The Saab 9-3 that will never see the light of day

Saab, as we knew it, is basically dead. It was "saved" by National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), a company owned by the Chinese company, National Modern Energy Holdings, with the promise of bringing new vehicles in a near future, but for now the only thing they did was to continue producing the old Saab 9-3.

Jason Castriota, who was the big boss of Saab, was responsible for creating the successor for the 9-3, but this was a car that never got to see the daylight. Until today. Below you can now see Jason's vision, a car that was going to be built around the new and promising Phoenix platform, and had the objective of saving Saab from bankruptcy.

Overall it looks a cool mixture between the Saab Phoenix concept and a few older models (see the rear).

Source: saabworld

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The Saab 9-3 that will never be

Recently you read here that the National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), owned by the Chinese company NME Holdings Ltd., saved Saab from bankruptcy and now decided to continue the fabrication of the 9-3, and now some pictures of what the future 9-3 could have been showed up.

The pictures have a really bad quality but we can have a got idea of what Jason Castriota, which was the big boss at Saab's design team, was doing for the future 9-3. And in my opinion it wasn't a good job. While i understand the rear of the car was done in a way to remember an older Saab 900 it doesn't look good, it actually looks sad.

According to the Swedish magazine, Auto Motor und Sport, the images were revealed by a former Saab employee. This new model would debut the also new Phoenix platform that will now be used in an electric vehicle starting in 2014.

Source: automotorsport via carscoop

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Saab will continue to produce the 9-3

National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS) saved Saab from bankruptcy last year and promised to debut an electric vehicle in about 18 months with the name Saab, but it can't use the griffin logo because it is also used by Scania and Saab Aerospace Group. Now plans have been changed. While the company still wants to build electric vehicles they will first resume the production of the "old" 9-3 to prepare the company, economically and industrially, for the new electric Saab.

Starting from mid-2013 you will be able to again buy a Saab 9-3 and later in the year a 9-3X, both produced in Throllhattan, Sweden. The new EV, also built in Throllhattan, will arrive in 2014, and when the production reaches the factory limit of 120.000 units/year a new factory will be constructed in China.

I don't know if building electric vehicles is the best option for a company recovering from a bankruptcy, specially if that is the main goal. In 2012 only 110.000 electric vehicles were sold in the world.

Source: es.autoblog

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