Quick! How many cars can you think of that you could purchase with either a 2- or 4-stroke engine? Anybody? DKW had a 3=6, which became the Auto Union 1000, but that stuck with the two-stroke formula. Citroen’s 2CV looks like it should have a two-stroke, and various Soviet-bloc cars did have two-strokes. In the late 1980s, Trabant and Wartburg started installing VW 4-cylinder engines in their cars, but Saab pioneered the approach of putting a 4-stroke in the home of a 2-stroke in 1967, with candidates vying for a place behind the airplane badge including the Volvo B18 (sacrilege!), the Ford V4 (meh), Triumph 1300 (foreshadowing!), Lancia V4 (philosophically closest), Hillman/Climax, as well as engines from Volkswagen and Opel. The final winner was the Taunus V4 engine, so if you don’t mind an ordinary powerplant in an extraordinary car, try out this 1972 Saab 96, for sale for $3950 in Hobe Sound, FL.
Florida is not the most obvious home for a Saab – how can you possibly wear a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches and smoke a pipe when it’s so hot out? And there’s no snow in which to exploit the awesome foul-weather traction. Either way, this looks like a very nice car with significant rust in the doors. The car really looks clean, with seemingly immaculate wheels and hubcaps, good trim, and only a misaligned door bump strip to cause concern. The green paint looks smart, and shiny, and the seller calls it well-preserved. The car is said to be solid aside from the doors, which seems odd, but perhaps the drains in the door bottoms were clogged? Either way, it’s been in indoor storage for 35 years, and everything is said to be functional and working well, including new brakes, battery, and header, and a Weber carburetor. This sounds exactly like a RustyButTrusty car – and to reduce it to Trusty, all you need to do is fix some door rust.
Rusty But Trusty 
May 23, 2015 at 10:52 pm |
I have been looking for one this two stroke Saab for now a year and no luck with one that is A, afordable and B, not incredible faraway