May 26, 2006 By Jeff Green, Bloomberg News

General Motors Corp.'s Saab will double U.S. sales by as early as 2010 as
the European unit moves ahead with its plan to end losses, its U.S. sales
chief said.

Jerome York, an aide to GM investor Kirk Kerkorian, said in January that GM
should sell or close Saab and Hummer and focus on its larger brands, after
GM's $10.6 billion loss last year. York joined the Detroit-based company's
board in February.

“He wants what all of us want, sales and profit growth,'' said Jay
Spenchian, Saab's U.S. general manager, in an interview today in
Southfield, Michigan. “He wants us to put our money where our mouth is and
just try and deliver.''

Saab and Hummer have been GM's fastest-growing brands in the U.S. this
year, helped by new models such as the Saab 9-7X and Hummer H-3
sport-utility vehicles. Sales through April rose 8.1 percent at Saab and
almost tripled at Hummer, as GM's total fell 6.7 percent. New models are
part of GM's plan to stabilize a U.S. market share that has fallen to 24
percent this year from 51 percent in 1962.

“If Saab is profitable or break-even and they can attract buyers you
wouldn't normally get in GM, it's a positive,'' said Southfield-based
AutoPacific auto analyst Jim Hall. “Saab can be made profitable. The
question is, how broad does Saab need to be to get there?''

Saab will double annual U.S. sales to about 80,000 by 2010 or 2011,
Spenchian said. In the next few years, Saab plans to replace the 9-7X with
a smaller SUV model shared with a Cadillac design and introduce new
versions of the 9-5 and 9-3 sedans, he said. The Sweden-based unit is also
studying at least one other undisclosed vehicle, Spenchian said.  

http://www.auto123.com/en/info/news/news,view.spy?artid=61939&pg=1

Saab Sales and Image Taking Off: Young Buyers Pick It over BMW and Mercedes
--- Auto123.Com

By Alex Law, May 2006

In the normal course of a story like this, I would blow corporate bumph and
middle-aged opinion and sales results about Saab up your skirt until you
couldn't see for blushing.

But you're in luck today, since there's a survey about the used car desires
of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 to tell you about instead, and
it's more compelling than the normal smoke.

In this survey conducted by an extremely reputable firm (CNW), 1.28 percent
of the respondents currently looking for a used car would consider "any
Saab" as a possible purchase. Now, this number won't seem like much until
you consider that the vehicle with the highest rating, the Jeep Wrangler,
only scored 16.92 percent.

What's more telling about the results of this survey is that no BMW or
Mercedes models appealed to enough of these young people (1 percent was the
minimum level needed) to make the list.

If I can twist an old expression just slightly, being picked ahead of those
two German premium brands by young people tends to give Saab a kind of
canary in the cool mine status that's hard to ignore. Believe me when I
tell you that these survey results will give marketing executives at BMW
and Mercedes pause.

The results do not surprise me, however, since BMW and Mercedes customers
have a tendency to be, respectively, pretentious or stodgy, and probably
even parental. If you're a kid who wants to spray a little Eau de Voyage de
Mer on his or her personality in your next automobile, you probably don't
want something that your father the tax accountant or your mother the
successful real estate agent drive.

If this all sounds pretty superficial, well, that's because decisions
between one kind of premium product and another usually are, and they are
forever ephemeral. Many of the folks buying Beemers and Mercs today do so
because their parents bought Caddys and Lincolns, and it's unwise to think
the same kind of brand rejection won't happen with their children.

There's little real fundamental difference between cars of similar size and
equipment that cost this much, so image and impression tend to take on
extra significance. Sure, differences may show on roads where it's legal or
even possible to go 250 kmh, but with the legal and traffic realities of
North America they count for naught.

In the road reality of Canada and the U.S., then, the lineup for the
GM-owned Saab brand is pretty solid. There's the entry-level 9-2X they
borrowed from the Subaru which hasn't been very successful and might be
replaced one day by something from GM's European lineup. It's still an
excellent choice for someone looking for a sporty compact car.

There's also the new Saab 9-7X, which is an American SUV with the kind of
accent the Swedish chef had in The Muppet Show. It's still an excellent SUV
and the Saab-esque touches make it different, and that can appeal to lots
of folks regardless of their age.

The core models for Saab continue to be the 9-3 and recently upgraded 9-5,
which offer turbocharged iterations of the sedans and wagons themes,
offering comfort and performance for more reasonable operating costs than
is traditional in this segment.

But if there was a lodestar for the entire brand it would be the
convertible version of the smaller 9-3 line. There's just something about
the 9-3 droptop that makes it special.

I can tell you from vast experience that it is THE single best car on the
road for touring someplace beautiful and/or cool. Being in a Saab
convertible has raised the enjoyment level for visits to San Francisco, St.
Petersburg, the northern most point of Europe, the Pacific Coast Highway,
New England, and the Riviera several times. It can also do wonders toward
making your home town more appealing.

The Saab 9-3 ragtop works better than competitive models from BMW, Mercedes
and Volvo because it doesn't have the heavy emotional baggage of those
brands, and that helps you chill out and relax, dude, which is the primary
directive of a convertible.

By far the biggest noise for Saab right now can only be heard in Sweden,
where the BioPower version of the 9-5 is at the top of the environmental
cars list, outselling everything on the market, including the Toyota Prius
hybrid by about five to one. GM has plans to extend the use of E85 (85
percent ethanol) models like this around the world, but at present Canada
has only two (2) stations that provide this fuel, so we shouldn't hold our
breath.

As for that futuristic Aero X concept car, we're not likely to see it on
the road any time soon, but we should see elements of its design on future
real-world Saabs.

In general, things are working out fairly well for the folks from
Trollhattan, which, in case you were wondering, translates pretty much
directly into English.

Saab sales are taking off around the world, going up 17 percent in the
first quarter of 2006 versus 2005. In Canada, the increase is even greater
-- 29 percent. And if there's anything to that survey charting the buying
habits of North American youths, future growth levels could be even
greater.