welcome to wacky Wednesday's where everyone has a chance to show off their
car mods, and here's this week's winner, I want to give a thanks to Scotty Kilmer
for allowing me to show off one of my six saabs, the one I'm going to show you
is in 1986 Saab 900, it's the SPG model so let's uncover it go for a little ride
and now I'll give you a tour this car has an interesting history,
I live in Birmingham Alabama this car started out its life in Birmingham
Alabama, 1986 it was purchased at Bart Starr motors, yes that Bart Starr in 1962
Ford Thunderbird was traded in for this thing, the cost was $22,000 that's in
1986, 22,000 1986 dollars is like fifty thousand dollars today, it's a lot of
money Saab's weren't cheap, now it's a dead car
brand and you can buy them for peanuts but then you had to be a dentist or a
lawyer or a doctor or an architect or an engineer or somebody pretty well off to buy
one of these things, here in the South there weren't that many saabs, so somebody
buying one in Birmingham Alabama was kind of an unusual event, well the car
spent most of it's life in Birmingham got regular service, oil changes it's all
documented I have the paperwork for that but after a while, I guess the guy got a
hankering to move on and traded it in the car went to Mississippi for a little
while and then to Missouri, something came up with a job change and he sold it
to me, I brought it back to Birmingham I've had it for Oh probably about nine
months now, I completely renovated the interior, I reworked one of
the seats, the rest of the interior was pretty good but I ripped it all out,
pressure washed the carpets, and really spiffed it up, this really is rolling
restoration, when I got it it had some rust holes in the passenger floor pan
from a drain pan leak, had that all welded up, and reinstalled the Interior
after that, also installed some sport Springs and coney adjustable shocks, it
made a world of difference after all the old stuff was 33 years old, this thing
drives like it's on Rails now and the engine even though it's got over 270,000
miles runs great, these things are subject to cracked dashboards and the
previous owner shelled out over 2000 bucks to get a crack free dash and I'm
enjoying that right now thank you previous owner, all right some of the
quirky things about this car which makes it unique and why I like it, the ignition
is in between the seats, the vents right here don't put heat out, there fresh air
vents, I guess the engineers at Saab thought that if you were driving and the
car got to warm you'd want some fresh air in your face, a lot of people don't
know that about these cars, so it doesn't matter what you have the fan on and you
put it here it's gonna blast away another thing is this grab bar, these are
manually adjustable seats and so the front passenger has the bar to grab onto
to pull the seat forward if need be, so that's pretty neat, simple no bells and
whistles, simple elegance I call it, the Saab engineers did things for a reason
buttons and controls were put within easy reach, so you wouldn't have to take
your eye off the road, and they prioritized where they place things, for
instance the radio most often adjusting the radio is up
high, so you don't really have to deviate from the road while you're adjusting it
Saab was actually and still is an aircraft company automobiles, automobiles
they got too late in the game but this is kind of
reminiscent of a cockpit, Saab engineers were really tricky too, they made it such
that you couldn't take the key out unless the car was in reverse, I speculate
that the reason they did that primarily was that they liked to be
unique, they didn't want to be like any other car manufacturer, they claimed
though that it's a security feature and also they got the key away from your
knee in case of a crash, I think it's kind of neat having the key down there
it is kind of susceptible to spills etc but no biggie cuz Saab didn't put
cupholders in these things, well unless you consider this cup holder, I've done
my own little modification for a cup holder, and armrest
this came out of a Volvo 850, I modified it, matched the leather and it looks great
now look at that windshield, it's a wraparound windshield, the visibility in
this thing is awesome, and then the Headroom you feel like
you're driving in a airplane hangar, I'm not big but there's at least
seven or eight inches between the top of my head and the top of the roof, a
well-designed car, the Saab 900 is a car that was made by Saab Automobile from 78
until 98 two generations, first generation was from 78 and 93 and is
known as the classic such as this one here, the classic 900 is based on the
Saab 99 chassis though with a longer front-end to meet US frontal crash
regulations, the 900 was produced in two and four-door sedan and like this one
the three-door hatchback and also 5-door hatchback, additionally from 86 a
convertible was introduced, all in all nine hundred and eight thousand eight
hundred and seventeen Saab 900s were built, including forty eight thousand
eight hundred and eighty-eight convertibles
in total there are 7,621 SPG's imported into this country during their run, in 86
there were fourteen hundred ninety-eight of them, and you could get any color as
long as you chose Edwardian gray which is what this one is, being such a low
volume manufacturer any saab limited edition model is considered a rarity, the
same car in Europe was marketed as the arrow, but since GM owned the rights to
the name arrow it went by SPG special performance group in this country, these
things had no distinctive badging to identify it as an SPG, you just kind of had
to know what you were getting, and maybe Saab wanted to have a sleeper
in their fleet who knows, SPG's had some performance and appearance upgrades
in the later years of the SPG's got boost in horsepower, and also the later
years had some upgraded suspension components but in general these are the
most collectible of the 900 series, the body side panels and also the three
spoke wheels were designed to reduce drag coefficient and the top speed on
these things was somewhere around 130 miles an hour, this particular car here
has a horsepower of only 165 horses but it's no slouch, one of the neatest and
most interesting features of this car is the way this hood opens, clamshell hood
just love it, the Saab 900 is a front-engine front-wheel-drive car with
a longitudinally mounted 45 degrees slanted inline four-cylinder engine, like
its predecessor the 99 the 900 contained a number of unusual design features that
distinguish it from most other cars, firstly the engine is installed
backwards, the power delivered from the crank at the front of the car, secondly
the transmission technically a transaxle bolted directly to the bottom of the engine to
form the oil pan, the car is not large but it
has an immense interior, there is 51 cubic feet of storage back here, I've got
mine set up with the toolbox hanging off of the parcel shelf the usual place for
this is underneath floor, I did that because I also mounted my battery under
the floor in the void where the spare tire well is, look you can sleep back
here if you had to, people have been known to transport a couch or a
refrigerator in the back here, all in all the hatchback design is a very
functional interior design, these cars are appreciating in value as a matter of
fact just today on bring a trailer, a 1990 SPG fetched ten thousand five
hundred dollars, and mine is in much better shape, in 1987 the 900 underwent a
facelift with a different front, and treatment, different grille a sloping
grille and headlight arrangement, I have to mention that it's not just the cars
that make this worthwhile, it's the people involved, the groups, the forums
the other people who keep these cars going, sharing information makes it all
worthwhile so that's it,
Thank You Scotty for letting me show off my car, I know how you feel about
saabs but this one I hope will change your mind,
Saab on, what sobbing we will go Oh sobbing we will go heigh ho the derry-o
a sobbing we will go, well that was this week's video and to have your car mod
shown on my channel here, check this out so if you never want to miss another one
of my new car repair videos, remember to ring that Bell!