First Spin; The Saab 9-3X gets the go-ahead, so we went ahead and...(Saab's new 9-3X has radical design)(International Pages)

Saab's executive director of design Michael Mauer and his faithful deputy Anthony Lo are having a great time these days. They're the stars of a major push to make Saab all it can be as a brand, as a builder of a lot more units and as a bad-ass arrow in GM's quiver.

The 9X concept shown last year in Frankfurt will, at the very least, hover for untold years above Saab's new design center in M?lnlycke near G?teborg as a sort of Obi-Wan Kenobi of styling.

Now comes the 9-3X, assembled by Bertone, whose alphanumeric name foreshadows a vehicle to be built and available for driving in North America come 2005. This is the new direction for production Saabs and the more practical extreme of what Mauer and Lo have in mind. Changes will happen between now and build time, but there will be a Saab 9-3-based all-wheel-drive vehicle like this.

Bob Lutz told us so. What it will compete against is still unclear. Something between a BMW X5 and M Coupe maybe. Or something between the Audi allroad and not-for-America S3. The closest thing we've seen is the Audi Steppenwolf concept from the 2000 Paris show. Have we something here we can actually call a ``segment buster'' without rolling our eyes or spitting our coffee?

Let's take a side step. From all the spy photos we've caught of the 2003 9-3, some of the design distinction of the Saab brand has been sacrificed on the altar of selling more buyers on the concept of owning a Saab, much like what happened with Giugiaro's design for the Saab 9000. The traditional ``hockey stick'' C-pillar shape is practically nonexistent and the three-hole grille is so subtle as to barely register. Both Mauer and Lo arrived on the southern Swedish scene after this upcoming 9-3 had been set in stone by their predecessors, so their input was practically nil.

Between this summer's mainstreamy 9-3 sedan and the decidedly non-mainstream prototype you see here due for real in 2005, Mauer intends to transform the entire Saab to be more along the lines of his X show cars.

One quick look at the 9-3X and you see the bulged wheel wells, that identifying contour line running from the C-pillar to the front wheel well, the aircraft-inspired wraparound glass and the unique rear end with high integrated taillights. Walk around front and it's the toned-down version of the 9X grille still swallowing the headlights. From the rear it's the John Wayne wide stance, hatch and roof glass panels, and cubic twin exhaust tips poking out of the rear skirting.