Philippe Curie's 96 V4

I "fell in love' with the Saab 96 when I was nine (don't ask me why) but I was astonished by the shape of this car.

When I was old enough to be a Dad I tried to find a Classic 900 but finally ended up with a 9000 CSE (a minimum for 1 baby lol !) This car was a nightmare and spent a lot of time at the garage. At that time Saab still paid for most of the repairs even after the warranty... this time is gone forever. When I was fed up, I bought a 900 (New Generation) and was unlucky once again (air conditioning compressor ooo, cylinder head gasket etc. Despite all these problems, I still wanted a 96 which is very hard to find in France.

I found this Saab 96 on Ebay. The owner was selling her because of health problems. I know it is all to often a fake reason but in that case, it was the truth. We made contact by phone and mail and I bought the car without seeing it. I was confident and I was right. We are still in touch.
This car was bought in 1971 by the owner's father and remained all that time (until 2005) in the same family. It had 40,000 miles guaranteed, I have all the invoices even the first one. Funny to see what inflation means because I bought it for almost the same price as 35 years before.
The car runs well and is very sound. A little bit rusty on the rear wings and doors but nothing serious.

Thanks to the part I got from Hagstrom I had this car repaired. You may notice that the "mud trap" (that's how I call the plastic part at the beginning of the rear wings) are missing. It's a choice. I do not try to have a car newer than it was when it came out of the factory! That's why I don't care if one of the wings is fibreglass. Inside the car, nothing as changed. I even kept the old English maps with the price in shillings!

I hesitated a lot about the body colour because this kind of blue is not my favourite but finally decided that it had to remain the same.

All is fine even the freewheel, maybe I'll have to change the exhaust system one day.


Philippe
France,September 2008