Supercar minnow swallows Saab

SPORTSCAR-maker to the rich and famous, Koenigsegg, will take control of fellow Swedish car-maker Saab Automobile from General Motors under the terms of a memorandum of understanding announced today.

Producing fewer than 20 top-end supercars a year at a factory employing just 45 people in southern Sweden, Koenigsegg Automobile AB will close the deal to buy Saab – which employs about 3400 people and makes 93,000 cars – once details have been sorted later this year.

The sale will be funded by a $US600 million ($A757 million) loan from the European Investment Bank, guaranteed by the Swedish government.

Saab is the third GM brand to be dispatched in a week, with Hummer being swallowed by a Chinese engineering company and Saturn going to US motor industry and transport mogul Roger Penske.

The next shoe to drop will be the biggest – GM Europe’s Opel and Vauxhall. Canadian-based automotive supplier and contract assembler Magna International is believed to be the frontrunner to buy the European operation, with support from Russian interests, including car-maker Gaz.

From top: Koenigsegg CCX Edition, Koenigsegg Quant electric concept at Geneva, Saab 9-3 Convertible.

Announcing the “tentative” Saab deal, GM said it would continue to provide Saab with architecture and powertrain technology for a defined period, which it did not specify.

It said Saab planned to produce its next-generation Saab 9-5 in the Saab production facility at Trollhättan, Sweden, adding that other models were in the pipeline.

GM Europe president Carl-Peter Forster described the sale of Saab to Koenigsegg as another significant step in the reinvention of GM and its European operations.

“Closing this deal represents the best chance for Saab to emerge a stronger company,” he said.

“Koenigsegg Group's unique combination of innovation, entrepreneurial spirit and financial strength, combined with Koenigsegg's proven ability to create world-class Swedish performance cars in a highly efficient manner, made it the right choice for Saab, as well as for General Motors."The purchase of Saab marks a dramatic rise for Koenigsegg founder Christian von Koenigsegg, 36, who founded the sportscar company in 1994 at the age of 22, sketching the designs himself.

The automaker's website says von Koenigsegg began dreaming of creating sports cars at the age of five, when he watched a Norwegian cartoon about a bicycle repairman who builds a race car.

Last year, the company made just 18 cars at its factory on a former air force base at Angelholm, on the Swedish south coast.

Its top-of-the-range 400km/h-plus Koenigsegg CCXR is regarded as one of the world’s most powerful production cars, propelled by 750kW when running on E85 biofuel.

It is also one of the fastest cars in the world, rivalled only by the Bugatti Veyron. The CCXR can accelerate from zero to 100km/h in 3.1 seconds, and hit 200km/h in 13.7 seconds.

The hand-built cars command between $1.3 million and $1.6 million, depending on specification, and, naturally, must be pre-ordered.

The company also keeps an eye on the environment, not only designing all its cars to run on E85 ethanol-petrol blend, but also to achieve remarkable fuel economy for a supercar.

Koenigsegg also hopes to build electric sportscars, unveiling the sleek 275km/h Quant at this year’s Geneva motor show.

The sale of loss-making Saab was a key plank of GM’s plan to restructure the company after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 1.

Saab also has been in bankruptcy protection as GM tried to find a buyer. It announced recently that it had whittled down the bidders to a field of three.

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