Who Owns Saab?
When the final Saab was produced in 2014, the company was owned by the Chinese-Swedish investment group National Electric Vehicle Sweden.
Written by Samuel Todd
Reviewed by Jessica Barrett
Table of Contents
- Who owns Saab?
- Why did Saab go out of business?
- Where were Saabs made?
- A short history of Saab ownership
- How to easily save money on car insurance
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After Saab closed its doors in 2011, it was bought by the Chinese-Swedish investment group National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS). Though NEVS tried to revive the Saab brand, it ran out of money in 2014—the last year that a Saab vehicle was officially produced.
As one of their most popular slogans put it, Saab was “Born From Jets”—and the sublime engineering of their cars proves that it’s true. In the 90s, Saab was so elite as a carmaker that James Bond traded in his Bentley for a Saab 900 Turbo. Then, just two decades later, Saab had almost completely vanished from the face of the earth.
So, what happened? We’ll give you a brief history of Saab ownership, explain how the company met its untimely end.
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Who owns Saab?
When Saab officially went defunct, it was owned by NEVS, a Chinese-backed Swedish automaker. Though NEVS has found some success in recent years as a manufacturer of all-electric cars, they couldn’t resurrect the dying Saab brand.
If you’re still seeing the Saab logo in your day-to-day life, though, you’re not alone! Not only are some of its cars—especially the
luxurious 9-3 model
—still on the streets today, but the aerospace company that founded Saab, Saab AB, is alive and thriving in the defense sector.Why did Saab go out of business?
In a nutshell, Saab went out of business because it failed to break out of its niche as a producer of elite, luxury sedans. The brand was reluctant to introduce crossovers or SUVs into its lineup, so it never produced enough vehicles to achieve widespread success.
Diversification wasn’t the only area where Saab struggled—the brand was also set back by some costly legal problems. Before NEVS acquired Saab, it passed through the hands of several owners, including General Motors and Spyker N.V.
When NEVS tried to revive the brand, General Motors stopped them from using some of Saab’s patented technology, which was a serious blow to the NEVS production line. On top of that, Scania AB didn’t allow NEVS to use Saab’s trademark griffin logo, fearing that the logo would lose value if it were mass-produced.
All in all, Saab was discontinued because it couldn’t break into the mainstream market under GM’s ownership, and financial and legal troubles stopped NEVS from resurrecting the brand.
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Where were Saabs made?
The vast majority of Saab cars were produced in Trollhättan, Sweden. The Trollhättan assembly opened in 1947 and the first car to roll off the production line was a dark green Saab 92—an aerodynamic, front-wheel drive passenger car.
Originally, NEVS had planned to build Saab cars at their Tianjin Factory in China. However, when their project of rebuilding Saab fell short, they shifted the focus of the factory to electric vehicle components for major automakers like
Volkswagen
. Key Takeaway Back when Saabs were still in production, they were built almost exclusively at the Trollhättan plant in Sweden—a testament to their authentic Swedish origins.
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Start earning nowA short history of Saab ownership
In 1945, Swedish aerospace and defense company Saab AB started a secret project, given the codename X9248. The mission? Building an automobile design that was worthy of the cutting-edge Saab name.
Four years later, the Saab 92 was released, and the Saab legacy was off and running. Though you might not be able to tell by looking at it, the Saab 92 was hyper-modern for its time, with a design that cut through crosswinds without a problem.
Over the next few decades, Saab continued to refine and perfect its models, selling hundreds of thousands of cars, including the Saab 92, 96, 99, and 900. Then, between 1989 and 2000, American multinational corporation General Motors purchased the growing company.
Hoping to spur sales, GM introduced two major models to the American market: the Saab 9-2X (based on the
Subaru Impreza
) and the Saab 9-7X (based on the Chevy Trailblazer
). Unfortunately, both models were critical and commercial failures, failing to generate significant sales in America.In 2010, GM initiated the sale of Saab to the Dutch company Spyker N.V., but the sale was bogged down by funding concerns. Finally, in 2012, NEVS purchased Saab’s remaining assets.
The rest, as you know, is history: NEVS was unable to rejuvenate the Saab brand, and the Saab name remains a fragment of Swedish car-making history to this day.
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