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Journals

Friends and associates of Hagstrom Saab have some pretty strong views about the superiority of the Saab brand, as you might expect. Please choose a journal below and read what our learned enthusiasts have to say...

Pick your Hagstrom Saab correspondent here>> | Stuart's Spin-offs | From the Archives | Alan's Column | Tommi's Restoration Projects | Emma's Reports | Notable Saabs | asd | Sonetts Surely! | Saab God | Enthusiast Links | Ashley's Other Saabs | Newsletter | 123 | 123 | asd | Open Forum | Nigel's Noggin | Matt's World | Owain’s Adventures

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Picture of journalist    
Picture of journalist

Matt's World

One man’s sermon from the mount

02/11/2010

New 9-5 Estate

02/11/2010

All Hail a New Breed of Motoring God

15/10/2010

New 9-5 (Addendum)

06/07/2010

The New Saab 9-5

17/03/2009

The Curse of the Lead Right Foot

06/03/2009

Saab, in Trouble??!!

05/03/2009

Beware the Four Chrome Rings

05/03/2009

David Llewellyn Owen: a Memorial

03/03/2009

Are there ANY Saab crazed Girls out there?

29/11/2006

Oddballs

02/02/2006

The Unicorn

02/02/2006

A Re-acquaintance with the Saab 9000

08/12/2005

The New Saab 9-5

03/12/2005

Our Country is Disappearing up its own A**e Part III

03/12/2005

Dual Flow Filtration Part III

06/10/2005

Farewell to Scandinavian Blue

09/06/2005

Dual Filtration Part II

13/05/2005

Dual Flow Oil Filtration

03/05/2005

My Saab of the Moment!

09/03/2005

Mixed Emotions

09/03/2005

Why are the T16S 900's being scrapped in droves?

03/02/2005

Question: Where does Classic end and pile of s*** begin?

03/02/2005

When is a Saab not a Saab? When it's a Subaru

03/02/2005

Born Free, Taxed to Death

01/05/2004

Back in the Saddle ..

15/11/2003

The classic Saab 900 1978-1994

19/04/2003

Saab 99 buyer’s guide

01/04/2003

Stay safer in an older Saab!

01/04/2003

Petrol £6 a gallon...? But apparently it’s on the cards

The New Saab 9-5

Darth Vader on 4 wheels

The 9-5 is now everything I ever wanted it to be. It shed it's sensible skin and turned to the dark side ...

My thoughts on the GM Saabs are well-known. When they first pushed the new shape 900 out of the gates of Trollhättan, I was against for all the wrong reasons. It was a car that was painfully dull to look at and even duller to drive.

When the car mutated in the 9-3, the car became ridiculously sensible but just as generally dull and uninspiring.

The 9-5 was just as sensible when it appeared but at least it looked the part, in a conservative accountant sort of way. But when Saab face-lifted it a couple of years ago, put in that bloody awful IKEA matt pine dash panel and those headlamps that made the car look cross-eyed, I lost all hope that they would ever produce an interesting looking car again.

How wrong I was. Saab have just built the car I’ve wanted them to build for the last 15 years. The new 9-5 is gorgeous, not in the least bit sensible and obviously has never heard of IKEA.

I won’t bore you with why I was standing on a Saab main dealer forecourt but as I looked closer and then closer still at this black beast of a car, my jaw got closer and closer to the floor.

I couldn’t believe that such a transformation could be done. Everything about this car reminds me of when I was 7. I stood there in absolute awe marvelling at the new dash, the new seats, the new back end and that new front which makes this car look evil …

The kind of evil that pulls the wings off flies and incinerates spiders with a magnifying glass just for fun. The kind of evil that undoubtedly looks to buy nuclear weapons or sharks with freaking laser beams on their heads. So as to defend some fiendish plan or another. If a Doctor was to buy one of these 9-5’s he would be DR EVIL!! Ha ha.

If owned one of these Saabs I would be out at 6 am every Saturday morning licking it clean. I would use it every day to terrify pensioners in their Civics and Nissan Sunnys.

I don’t care that it will probably suffer from the same mechanical nonsense that all the other 9-5’s suffer from. I don’t care that it will not be able to get its 260 bhp down to the road. I don‘t care that it will undoubtedly be an absolute pig to work on. The 9-5 is now everything I ever wanted it to be. It has shed its sensible skin and turned to the dark side. This car is now DARTH VADER on four wheels and I WANT ONE!

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to sell the children.

Happy Saabing

Matt

6 December 2005

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