Cult brand before collapse

The fascination of the Saab brand has always been that it produced cars for individualists. However, sales of the Swedish brand have continued to decline, for example in August there were only 209 cars sold in Germany. In the first half of 2004 sales in Germany fell by 10.8% to 3,077 vehicles, the market share was 0.2%. At the same time, the Swedish competitor Volvo increased by 27.8% to 23,983 cars sold. GM subsidiary Saab has been writing red figures for years, Sales in the two-digit percentage range are also falling in the important US market. Now the company’s headquarters in Trollhättan are also threatened by the fact that GM has decided to merge the European mid-range models and possibly move the production of the 9-3 to Rüsselsheim. For car experts Ferdinand Dudenhöffer, the crash of the brand is due to management failures. d. In addition, the proverbial quality of the vehicles belongs to the past. In order to save costs, Saab has to take over finished models from the GM Group for his new cars, which are then slightly changed as Saab on the market. For Dudenhöffer the credibility of the brand suffers. This is an excerpt from the latest edition of the EURO. Greeting Hans-J.