momentarily, to the bucolic anachronism of my little herd. No doubt several hundred photos of me and my posse are still mouldering in vacation scrapbooks across the U.S. as rarely a day went by that some traveler wasn’t pointing a camera in our direction. We were, I realize, our town’s sole tourist attraction.
Not my house, but down a road a piece
What does this have to do with funny foreign cars, you may well ask. It so happens that when we weren’t attending to our various cowpoke duties, my older brother and I could often be found perched in a tree in our front yard bordering Highway 89, pursuing one of our few available pastimes: counting cars. We were fortunate in that the road before us provided a great variety of exotic machines that you would not normally find within shouting distance of our village. These strange vehicles provided us with the raw material for that game of our own devising, which, happily, required only a notebook and a pencil to play. Given the limited recreational prospects of our tiny burg, we made do with such homely activities. However, don’t harbor the impression that we only counted cars . . . we also classified and ranked them. At an early age I could identify not only the make and model of nearly every domestic car and truck . . . I knew what year it was made. I know, a prodigy, right?
The fly in the ointment of our little game was that initially we struggled to identify those few and random cars that weren’t manufactured in the USA. We were heralds of the zeitgeist, however, and whether by osmosis or radio waves, we soon adapted and were able to pick out any MG, or Peugeot, or FIAT, or even the odd Borgward. I can only assume that it was an innate generational skill without rational explanation.
In any event, aside from our experience as two little car fanatics perched in a tree, there were other influences as well, including the appearance of our city relatives with their sometimes astounding automobiles, the most pedestrian of which was an ever-present canvas top VW Beetle. Included in the list, however, were more unconventional examples: my brother-in-law’s Renault Dauphine, my other brother-in-law’s Citroën DS19 company car(!), and my uncle’s Volvos.
The Citroën is so off the wall that I still can’t wrap my head around it, so I’ll move on to the Volvos. My maternal uncle was an odd duck whose penchant for reactionary conspiracy theories would allow him to fit comfortably into mainstream America in our present day, although back then he was considered to be an eccentric, albeit harmless, outlier. He earned his living by running a mink ranch . . . a pursuit that very likely no longer exists, at least if we’re lucky. I don’t know your notion of a mink ranch might look like, but if you are thinking that it consists of rugged mink wranglers riding the range of a scenic Old West with a coffee pot, beans, and a side of bacon in their saddlebags on their way to the mink roundup, you are sadly mistaken. An actual mink ranch, in fact, resembled something more like an industrial chicken operation, the difference being that a chicken won’t bite your damn hand off it you stick it in its cage. And the smell! Oh Lordy . . .
Being involved in such an operation could very well have affected my uncle’s sensibilities, I have no way of knowing at this late date. Whatever the cause, one of his defining characteristics was a predilection for Volvos. Where it came from, I haven’t the slightest idea as his previous cars had been a line of vast two-tone Lincolns the size of aircraft carriers. Whatever influences may have initiated this sea change, they were long-lasting, as he drove an assortment of Volvos for the rest of his life. Not only that, but on occasion he would toss me his keys and let me drive them as well.
We got grill: Volvo 164
It so happened that one summer afternoon when he and my aunt were visiting he pointed out the kitchen window and revealed his latest acquisition for his Volvo stable: a brand new 164, hot off the Torslanda production line, and what a beauty it was, dark blue with light blue leather seats, which I can still smell if I close my eyes. “Well, are you going to drive it?” he asked, and I wasn’t about to say ‘nope’. I returned an hour later, beguiled by its many Swedish virtues. Thus began a longstanding fondness for Swedish automobiles that would finally bear fruit some years later when I fell for the siren song of Svenska Aeroplan AB.
Sumptuous Volvo 164 interior
On my first visit to Europe it so happened that my sister and I booked a ferry from Denmark to Oslo, Norway, an overnight voyage that braved the very high seas before taking refuge in assorted Norwegian fjords. After a day in Oslo, we headed east, driving the length and breadth of Sweden in our modest VW Squareback before returning to Copenhagen. We stayed overnight in a hotel situated in a very small town where I unwittingly kept the key in my pocket when we left the next morning. As it wasn’t attached to one of those little plastic tags common in the U.S., which you could in theory drop in any mailbox, there was no returning it and I have kept it to this day in the misguided belief that I would someday return. Notwithstanding that unfortunate episode, two days on the lightly traveled roads of Sweden nurtured my affection for the country, maybe because it reminded me of the rugged terrain of my native Idaho. During our long drive it dawned on me that Swedish automobiles seemed ideally adapted to their native territory and that their inherent ruggedness wasn’t the result of some campaign cooked up in a Madison Avenue sweatshop. They seemed to have grown spontaneously and robustly from the Swedish landscape. Just how robust I would find decades later when my son purchased a very used Volvo 264. A careless Puget Sound driver (is there any other kind?) had targeted the driver’s door. I located a sort-of matching one at a wrecking yard in North Seattle only to discover that you needed a crane to lift it.
Exquisite Swedish landscape
But let us return to the late Seventies, when the demands of an expanding household dictated a car more practical than the little Capri that had served us reasonably well. I perused the local classifieds, initially zeroing in on an Alfa Romeo 2000 Berlina. Now, I was well acquainted with all things Alfa, having spent several months in Milano, where they were ubiquitous. I took the locally sourced 2000 out for a test drive, in retrospect likely scaring the bejesus out of its unsuspecting owner as I figured that an Alfa demanded to be driven as it would be in its native habitat, i.e. flat out. I was, of course, immediately smitten by the Alfa bug, but though I knew that Alfas of that vintage were reputed to be sorted and reliable machinery in their homeland, the fact remained that there was no one in my fair city who was qualified to work on them and the nearest dealer was in Salt Lake City, an hour and a half away. My own mechanical skills remained basic at best, and so with a heavy heart I decided that, discretion being the better part of valor, I would resume my quest for the funny foreign car grail. The Saab was next up, and though it wasn’t an EMS, which I would have preferred, it also didn’t carry the steep EMS price tag. I test drove the 99, more sedately than the Alfa, I suspect, as somehow the Swede seemed to demand restraint. Nevertheless, I found it spacious, handy, and seemingly well maintained. There was a local independent shop that worked on Saabs, so my wife and I decided to take the plunge, selling the Capri for cash on the barrelhead, whereupon we drove the 99 home to our brand spanking new house we had built just south of the Idaho border.
Our Saab 99 parked next to its new home on the range
The Saab was the ideal car for the northern Utah clime, as anything the local weatherman threw at it was certainly no worse than it would have encountered in its native land. It handled the snow as well or better than the late, lamented Simca and was roomier to boot, which after all was the object of the exercise in the first place. We hadn’t been able to afford a garage when we built the house–the plan was to add one later–but the hardy Saab handled sitting outside in the sub-zero temps without batting an eye. Its Bosch fuel injection was a revelation when it came time to fire her up on a January morning–after all, the cars that came before the Capri still had manual chokes! We never even bought snow tires for the 99, but then I’d never purchased a set of them in my life as having the skill to handle driving in heavy snow was the birthright of anyone born in the high mountains of Idaho: we don’t need no stinking snow tires.
Saab’s native habitat
Come summer it was time for another Road Trip to the East Coast, as my wife’s family lived there and she was homesick for the Chesapeake Bay. We enlisted my old pal, Norm, as a third driver as he was headed back to grad school in Michigan and, hey, it was only a few hundred miles out of the way. (Ain’t youth grand?) The trip to Ann Arbor was mostly uneventful as the Saab ate up the highway miles with a hearty appetite and reasonable gas mileage, if not quite up to Capri standards. We dropped Norm off early one morning in a grocery store parking lot and changed our heading to south by southeast. After a visit to family plus Ocean City as well as the Smithsonian in Warshington (sic) D.C.and ample helpings of soft-shell crab we turned around to retrace our footsteps to the greater Intermountain West through the now familiar interminable flat lands and cornfields of the Midwest. We made it as far as Wyoming when something in the dash started sending up little curlicues of white smoke. We all know that feeling, don’t we?
Now in my experience a smoking automobile is never a particularly good omen. We pulled off to the side of the road where I used my rudimentary electrical skills to determine that a wire from the turn signal stalk had lost its insulation and was rubbing against the steering column subsequently blowing a couple of fuses for good measure. I wrapped some scotch tape around the wire and we were on the road again, We stopped at the Saab dealer in Salt Lake City to purchase a new stalk and fuses and were relieved to find they had all of the above in stock. I unscrewed the old stalk, screwed in the new one, replaced the blackened fuses and all’s well that ends well, to coin a phrase. Our sense of relief was combined with our appreciation that the 99 hadn’t burned to the ground out in the wilds of Wyoming, leaving us to the mercies of the coyotes, prairie dogs, and long-haul truckers.
Ouch!
In the two plus years the Saab never threw us another scare, proving to be as reliable as the day is long. It wasn’t flashy by any stretch of the imagination, but I came to appreciate that as a virtue, especially when I compared it to the contemporary Detroit offerings. I never really grew fond of its Kermit-green paint job and I had to be cautious not to jerk my head back quickly or the pretzel shaped headrests–hailed in the press as a sensible solution to the the head restraint regulations because you could see through them– would give me a concussion. The whole ignition key-between-the-seats business, so amusing at the outset, eventually impressed itself onto my consciousness to the degree that I occasionally still grope the center console when it comes time to start a car. Could it be that Saab was right all along? I suppose that’s a moot point now that everything starts with a button that looks like a doorbell.
I know that ignition is around here somewhere
For sensible, astutely engineered, straightforward go-anywhere-in-the-snow practicality, the Saab has never been beat. It ranks up there with Simca as the funniest of funny foreign cars I have owned, but its solid phlegmatic character was very much its own thing. Down the road there would be a 9-3 in our household, but by then Saab had lost some of its matronly qualities and become . . . sexy. The ignition key still resided between the seats and it still went anywhere in the snow, but it was svelte, beautiful, and luxurious. No more stamped vinyl door cards and scratchy velour upholstery that wore like iron, and no more Triumph Dolomite slant four that caused such fear and loathing when bolted together like Frankenstein’s monster and dropped into the Triumph Stag. Instead, under the bonnet was a mighty turbocharged four whose turbo boost gauge moved in reverse synchronicity with the fuel gauge. Stomp on that throttle and you will pay.
It’s not easy being green
The old 99, in the end, was maybe too sensible. Soon I grew restless and resumed the search for the automotive grail. In our next episode we will examine what happens when, seduced by the siren song of the Scuderia Agnelli, you abandon all reason and bet your chips on a machine that could very well break your heart.
Thankyou for posting some of your life story and your passion for strange cars, one which I can share with you having had all sorts of weird and wonderful cars over the years, ( I still own a Panhard ! ). Loved the “house down the road” , I could see myself living there !
A Panhard! Not sure if I’ve ever seen one in the U.S. That definitely ups the ante! You have my admiration.
I’m sure you could pick up the ‘house down the road’ pretty cheap!
This was a great story with cow herding on tourist roads, Volvo driving conspiracy theorists, leaving aside the yucky mink stuff, a real fellow traveler for me, and the ferry from Copenhagen to Oslo. When I did that as a kid, the ship was the King Olav, I thought I was on the Love Boat. We also ended up in Sweden though by train.
It really matters nothing now so many years later with both Saab and Triumph being but memories, but the line that the Saab engine being designed by Triumph being a horror stood out. There really was haves and have nots among the imports. Not only give the customer what he wants, but present a certain way. Lots of Saab talk about the magic pixie dust they were claiming they were sprinkling on their horror engines. Indeed even turboed and twin cammed they seemed to hold up well. Yet the still with us taint from getting an engine from the wrong guy.
I think anything would have been an improvement over the old two-stroke in the Saab 96! But then they also used the Ford V4 for a time before the 99 was introduced. By the time the Saab engineers had bored out the Dolomite engine and added the Bosch fuel injection, it was a pretty solid and reliable engine–definitely not a bad design. As I recall, even when they added the turbo, it held up pretty well.
We bought a new model year leftover ’73 99 in February of ’74, in that exact color, known as Verona Green. It was a great car and we’ve always had a SAAB ever since, still having an ’87 900 sedan. The 99 was the most advanced family car on the market when we bought ours and beyond it’s amazing winter performance in snow it proved to be incredibly safe, solid and practical, we drove ours to Montana and back and got 30mpg carrying 2 with full camping gear at speeds I’d never drive at now. We waited to buy a 99 until SAAB had redesigned and greatly improved the 1.85 engine with their new 2.0 version. A truly versatile and durable car.
There really was something unique about Saabs. Whatever it was still largely intact in my daughter’s 9-3 twenty five years later, even though it was an entirely different beast. It’s a shame they are gone forever.
“sporting a Triumph-designed (the horror!) motor”
Why all the negativity around Triumph engines?
Agreed, the Stag was not developed enough to go into production, but that would be about the only Triumph engine “horror”. And do not forget these were relatively cheap cars – a new Stag here in the Netherlands was less than half the price of a Mercedes 280SL.
I don’t get why it is so fashionable now to piss upon British cars. Yes, build quality and reliablity was not too good for cars built in the 70s. But this was a bad decade, not only Brits were lacking. Many, many examples of European, American makes that were left behind by the much better Japanese build quality.
Earlier Triumphs cars were pretty tough. The TRs were not known for weak or bad engines. Same goes for the others (Herald, Vitesse, Spitfire/ GT6, 2000/2500).
Didn’t mean to offend, Don. I was largely riffing off the conventional wisdom. I always liked Triumphs, and came very close to buying a TR-6. And I know the Dolomite was a very decent car, really one of the first real sporting sedans even before the BMW 2002. I understand the factors that contributed to the troubles encountered by the British manufacturers in the 70’s. Strikes and labor issues certainly damaged other firms in other countries, but maybe British Leyland suffered the most. As it was, they were an early harbinger for the ills that large companies would face as the years went by. BL showed GM and Chrysler the way. And yes, the Stag was an awesome car let down by some under-engineering. It was neither the first nor last.
some day I will write my first CC entry on my 72 99e. For now I will ask a question. I also had a 74 99 ems. (In 83). As far as I recall the only thing that differentiated the so-called sporty EMS might have been the soccer ball wheels a chin spoiler a tachometer and maybe better seats? Sure I can Google it but I always take pleasure in the great resource in the CC net work. Anybody know what made the EMS different?
I think the EMS suspension was a bit stiffer than that of the cooking 99. EMS stood for electronic manual special, BTW.
Looking forward to your 99e story! As I recall, you’re right about the EMS being a bit of a trim package, but it seemed to be very popular and we saw an awful lot of them, even in Utah and Idaho. As it was, the EMS foreshadowed the Turbo and lent kind of performance to the rather staid 99.
I love reading these foreign car COALs – with cars foreign in both the sense of their exotic overseas origins and in that they are completely foreign to my midwestern upbringing and adult life.
I sometimes think that my car choices have been unusual, but you have it all over me in the unusual department. These are great because I get the little bursts of vicarious thrill from reading about your experience yet get to avoid the headaches that sometimes come with less common cars. And when you conclude with your Saab being too sensible, I will buckle up and await what comes next!
I have to admit that I am not a fan of that particular green. But then the 70s was a different time.
That particular shade of green tended to look better in the flesh than in the photos. It never really bothered me that much, but as you say, the Seventies were a different time and there were colors we’d never imagine seeing today. I do get tired of silver and all the muted colors. Not much of a selection these days, although I do like those orange VW Tiguans!
Great stories! Even though I grew up in a much bigger town, with lots of foreign cars, I can totally relate to sitting in a tree and counting and identifying cars. And of course, to knowing the year of every domestic. But doesn’t that apply to many of us here? In the summer of 1975 I had a summer job in rural Virginia with a retired military boss who had a Capri and a Saab 99. I had to borrow the 4 speed Capri for an errand and was really enjoying drifting it on the gravel road. Until I almost spun it … and decided to slow down. As for the 99, he had a lot of issues with it, and before the summer was over, he replaced with a new Ford Granada. First American car he’d had in years he said, and he loved it. Go figure.
Wow, I can hardly imagine replacing a Saab with a Granada . . . making that kind of transition would have been quite as shock! It really did seem in those days that you were either into imports and you weren’t, and you seldom saw people going from one extreme to another. I do have to say that eventually I made the transition, but mainly because of economic factors. And I lived to regret the switch! But those stories are forthcoming.
Another great breakfast read.
My sister in Alaska bought a 99 hatchback and loved that car, although it did eventually become a bit demanding in its later years. These were exceptional cars in their time, in terms of their space efficiency, handling and just good vibes.
It’s interesting, too, that you had the Saab tribe and the Volvo tribe, and they tended to be very different people. Volvo in those days seemed very conservative (I remember the folks at CAR magazine in the UK calling them ‘Auntie Volvo’). Saab seemed more unconventional, and only became more so with the advent of the 900 and the Turbo. When I worked for an auto restorer/collision repair shop in the ’80’s, I kept going on about how good Saabs were and my boss thought I was nuts. Then we got a Turbo in and after spending some time with it he remarked that it was a much better car than the BMW 3-Series that was in the shop at the same time . . .
CAR also said “SAABs were thoughtful cars for thoughtful people” Seemed pretty close to me.
Maybe that’s why I had to get rid of mine!
Fantastic read! After reading some parts, I could close my eyes and feel like I was there. Coming from a smaller mid-western town and growing up on a farm, I can relate to some of what you wrote. Two memories come to mind here. First, I have a cousin who years ago had a Saab. No idea what year or model, but it looked similar to, but maybe newer, that the green one here. All I recall about it was that it was (to my mid-western farm-boy eyes) the strangest thing I’d ever seen. Second memory was about my uncle and aunt who owned a small used car dealer up the road from our farm. I loved to ride my bicycle the 4 miles one-way to look at the cars on his lot. It was always quite fun to sit on the front porch of the farm house waiting for Uncle Al and Rita to arrive at family gatherings. I couldn’t wait to see what he would be driving and it was normally a Cadillac, Lincoln or Buick.
Thanks, Dan! It is interesting to look back at those times and think about the cultural impact of cars and how the way we look at them has changed over the years. Would like to have been able to wander around Uncle Al and Aunt Rita’s car lot. Was it exclusively American cars, or did they have some imports mixed in?
It was a mix. His kids (my cousins) loved the imports except for Terry who always drove American and had a beautiful Mach 1 Mustang for many years. Al and Rita always drove American brands and he would pick up a one year old Cadillac, Lincoln or Buick and later Chrysler’s. Sometimes he would order a new one (I fondly recall his brand new 1982 Buick Park Ave in light tan with dark maroon velour seats). Anyhow, yes he would buy anything that would sell.
My parents never bought an import, except for the Simca, They had Buicks until Dad had some kind of business deal with a guy who owned a Lincoln-Mercury dealership, and then his last two cars were Mercurys, the last one a Sable that was his favorite. I only had the one Volvo uncle–everyone else seemed to think imports were too risky.
One of my close friends had a ’69 Mustang fastback–not a Mach 1, but a very nice car. He sold it and bought a TR-6!
Another great read! Not the car I’d expect for Southern Idaho, but now that you mention it, the climate does have similarities with Scandinavia, so I see that it makes sense – never thought of it before.
I had a 900 for several years, and I also found myself reaching to put the key in the console of other cars. I think it’s just a sweeping, easy process to take the key from your pocket, and then insert it between the seats. I missed that feature after I sold my Saab.
Thank you Eric! The Saab should have been the official car of the Rocky Mountains–it made so much sense. If I’d had any foresight I would never have gotten rid of it.
I can’t think of another feature in any other car that summed up the character of the company as much as the Saab’s ignition key location. It just seemed to summarize the corporate attitude: we’ll do things our way because obviously they make sense.
My wife’s new all electric Vauxhall opens it door locks as you walk up to it and then you just throw the keys in the space under the sat nav screen and press a button to go. How times have changed !
My Mazda does the same and it’s a bit disconcerting, isn’t it? The car has so many features I know I’ll never use or comprehend. Still, I wouldn’t want to go back.
Um, geeze, yeah, I’ll say! That’s a highly de luxe one, that is. Looks to be a ’71 or so (pre-’72 steering wheel, anyhow) with 4-speed, overdrive, woodgrain, rallye instrument cluster, ’72 lower dashboard extension/sorta-console thing with a bunch of extra gauges in it, dashtop junk tray, etc. Somebody put love and money into that car.
Back to the main stream of today’s symposium: I think that green colour—more Kermitty than apple-ish to my eye—suits the car well. I’ve never driven a Saab, except for a brief test drive of a late 900 or early 93 off a dealer’s used-car lot, but I always admired them by sight, sound, and philosophy.
That 164 made an impression, all right. My uncle’s didn’t have all the add-ons, but the essentials are all there and it just seemed so impressive to my 16 year old mind. When the 240’s and 260’s came along they seemed somehow less special and even a bit old-fashioned. Still, I came close to buying a 245 back in the day, but it just seemed too expensive.
As for the Saab’s green–it actually seemed darker in person than in the photos. Certainly not British racing green, but not quite Kermity, either!
Maybe Kermit-by-night…!
I agree with you in re 164s versus 240s; both are represented in my COALs.
Say, am I missing it, or do you not state the model year of your 99? I see a few likely colour matches in the ’76 paint chips, but that’s just a guess.
I’m checking out that impressive list of COAL’s!
I didn’t mention the year because I’m not absolutely sure, although I tend to think that it was probably a ’73 or ’74 judging by the online photos. I wish I’d kept better track of the details of my cars. I know I had photos of most, but finding them is another matter after all the moves over the years…
Looking at online specs, I’m pretty sure my 99 had the 2.0 liter engine, so it would have been a ’74.
Regarding the EMS option, IIRC, and I might not, it got FI earlier than regular 99s. The magazines reviewed them well and liked them, if one had figuratively fallen into my lap for the right price I might have jumped on it.
I was however a bit disappointed with just a line or two about Simca 1204’s after mentioning it in the intro. That was such a good car. (I know, I might be the only person in the US that feels that way.)
You’ll find his stories of Simca 1204s here. If you ever want to, you can click the author’s name below the headline of a post to see a list of their previous posts.
Great story, thank you! I know if an old monk farm in Caldwell, long abandoned and it definitely looks like a chicken farm! You and my father in law are kindred spirits, he is also a native of Idaho and has a long affinity for Swedish cars (and a few old Ford trucks). All due to their ruggedness – he has never been to Sweden, doesn’t feel he needs to go since he is of Idaho.
Never had a Saab, my brother-in-law had had a 900 for awhile, but he’s owned 5-6x the number of cars as I. Similar to mountains in the west, these were really popular in Vermont back in the 70’s, no doubt at least partly due to FWD. My Dad never owned one, I think because they were too “high end” for his 2nd car, but with a family he needed something a bit larger for the primary car. He started with a ’59 Beetle as that “2nd” car, then when it got totalled in front of our house, he bought a new Renault R10, also rear engine/drive (but watercooled). Later on, after we’d moved back to Vermont (my family moved a lot early on due to my Dad’s job) he bought a ’76 Subaru DL….he could have bought a Civic/Accord or a Golf/Dasher, but they were pricey new, he looked at a Datsun F10 but didn’t like the air vents on the hood, which to him looked like a last minute engineering change….didn’t like Fiat (I had bad experience with one around that time) so it was Subaru, which was still mostly FWD back then.
It seemed like small cars back then had “bright” paint in general, the Subaru was yellow, which I kind of took was on purpose to make them more visible, versus larger cars which could be more sedate colors and still be seen. Don’t know if that’s why, but the colors were generally bright, people nowdays might be envious if they like bright colors which other than maybe red aren’t too common…my Dad liked green colored cars (most of his primary cars were green into the 70’s) but don’t think he liked bright green, don’t know why he tolerated the yellow on the Subaru, but maybe he didn’t care much, noting being seen was important in small car.
Related in a way state route 89, we had interstate 89, which other than 91 (which went as far as White River Junction). I’ve not been to Yellowstone, would like to go sometime, so I’ve not been near state 89.