If you like quirky or unusual sports cars, you could do a lot worse than looking at the offerings from Sweden. Volvo’s P1800 and Saab’s Sonett are two very different cars, though they do have one basic thing in common – they use plenty of parts from their more common siblings. As for the differences, the P1800 is more of a luxurious, GT-type car, while the Sonett was more of a reasonably-priced sports car, up against cars like the Opel GT, Datsun 240Z, and Triumph GT6+. In period, its performance was far from the front of the pack, but now it’s an interesting artifact of an extinct company. Check out this 1973 Saab Sonett III for sale for $3600 in Sweet Home, OR (wait, what?).
Posts Tagged ‘saab’
So Nice – 1973 Saab Sonett III
September 22, 2015Ur-Type Four – 1989 Saab 9000 Turbo
December 31, 2014Looking for a rare bird among the world of Saabs? You don’t even need to look as far back as the 1970s 99 – you can find it right up through the late 1980s in a series 1 9000. Even on enthusiast sites like Saabnet, it’s hard to find many first-gen 9000s listed there. And those that are available for sale are either miserable $500 projects or high-mileage drivers. Alfa 164s, surely the less successful platform-mate in America, seem to survive in greater numbers than these. So it’s surprising to find a nice, cared-for example of the model, with turbo and manual transmission. Check out this 1989 Saab 9000 turbo for sale for $3000 in Seattle, WA.
Different Strokes – 1972 Saab 96
September 30, 2014Quick! 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.


