Left-field choices for young drivers

Oh I get that, just saying though, for some reason a Saab convertible is cool. As long as it's navy blue of course. Old Merc convertibles can be too mind you, as long as they are burgundy red.

My Westfield was a joyous thing, but it could be embarrassing in the wrong circumstances.

Anyway, just buy it, looks a good 'un. WCPGW?
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I could tell you more about it if you wanted? Not sure that I've ever mentioned it much?
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Hence allegedly popular with architects.  Think you can take that both ways. But that was always the impression; driven by technically competent designerish people.  But once they became Vauxhalls in drag the writing was on the wall.

The 900 would have been so  much better based upon an Accord rather than a Vectra.

Saabs were a viable choice right through the 1990s and still available in 2002, when I made the jump to Volvo — although, by then, not to me under a revised company car scheme. I had thoroughly liked and enjoyed my two hatchback Saabs, a ‘GM’ 900 and the superficially similar but much-improved 9-3 that followed. People who deride these cars as ‘Cavaliers’ clearly haven’t had one, because all the human-centred Saab qualities are present and correct.

But I probably wouldn’t have had a new 9-3 anyway, partly because the new car needed to be diesel and Saab’s bought-in diesel engine was terrible, and partly because Saab’s GM masters were intent on losing their distinctiveness by making the 9-3 a me-too saloon like Audi’s. So I registered my own protest by choosing someone else’s saloon car (because my budget wouldn’t run to a Volvo estate) but with a much, much better diesel engine. And I kept it for 13 years.

But it wasn’t really till Audi produced the five-door A5 (a car I don’t actually like very much) that there was a big, smart hatchback in the 900 mould. (Trouble with Audis is they’re just too damn mainstream these dats.) And I’d nominate the BMW 330i GT as the closest to a 900 you can buy today, with the bonus of much more passenger space in the back. I may even buy one — although I have no reason yet to consider replacing the CLS and, by the time I do, there’ll be a viable electric option from someone.

The 850 was also the first Volvo with a five-cylinder engine, which set the pattern for the next 25 years.

Oddly, though, you don’t see so many about these days. Still plenty of 740s and 940s.

But I think what kept Volvo afloat was Ford’s money and access to the Focus platform. It let them develop competitive smaller offerings that were actually nice to drive while being distinctive from the mainstream — and yet not cannibalizing Volvo’s market for its larger cars. A V50 of that era was still recognizably a Volvo inside, but if you wanted the full-Volvo seats and interior, you still had to buy a 60, 70 or 80. Saab, by contrast, was reduced by GM to putting Astra instruments into the 9-3. They did their best, but they hardly had a chance.

Oh God here we go I'm searching Autotrader for SAABs again.

Three years with a Navara and I could have that, free...
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