Early Saabs are mesmerizing. They really display a different approach to the notion of small cars, at least from a styling point of view. Nothing looked like a Saab 92, and they faithfully carried on with that tradition through to the mid-‘90s. Today, instead of lamenting on the GM-ification and subsequent assassination of this beloved marque, let us rejoice in examining its birth pangs, almost 80 years ago now.
This is one of the first 2000 Saab 92s produced, so it’s about as primitive as a street-legal Saab can get. Anything older would have wings on it. For, as I’m sure everyone knows full well thanks to Saab adverts repeating it ad nauseam, their acronym stands for Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget, or Swedish Aircraft Corporation. For the first decade of its operation, i.e. between 1937 and 1947, airplanes were their only product. Which makes sense, when you consider their name.
The postwar landscape was looking a mite sombre for aircraft, at least in the short-to-medium term, so by 1944 Saab started looking into automobile manufacturing. A decision was made to opt for a smaller car – something not too distant from the DKWs that had a fair amount of success in Sweden in the ‘30s.
Gunnar Ljungström (top left) put together a team in late 1945 that devised an initial shape. This was clearly a car designed by plane makers, with serious aerodynamic research put into the model. The first prototype (bottom left), a.k.a the “Ursaab,” featured a DKW drivetrain, which was essentially reverse-engineered by the Trollhättan team. Prototype 1 was superseded by a second version (bottom right), whose heavily revised body was the work of designer Sixten Sason. The Ursaab was itself given a facelift and looks a little different now as one of the Saab Bilmuseum’s star exhibits. Famously, of the twenty-odd individuals involved in developing the Saab 92, none had ever designed a car and only two had a driver’s license.
The second prototype was used for the June 1947 press event that signalled Saab’s official launch of its automobile branch, with the understanding that production would only start within a couple of years. This allowed Saab time to get their sales operations in order, as they had absolutely no sales network, even domestically. They struck a deal with Philipsons, Sweden’s largest car importer. Philipsons were on the verge of going ahead with production with their own DKW clone, the Philipin (above), but Saab convinced them to drop it and instead let Saab press ahead with their 92. Philipson became a key partner for Saab, generating demand, producing PR and handling distribution and sales exclusively for the car’s first couple of model years.
The first Saab 92s were out the factory gates in December 1949. For the first couple of years, they all looked almost identical to the one I captured at the Toyota Museum: an almost pure teardrop shape with a large oval grille, semaphores in the B-pillars, a cargo area only accessible via the rear seats and a centrally-mounted fuel filler cap. And they were all painted in this specific shade of dark green – Saab allegedly had a huge stock of this colour left over from wartime aircraft production.
Behind the large grille lay a transverse-mounted water-cooled two-stroke parallel twin displacing all of 764cc and producing 25hp. This was modest, but the car could reach over 100kph on a level road – the aerodynamic body worked as intended. This impressive cavalry operated the front wheels via a three-speed gearbox. It was all very reminiscent of DKW; some corners of the Internet claim that Saab made them under license, but the consensus seems to be that the Swedes were “inspired” by DKW technology, which was by then being made in both East and West Germany. Suspension was independent and by torsion bars all round, in contrast to Auto-Union designs.
The cockpit, as it ought to be named, was Scandinavian minimalism itself. Compared to the far more ornate dash of the Volvo PV444, Saab were obviously going for simplicity and economy.
Given the size of the average Swede, calling this a four-seater is a bit of a stretch. And these very early Saabs were pretty much only for the domestic market. A few were sold in other Scandinavian countries, but local demand was large enough (and production was quite limited: only 1246 were made in 1950, and just over 2000 in 1951 and 1952) for the 92 to be overwhelmingly sold within Sweden.
The 92 was gradually improved over the year, getting a boot lid, a larger rear window, a little more power, an electric water pump and a choice of colours before passing the baton to the 3-cyl. 93, introduced in late 1955. The last of the 20k units of the 92 Saab made in six years was sold in early 1957. If nothing else, the 92 opened the (suicide) door to a prosperous family of small Saab streamliners, the final example of which came out of the Valmet factory in Finland in 1980.
But the more important historical marker symbolized by this car is the birth of Saab’s car branch itself. The marque has now been defunct for over a decade and the automotive landscape has never looked the same since.
Saab added a striking note of individualism, mixed with a dedication to quality and a knack for engineering prowess. It’s a rare cocktail, and one that is sorely missed. They also added a few nice dollops of green, at least in the very beginning.
Lovely early 92, and a great color.
The Saab 92 was the first production car with a transverse engine inline with its transmission, as has become near universal for FWD cars. This was very distinctly different from the DKW configuration, which had the transmission in front of the engine. It’s an impressive engineering feat for a bunch of guys that had never worked on a car before, but then that’s often how innovations come about.
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/automotive-histories/automotive-history-no-the-1959-mini-did-not-have-the-first-transverse-fwd-engine-and-no-the-autobianchi-primula-did-not-have-the-first-inline-transverse-fwd-transmission/
And yet, they went back to a longitudinal layout with the 93 (with the transmission behind the engine…)
They had no real choice because the three cylinder engine wouldn’t have fit the existing front end. The track on these is quite narrow.
Hmmm, I think it’s possibly more than a coincidence; the ex-DKW guys (August Momberger, principally) took a long walk from Zwickau to Bremen (when they still could) and set up INKA where they developed the transverse end-on small Borgwards. I also wonder if they quietly did development consultancy work for a company across the Baltic, too?
I do wonder if A-U’s competition department were already anticipating the benefits of a less lossy system pre-war…
Then again, convergent thinking can happen simultaneously.
Great history lesson, thanks. I’ve always been a Saab fan, but only ever owned one. As a teenager, a woman gave me a 1966? (titled as a 1967) because it needed a new clutch. 3-cyl 2-stroke model 96. By the mid ’70’s, these were getting rare around South Jersey. A gas station attendant (yes, we STILL can’t legally pump our own) refused to give me 4 gallons of gas if I poured in a pint of Mobil Outboard Oil first. Fun times!
Great morning coffee read. I’ve always felt admiration for Sweden, a cold, forested northern country on the fringe of a much larger economic heartland, that through determination has managed to consistently punch above its weight industrially, technologically, militarily, even musically – a potential inspiration for certain other northern lands. 😅
Great post and good to see SAAB getting the credit they deserve.
The world is poorer place without SAAB.
That overhead shot is just gorgeous! I have always had a soft spot for SAAB. They were, however, expensive cars. I chose a 1988 BMW 3 series convertible over the 900 (hard to pay that much for an 4 cylinder with a long throw shifter) and later a 2004 CTS-V over a 9-3 Aero sedan. Husband says if we had chosen the SAAB we would still have it. We did help our son buy a 9-3 convertible for his first car, which he still has ten years later. I would love one of the SPG 3 doors.
If they saw only that dead-on front view facing out from your garage, today’s neighbours might well think you’d bought a green scared emoji. To wit, I do not think the car at all beautiful, but it is mighty interesting, especially if thought of as a piece of modernist sculpture.
I wonder why the little car has LHD, given that Sweden didn’t go to right-hand side driving till 17 years after this? They all sold locally.
Excellent photos, Dr T. That trash-mall flooring at the Toyota Museum really can’t make the job easy. It’s a travesty that so much high art has to sit embarrassed upon it.
You’ll have noted that the prototypes and the Philipin also were LHD… I guess the Swedes saw nothing wrong with driving close to the curb.
Swedish cars were always LHD. They drove on the left side for a very specific reason: in order that the driver could judge the edge of where the road was (snow) plowed. It’s more or less the same reason lots prewar Italian cars were RHD and Italian trucks stayed RHD for many decades: so the driver could better judge where the edge of the narrow Alpine and other mountain roads was. At a time when roads were commonly narrow, being able to judge the side edge of the road was important, much more so than seeing around a car to pass it.
In central Europe, cars were sometimes available in either RHD or LHD for this reason.
And of course it’s precisely why Sweden could change to driving on the right overnight. Surely you didn’t think that Swedish cars were RHD when they switched over? That would have been a nightmare. It’s why the UK and Japan will never switch.
I think I did! Not really so illogical, in fact, as long ago as 1936, the whole seeing-the-left-shoulder thing was rejected by Volvo as being well-outdated, and greater safety would put the wheel on the right, but they didn’t want to upset customers or dealers. Also, US cars dominated the sales charts till 1948, and it wasn’t ever cost-efficient for makes to produce right-hookers for such a small market. (In Oz, we got a round that with a little scam called huge tariffs, AND rhd requirement, so US models were indeed made here in RHD. Btw, you still can’t import a new LHD car here, indeed, until about 15 years ago, all old imports had to be converted too).
Japan, UK, Thailand, Indonesia, India, Australia, NZ a swathe of African countries haven’t not changed just because of the nightmare: RHD car production, at somewhere around 25 million, is plentiful and sufficient.
https://www.volvoclub.org.uk/history/driving_on_right.shtml
Paul and Justy, thanks for such learned comments. I was minus-two months old when the Swedes switched road sides, but remember reading about it a decade later, and thinking even then that only a Scandinavian country could pull off Dagen H
A Scandinavian country with a total population barely equal to New York City.
In 1966, looking for my first new car. One of my co-worker’s husband was a Saab salesman.
On my test drive, I thought the free wheeling coast feature was interesting. It drove fine,the FWD took getting used to, especially on the turns. Kind of loud.
But I just couldn’t get over that engine noise: “Riin-tin-tin-tin…”
I bought a Volvo.
Had these stinking monstrosities been developed on the other side of the Iron Curtain, they would have been the target of unbridled mockery. And rightly so.
People started to take them seriously once Erik Carlsson started winning rallies in them.
Remember postwar Europe was full of small, stinky two-strokers and you just read that DKW’s were being built in both East and West Germany.
DKW, by the way, stands for Das Kleine Wunder. The Small Wonder.
I never owned a SAAB, but remember them fondly due to their presence on roads back in the 1980s and 1990s. They come from Sweden, a nation this American has long admired, and were like a quirky individual who follows their own path, much to the dismay of most who follow the herd. The world is a better place because of these people and because of companies like SAAB. Here’s to the misfits of the world! SAAB, you are most certainly NOT forgotten. 🇸🇪 🇸🇪 🇸🇪
92s are really rare, only a few in the US. First car I ever actually bought with my own $ (folks gave me a ’63 Ford wagon while still a Freshman in college Spring of ’69), was a ’67 SAAB 96 3 cyl in August of 1971. Best 2wd car I’ve ever driven in snow, little could stop it. Soon to-be wife had bought a ’67 Volvo 122s the previous December so we were all-Swedish for a while, and went on to own 5 SAABs and 4 Volvos over the next 40 years, loving every one, and passing that love for SAABs to both of our sons, one still has his first car ’83 900 Turbo that he’s restoring.
Here’s a look around a very original, early model. The paintwork isn’t the only thing borrowed from aircraft – the (glass) rear lights seem to be, too. The car has so many charming and interesting features – I love the internal radiator blind, for instance, and the spare wheel in its slot under the floor.
Nice ;
I’ve never seen a SAAB this old before .
Pops had two 96 wagons, he loved them .
-Nate
Cool! I learned to drive on a ’58 93 in Northern Virginia. Subsequently my father had a ’67 95, and I had a ’73 95 for a few yrs while I lived in Stockholm in the early ’80s. I miss them all, but especially that 93.
Then, not long after returning to the US, heading home one evening in Pittsburgh in the late ’80s I came upon a 92 sitting on the street! I couldn’t believe it. It looked like a house was being cleaned out. I have a bad conscience for not finding the time to find out what the story on it was – I’m afraid that it wound up being junked, but I had no time at the time. That was the only 92 I’ve ever seen in the US.
(And NB: It should always be written as SAAB – it’s an acronym – Svenska Aeroplan AkieBolaget.)