I have to chime in here since I am a life long SAAB fan. I've owned 7 different SAABs and all of them have been different experiences. Currently I have a 2001 9-5 Aero wagon as my daily driver and hauler and my 1988 900 SPG. I have to say that I absolutely love my SPG. I have spent a great deal of money on the car to make it much faster than stock. The last dyno was 220 Hp at the wheels. The stock engine was 185 at the crank. It's been a long road as performance parts are hard to get for this car. The turbo behaves very similar to the Porsche 930s. Lag, lag, some boost, some more boost, WHOOOOAAA! It is very fun to drive. On the highway it is very fun. It is always on boost so you don't have to drop down a gear. In addition, I have 240,000 miles on this car and it hasn't needed an engine rebuilt yet! The tranny is another story though. I'm on tranny #4... It wasn't designed to handle that much horsepower!
The 2001 9-5 wagon is an entirely different animal. Much more refined with a smaller turbo that takes away that turbo punch.
For the one person that says oil sludge is a problem, they need to do some more homework. Yes it was a problem 10 years ago and it was GMs "engine design help" that caused the problem. It has been fixed for awhile now. In addition, most of the sludging issues came from owners not doing the proper maitenance on the cars. Cheap non-synthetic oil and extended changing intervals are not good for the 1998-2001 engines. The design problem has been fixed since 2002 for those interested...
It is sad to see SAAB disappear in the sunset, however I have to agree with the statement that SAAB should have disappeared about 15 years ago. They were already running out of money and ready to close shop when GM came in with their first 50% buy out offer. GM definitely kept SAAB alive, but they also didn't really help the brand all that much. The SAABaru 9-2x and Tahoe 9-7x are good examples of this. It is also too bad they couldn't come out with an all-wheel drive car sooner. You just can't put down 280 horsepower to the front wheels and be successful agains Audi, BMW, etc...
I put together a DIY website for SAAB folks. It is
http://www.fixmysaab.com
