Winning Lifestyle Estate
by David Morgan (30 May 05)

The managing director of Saab Automobile expects the new 9-3 SportWagon to be his firm's best-selling car. It's a safe prediction. Jan-Ake Jonsson took over responsibility for General Motors' Scandinavian partner in April and has great expectations - both for the recently ailing marque and the latest product to roll off the production lines at Trollhattan.

"I know it will not be easy," he said at the international launch of the 9-3 lifestyle estate car. "These are challenging times in the motor industry and I see Saab's growth as less of a sprint and more of a marathon. But I am very confident. This is our first entry into the premium wagon market I am sure it will do well for us."

Saab will be Jonsson's biggest career challenge. He has to oversee a marque which has been drifting in the doldrums and only last year faced the unthinkable - rumours that production could be shifted to Germany as part of a cost-cutting restructure.

But new life has been breathed into Saab. The Trollhattan factory will produce its four millionth car in June and is turning out quality products. And if the 9-3 SportWagon I drove in its natural Swedish habitat is a taste of things to come it's clear the new managing director's confidence is well founded.

The SportWagon marks a quality return to Saab's core vehicles - a functional sporting holdall with state-of-the-art technology, great safety, superb handling and a new turbocharged V6 engine which delivers the kind of punch that made the legendary Saab Turbo the car others had to follow.

On sale in September, the SportWagon is a formidable and practical load carrier. The cargo area is wide, has a strong flat loading floor and a clever lower-level storage area, and can swallow 419 litres of luggage with the 40/60 split-and-fold rear seats in place. With them flipped flat that capacity rockets to around 1300 litres - a useful load which can be expanded even further with an optional folding front passenger seat which allows items up to 2.65 metres long to be carried.

The tailgate is innovative because it is manufactured from aluminium. That makes it 6kg lighter than steel and helps keep the overall weight gain of the SportWagon over its SportSaloon sister to just 40kg - a remarkable achievement, and tribute to the kind of engineering fine tuning which has made Saab products stand out from the crowd for years.

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