Paul's Saab Page

My wife turned me on to Saabs back in the mid-90's. She had, for a while, owned an '86 Saab 900 manual transmission 2-door hatch and an 87 Saab 900S automatic convertible. Both were fun to drive. When we met, I decided to part with my, also fun but certainly not as "unique", manual transmission Mitsubishi Eclipse.

I should say that I'm dead set against buying any car new. I think it's a complete waste of money. You are better off buying a better used car and finding yourself a mechanic you can trust. With that said, when we found out we were having a baby back in the mid-90's, we decided to part with the convertible and bought a 1992 Saab 900S 4-door sedan. That was probably a little less fun to drive, but the 4 door sedan served its purpose. For the past several years, our family car has been a Mercury Grand Marquis, handed down from my parents, and that was even a tad less fun to drive and the Saab was my low mileage "to the train stop" car.

In Summer 2009, we decided to upgrade. After a short search on Saab Network, we found a 1997 Saab 9000 with super low mileage. It turns out that the car had been serviced by our own mechanic in Boston, the wonderful Ross Martin from RPM Automotive. So, we snatched that up and that's been our main family car.

The 1993 Saab reached 190K miles and needed more work than was reasonable, so I donated that to Kars for Kids. And, then, the Grand Marquis' engine cracked shortly thereafter and that had to get junked.

My mechanic, Ross, told me about another car, a 2000 Saab 9-3 Viggen (shown in the picture) that one of his customers had for sale. I purchased that, and now we are an all Saab family once again and feeling very good about it.

The Saab Viggen is sort of an enthusiast's car. The Viggen is a high-powered version of the Saab 9-3. It was made as a 4- and 2-door hatchback as well as convertible. The 4-door hatch was only made from 2000-2002. It's named after the Saab 37 Viggen aircraft. It accelerates from 0-60 in 6.4 seconds and top speed is 155 mph. The special things added to the Viggen are a heavy duty clutch (to handle the extra torque), stiffened and lowered springs, firmer dampers, stronger CV joints and driveshafts, specially bolsterd leather seats, sport suspension, bigger wheels, and upgraded brakes. This car has a significant number of Viggen performance parts on it including the Tallaferro 6 point sub-frame brace, the steering rack, rear anti-roll brace, and a new Saab Information Display (SID).

What's the 9000 CSE like to drive? It drives like a smooth sedan. It's got some zip to it, but mostly drives like you'd expect a sedan to drive. It's interior is clean. The only pet peeve is that there are different colors on various displays (green versus amber).

What's the Viggen like to drive? It drives like a sports car. There's no sedan ride to this baby. You know you are driving a car. It reminds me of our old 86 Saab 900, which I loved. But it has more performance. It accelerates fast and the clutch is heavy. It hugs turns tightly. The interior is like a cockpit. The bolstered leather seats are tough. All the interior elements are superior grade and sporty.

In October 2009, I had some autobody work done on the Viggen. There was some rust under the spoiler and various other imperfections.

In November 2009, I upgraded the crappy front and rear speakers with Boston Acoustics S35 (front) and Boston Acoustics SL95 (rear). I kept the bass speakers in the doors because those are a real pain to change. The result: awesome car stereo sound! I finally have mids and highs!