It is very sad to hear the further deterioration in the situation of this once innovative car maker.

The news yesterday of the inability to pay the workforce is on top of the fact that for the last 2 months no vehicles have been produced at the Trollhättan plant as the company is unable to pay component suppliers (of which FGA is one as the Diesel Engine supplier) in fact it appears that the current deal on the table is that SAAB is offering to pay 10% of what is owed to suppliers in order to try and get components supply line moving again.

I have commented in the past on SAAB in the registration section and registrations for SAAB have been very strong of late.

UK Registrations
Model    FY 2008          FY 2009         FY 2010         YTD  May 11
9-3     13,966 3.82%    6,438  2.1%    4,940 2%        2,788 2.53%   The % is share of D sector which is 19.65% YonY
9-5       2,108 3.31%    1,048 1.81%      958 1.32%      456 1.3%     The % is share of E sector which is up 9%  YonY

In fact in its home market SAAB has in the D sector out registered with 2,257 units 6.46% the BMW 3 YTD.

Spyker now called Swedish Automobile NV sold its sports car business to CPP Manufacturing in Coventry who were building the C8's for them already

The 10 years of GM stewardship was not what it should have been and it looks very dire currently so it could be for the older members of the forum just sweet memories of Sonetts, 93's, 96's the first 900 Turbos.

I think it's a crying shame.   Whatever the troubles of the current parent group I'm convinced there's life in the brand.  Just think of some of the current trends.

- Relatively small capacity Turbo 4 cylinder engines (everything...)
- Sporty hatchbacks (Audi A5?)
- Premium small cars (Fiat 500, Audi A1, Mini)

All of these are areas where the Saab brand has heritage, and it surely could be revived under new ownership with decent platforms.   GM could and should have done better.   A series of small Saabs based on Astra or Corsa underpinnings (which are perfectly decently engineered) could have been a real success.   

I even like the new 9-5 - looks much better than the rivals, but it's just too large...

Sad news indeed.
We are keeping and eye on the retail market, it is not good for Habitat, Moben and others are struggling.
Positive note, it is friday

Habitat is not fully closing, it is selling off the stores, the london stores being bought by Home Retail group which owns Argos and Homebase. I am also hearing New Look could be the next big retail casualty. Retail generally is crap at the moment, consumers aren't spending, figures across the board are down with some spikes in certain specialist sectors bucking the trend. Fashion is dire although the 'arse' end of the trend is buoyant  but with huge increases in raw materials the end user is having to pay more for the same article and therefore units sold are down.

As some of you know, I had a 93 which I traded in for Rory. My one biggest gripe with Saab of late was their lack of forward thinking. The higher powered models weren't as competitive on their CO2 and MPG's as their competitors and whilst the performance and handling was good, other areas as technology let them down.

I also think today, in general the car market is suffering with big companies opting out of company cars, the whole 'green' issue being forced on PLC's to be seen to promoting fuel efficient cars amongst their fleets and not the gas guzzling german cars we had of the last decade. It is why you now see BMW, Mercs, Audi etc all producing perfomance cars with great MPG and low CO2's.

I hope their will be a rescue, I had 2 saabs and loved them for their quirkyness, my old 900 turbo was a blast!