Our cars - Saab 900S

I suppose it was a distress purchase and the distress was all mine. If the summer of 2003 is going to memorable for anything it will be that anyone without an air-conditioned car was either stupid or a masochist. Mrs Ruppert noticed my distress and reckoned I really ought to consider a cooler car. Well I already had a cool car in the shape of a 1989 BMW 320I Touring. How cool is that? Well actually, not very. A new business venture meant that I had been racking up 1000 miles a week, loaded up to the headlining with boxes full of stuff. I was arriving back home shattered. I needed more space, air conditioning and the smallest possible dent in my diminishing bank balance, so it had to be a Saab.

According to the experts I’ve either bought myself a Vauxhall Cavalier in Swedish drag or simply the worst car that Saab have ever built. Just in case you wondered the restyled and repackaged Saab 900 in 1993 was the first model produced under General Motors ownership and that offended the Saab purists. Using a Vauxhall Cavalier as the basis was the ultimate insult and there were also rumours that the shell was less structurally sound than the old 900 so it must be a truly awful car. The bottom line is though that old Saabs are cheap and well equipped and I think I know what I’m letting myself in for. In the last few years I have bought a succession of Saab 9000s which also upsets purists as being a big dumb hatchback that doesn’t even look like a proper Saab, i.e. odd. I had bought those direct from the car trade, unwanted part exchanges that they were glad to see the back of. This time though I bought retail.

Six miles away lives a Saab specialist and that’s all they sell, service and repair which is a good thing. I’ll travel hundreds of miles to see and buy a good car, but this one was on my doorstep. A 1994 900S with air conditioning, alloy wheels and a 2.3 litre engine. In nine years it had covered 89,900 miles with one elderly owner and there was a full service history. It was up at £2995 and worth every penny. Apart from a few chips on the body the brilliant red metallic paint still gleamed, but it is the interior that was truly remarkable, because it was brand new. Maybe the previous owners had kept plastic covers on the seats, dash, and door trim like your Auntie Vi does on her sofa, there is no other explanation. It drove inoffensively enough had new rubber all round and for a man in a hurry like me it was an easy decision to make. Once freshly MOT’d, serviced, warranted and the private registration number had been transferred off it was mine. However there was still a BMW to sell and with just a week to run on the road tax suddenly there were deadlines.

First of all I asked the Saab specialist if they wanted my one previous owner, immac, fsh, 116,500 mile BMW and a £500 bid suggested they didn’t. Of course selling privately always makes sense in these circumstances, but 14 year old, air conditioning free, fuel hungry six cylinder cars ought to be unsaleable. However you can flog anything with four wheels provided you follow these three simple rules, firstly clean the car, secondly price it realistically and finally advertise it in the right place. So few people do those things, but the simple act of decluttering a car of your stuff and then giving it a decent clean is remarkable. Just don’t overdo it with tyre paint and all that nonsense because everyone appreciates an honest car and they like to see any receipts and history in a folder. I put a price of £1200 on the car and put the mileage in the ad. The ad went into the local Autotrader and I’m pleased to report that the phone is still ringing. The first person to see it completed an early morning 200-mile round trip on a motorbike, the next one lived three miles down the road, left a deposit and was back in the hour with cash.

Meanwhile the Saab is very comfy and very cool. The only downside is the gearbox which is a well-know weakspot and feels as though it is full of old bed springs, so I don’t change gear much. Also the tape deck hates my selection of music and spits it back out so I just listen to the radio. There is also squeal from the front brakes, which will be investigated.

Otherwise I am feeling a lot less distressed and attribute that entirely to my new, old Saaahhhhbbbb…

Saab 900S 2.3
Year 94M
Mileage at Start: 89901
Mileage Now: 90498
Price new: £16,995
Price paid: £2995
Price now: £2900
MPG: 31.9
Problems: squealy front brakes, snobby sound system



James Ruppert
Sometime in 2003