[imelville]

Have you seen the article in this months Evo mag? The reviewer reckons it's a better car than the WRX wagon which it's based on.

Also that the engineer responsible for the suspension tweakery was asked by Subaru to stay on and assist with the revised version of the WRX, as they were so impressed by it.
It looks as though there is quite a bit more Saab in it than first appears and makes me rather envious of our colonial cousins.

 

[kprm77]

Sounds good

I only hope that we do eventually get the car over here. Only thing is, I bet we'll pay a huge premium compared to those on the other side of the pond

 

[StanleyB]

Sad fact is this: how come SAAB was able to dig up an engineer who was able to improve on the WRX suspension? I would have thought that considering the 900 and 9-3 suspension debacle, SAAB had no clue or engineers capable of designing a good suspension. Unless that WRX suspension was even worse than the 900/9-3

.

 

[murphwiz]

Originally posted by StanleyB:
[qb]Sad fact is this: how come SAAB was able to dig up an engineer who was able to improve on the WRX suspension? I would have thought that considering the 900 and 9-3 suspension debacle, SAAB had no clue or engineers capable of designing a good suspension. Unless that WRX suspension was even worse than the 900/9-3  

  . [/qb][/b]

With the WRX he had a good chassis to begin with...
With the 900/9-3 they had a 10 year old GM chassis to start with... do the maths!

Pity it's not on sale here... looking for something fun to drive

 

[9-3-LPT]

StanleyB,

You should drive a 10 years old Opel Vectra to see where Saab was coming from.
They did an impressive job on the NG900 and especially the classic 9-3 which has better suspension than the NG900 IMO
Keep in mind that with the Opel chassis Saab had to work from, they couldn't improve the suspension further than they did without negatively impacting the crumple zone for good crash test ratings.
There was a tradeoff between passive safety and precise steering, Saab chose the former.
Newer platforms are not as sensitive to this tradeoff (see the very precise 9-3SS steering and its good crash tests)
Companies like Honda have also had to drop their famous double wishbones on older models for more conventional and less precise mcpherson struts upfront to improve their crashworthiness.