10 things you need to know about the Saab 99

This issue, we are digging out trivia on the car which really put momentum behind Saab’s push upmarket – the 99 that they built from 1968 to 1987. Report: Simon Goldsworthy.

Top Ten Trivia 

This issue we look at the gamechanging 99 (and 900) from Saab

To really understand what a major role the Saab 99 played in the Swedish company’s development, we will have to take a few moments to whizz over their history. We’ll take as our starting point April 1937, when the Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (or SAAB for short) was founded with its headquarters in Trollhattan. It was formed specifically to develop airplanes and deliver them to the Swedish military for the conflict that everybody could see was coming.

Obviously, once that conflict was over the demand for military planes went into serious decline, but Saab had a workforce to employ. So in autumn 1945 they decided that a small car would be part of their postwar offering. The result was the streamlined Saab 92, revealed to the press in June 1947, although production proper did not start until the very end of 1949. The Saab 92 had a transverse, two-cylinder, two-stroke engine of 764cc. It was replaced by the Saab 93 in December 1955, which had a three-cylinder two-stroke engine of 748cc, this time mounted longitudinally. The new model also got other major mechanical changes, along with revised front end styling. This was complemented by the Saab 95 estate car in May 1959, which introduced a four-speed gearbox and an 841cc engine. This engine was then carried over to the Saab 96 introduced in February 1960, which looked very similar to the outgoing 93F from the front, but had a totally revised back end. RHD production followed at the start of 1961, and for 1967 both the 95 and the 96 gained a four-stroke V4 engine from Ford.

It was also in 1967 that careful counting of the year’s production figures showed that 25 cars were missing when that total was divided between the Sonnett II, 95, 96 and Monte Carlo models. These 25 related to the new Saab 99, revealed at the end of November. Testing and development continued through 1968 though, and the new car only went on sale in autumn 1968.

The Saab 99 was intended to sit above the 95/96, and so needed a new and more powerful engine. Saab was still a small company and could not afford to develop a new engine all on its own, so they partnered first with Ricardo in the UK, and through them with Standard-Triumph. The result was that Triumph built a new 1709cc slant-four OHC engine for Saab, a unit that some years later found its way into the Triumph Dolomite at 1854cc.

At the Saab 99’s launch in 1968, only a two-door saloon was offered. A four-door joined the party in February 1970, which was a first for the company, as was an automatic gearbox option. For 1971 a larger 1854cc engine option was added to the mix, with electronic fuel injection on some models. The smaller 1709cc engine was dropped for 1972, but early that year the Saab 99 EMS appeared. This was a new sporty and more luxurious variant, the EMS standing for Electronic (fuel injection), Manual (gearbox) and Special (equipment).

The EMS was the first recipient of a new 1985cc version of the slant four engine which Saab built for themselves rather than buying from Triumph. The Triumph heritage was clear, but this was essentially a new engine as Saab increased the bore, moved the cylinders further apart in a new block (which allowed for additional future growth), and did away with Triumph’s angled valves and offset head bolts.

1973 saw an expansion of the range. A new entry-level X7 was available only in two-door guise with the 1854cc engine and a manual gearbox. The mid-range 99L got many more options – two or four doors, 1854 or 1985cc engines, with carburettor or (as the 99Le) with fuel injection, and with either manual or automatic gearboxes – though auto was only available with the bigger engine. At the top of the tree was the 2-litre Saab 99 EMS.

1974 saw a new model added to the 99L family, called the Combi Coupé and featuring an opening tailgate in a two-door bodyshell. (This was called the Wagonback Sedan in the USA.) For 1975, the base model lost its X7 tag and became simply the 99, all cars got the larger 2-litre engine, and the Combi Coupé spawned a new delivery van version, primarily for the Danish market. In January 1976 a four-door Combi Coupé was added to the line-up, which had now become 99L at the bottom, then GL, EMS as the sporting option and GLE at the top of the luxury tree. The Saab 99 Turbo introduced in September 1977 eclipsed all of those, though.

To keep the Saab up to date and in line with the competition (or ahead of it, depending on who you are talking to!) the Combi Coupé was reworked into the Saab 900 of May 1978, to be produced alongside the older 99 and only gradually take over as the range of variants increased. This was a 99 behind the windscreen, but had an entirely new front end from the windscreen forwards. The 900 rode on a wheelbase that was 50mm longer, and had a body with an extra 210mmm length. The last Saab 99, by then called the Saab 90, was built in 1987, the 900 lasting until March 1993. Here are a few other random facts from along the way.

The original Saab 99 two-door saloon... ...the 99 Combi Coupé (hatchback to you and me)... ...and the awesome Turbo in Combi Coupé guise.

1 The final decision to proceed with production of a new model to succeed the 96 was taken on 2nd April 1965, even though the basic plan had been under development for some years already. Most aficionados know that because 2nd April happens to be Gudmund’s Day in Sweden, what became the Saab 99 was given the code Project Gudmund. The name day calendar was official in Sweden from 1901- 1972, but has continued to be widely used since then even without official status. New names were added in 2001, at which point Project Gudmund could also have been called Project Ingemund, as that too falls on 2nd April. In 2022, seven new names are being added – Henry, Maja, Regina, Noa, Olle, Tim and Cornelia – but none of them are being celebrated in April.

2 As for the Saab model numbering system, that is rather more prosaic and logical. Numbers starting with 9 were for civilian production rather than military, and 90 and 91 had both been used for planes by the time car production got underway. So how do we get from there to the 99?

Well, as we have seen, 92 was logically enough used for the first saloon of 1949, and that evolved into the 93. Model 94 was the Sonnet I sports car. The estate car was next and so got the model number 95, and that was followed by the 96 saloon.

97 was the Sonnett II/III sports car, and 98 was used on a Combi Coupé design based on the 95 that was tried between 1974-1976 but never went into production. So the next number in the sequence was the Saab 99.

3 When Saab wanted to test out the new Triumph-built engines without drawing attention to the new model under development, they took the 99’s running gear, cut existing Saab 96 bodies in half lengthwise and widened them to fit over the top. Welded back together and painted grey, they did not look immediately different, though their wide stance earned them the nickname of Toads in the factory.

The first genuine 99 bodies to be used for testing were disguised rather more thinly with Daihatsu badges – apparently the letters from the Saab Sport badge could be adapted to spell out the Japanese company with a little judicious cutting and filing. And who in Sweden at that time really knew what Daihatsu might look like anyway?

4 For 1985 the 99 name was dropped and the car, with a revised rear end (essentially that of the two-door 900), became the Saab 90. This fitted in better with the current naming system of 900 (the updated and upmarket version of the 99) and the 9000 which was a different model developed alongside the Lancia Thema and Fiat Croma, styled by Giugiaro.

5 Saab was never afraid to innovate. Novelties on a production car included a washer/wiper system for the headlights in September 1970 (the screenwash reservoir being doubled in size to 3-litres to cope with the extra demands), a heated driver’s seat in August 1972 (it heated up automatically in temperatures below 14°C when the ignition was turned on and cut out at 27.5°), and impact absorbing bumpers which could withstand a 5mph impact without damage. Passengers had to wait until 1984 before getting their own heated seat, though.

6 The handbrake operates on separate drums on the front wheels (normal brakes are discs). That makes them more effective in an emergency stop than if they acted on the rear wheels; when Motor tested it in November 1969, they recorded 0.7g for deceleration, about twice as good as a traditional rear wheel handbrake. It wasn’t, though, any good for handbrake turns, which did not please the rally boys.

7 Mass production was efficient, but had reduced tasks to such short and boredom-inducing repetitiveness (the average time taken to do a task on the Saab production line was 1.8 minutes) that staff turnover and absenteeism was extremely high in the early 1970s. So when Saab opened their new engine plant, they adopted a system that saw fitters organised into groups of three or four, who were responsible for the entire engine assembly – a task which took 30 minutes to complete.

8 Saab changed from wheels with round holes to ones with rectangles, not for style but to improve braking. The old style was fine with drum brakes, but allowed too much muck onto the discs. The new style allowed adequate cooling, but kept the brakes cleaner. They were not fitted to the entry lever X7 though, a model that also lacked the new impact-absorbing bumpers.

9 Saab’s competitions department built a 220Hp, 16-valve, DOHC engine for 1976. Stig Blomqvist won the Belgian Boucles de Spa rally on its first outing. The engine was so good that he drove it in four championship rallies and it was not even opened for inspection. A change in the FIA rules killed it, as Saab could not afford to build the 400 required for homologation. Besides, they had already decided that turbocharging was the way to go.

10 The Saab Turbo was revealed in the summer of 1976, the first rapturous tests appearing in the spring of 1977 and the first cars for general sale coming out for the 1978 model year. Per Gillbrand, the engineer who led the development, said: ‘It is not always best to be first. The thing is to be first at the right time.’ The key to how Saab got it right was the wastegate, which mitigated the immense turbo lag of earlier designs. By 1983, Saab was the world’s largest producer of turbo cars.

The Saab 900 was a stretched and reworked Combi Coupé. A cabriolet was offered in spring 1986, but this was based on the two-door body. It was built by Valmet Automotive in Finland.

ABOVE: A nice early car, this one a four-door saloon in a nicely understated blue...

RIGHT: ...and another early car, this time a two-door enjoying a day at the seaside.

Later models were called the Saab 90 to better fit in with the 900/9000 naming plan.

ABOVE: The opening hatch was a new addition to the 99 range in 1974.

ABOVE: Stig Blomqvist with the 99 Turbo rally car which blew away the opposition. Engines were built by Triumph in the UK initially.