BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO SAAB

From greatest hits to lowest moments, everything you ever wanted to know... and a fair bit you didn’t

- SAM BURNETT & GREG POTTS

What's Saab and when did it start making cars?

Saab Automobile was started in 1945 by Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget (Swedish Aeroplane Corporation), or Saab. With plane demand tailing off after World War Two, Saab diversified into cars, its first model - the 92 - arriving in December 1949. Initial cars were all green as there was a job lot of camo paint left over.

Saab merged with truck maker Scania in 1969 and came under the authority of Sweden's powerful, filthy-rich Wallenberg dynasty. A deal with Fiat saw a lot of rebadging activity in the Seventies, but the firm's iconic 900 model arrived in 1978 - over a million of them would end up getting built.

Saab was separated off in 1989, 50 per cent each for General Motors and the Wallenbergs, then GM bought the lot in 2000. This era meant sharing bits with Vauxhalls, but GM never got to grips with its Swedish offshoot and the company went into administration in 2009. Koenigsegg stepped in, but the deal fell through. Saab was sold to Dutch sports car outfit Spyker in 2010, then Chinese and Russian investors got involved and GM refused to continue providing its engineering. Saab died in 2014, and despite the efforts of a Chinese consortium in the late 2010s, remains firmly expired.

What's the cheapest car that Saab builds... and what's the most expensive?

Sadly you can't buy yourself a new Saab anywhere what with the company having gone out of business a decade ago, but a quick look on car buying website Auto Trader sees some very nice 9-3 convertibles for sale around the £500 mark. You can't expect anything too fancy, though, and also don't expect to find too many parts around these days unless you're prepared to root around in scrapyards. A 150,000-mile model from 2002 in black caught our eye in Manchester, although the advert does say that the clutch is slipping.