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SUNNY CAB; 20 years on, Saab convertible is still effervescent.(Saab-Scania of America Inc to develop Saab 9-3)
Byline: MARK VAUGHN
The Saab convertible didn't start out so much as a Swedish car as it did an American invention.
In the early 1980s Bob Sinclair, then-president of Saab-Scania of America, was busy trying to take the Saab brand upmarket. He wanted high-dollar cars with high-end features. The executives over at the factory in Sweden were aiming the brand in the opposite direction-lower-dollar, and with fewer features.
The Swedes offered him 1000 stripper 900 notchbacks, a "decontented two-door for low-discretionary-income markets,'' Sinclair remembers. They told him he had to take 1000 a year for three years. However, they allowed he could have the Saabs equipped any way he wanted.
Any way?
"I said I would accept the cars if they were equipped with cast-aluminum wheels, leather upholstery, central locking, fuel injection, five-speed gearbox and,'' here's the clincher, "convertible tops.''
"Meester Sinclair, have you gone mad?'' was the response, Sinclair recalls.
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Source: HighBeam Research, SUNNY CAB; 20 years on, Saab convertible is still...