By Jay Hirsch
Svenska Aeroplan Aktiebolaget, Saab Group, is a Swedish aerospace and defense company founded in 1937 in the town of Trollhattan, Sweden.
The company supplied military aircraft to the Swedish Air Force and began diversifying into civil aviation in 1944 and the automotive business in 1947, when its first car, the Saab 92, was unveiled. The 92’s streamlined, teardrop-shaped bodywork was clearly the work of aircraft engineers and radical for a small production car of the time, as was the use of wind tunnel testing during its creation.
The adoption of front-wheel drive for sure-footed handling, excellent road-holding and efficient space utilization was also unconventional for the time — more than a decade before the layout was to become popular in the rest of the auto industry
From 1947 to 1990, Saab AG was the parent company of automobile manufacturer Saab Automobile. On Dec. 12, 1949, full-scale production began on the Saab 92. The 92 had a two-cylinder, two-stroke engine with a body similar to the later Saab 93, introduced in 1957, which had the new three-cylinder, two-stroke-engine.
The 1957 Saab 93 was the first Saab to be exported from Sweden with most going to the United States. Saab was part of the European invasion of the small-fuel-stingy car. France had its Simca and Renault, England the Austin 7, known as the Mini, and from Germany the leader of this pack of small cars was the venerable Volkswagen Beetle
One of the few options on the Saab 93 was a large cloth sunroof which slid backwards on side rails in the roof. Seatbelts were also an option and took a while to catch on as car buyers of this period thought, “If the car is safely built, why do you need seatbelts?”
The 93 was styled by Swedish car designer Sixten Sason. This restyling complemented a few engineering changes from the previous and first model the Saab 92. The two-cylinder engine was now a three cylinder which developed more power at 33 hp. That may not seem like much horsepower, but the 93 weighed only 1,775 pounds and jack-rabbit starts from a traffic light were not an overall part of car culture then. A unique option on the 1957 Saab was a Fitchel & Sachs Saxomat clutch. The Saxomat enabled the driver to have clutchless gear changing between second and third gears.
Given that the engine was a two-stroke design, motor oil needed to be added to the gasoline every time the car got fuel. As a reminder, a metal tag affixed to the inside of the gas cap clearly reads: “2 cyl engine add one quart of SAE 40 oil then fill with 6.8 gallons of gasoline. SAE 30 may also be used.”
As seen in pictures of the 93, the doors are rear hinged or “suicide doors.” In 1959 the Saab would have front-hinged doors, and the two piece windshield would give way to a one-piece in September 1957.
The Saab 93 seen here is an original car except for repaint in the 1980s. The story of this Saab and its current owner Mike Dougherty goes back to Mike’s high school days in the 1970s.
A neighbor of Mike’s had a 1957 Saab that he “wanted to get rid of and was asking $150.” Mike liked that the car was different and the price was in his range. Mike’s father told him to offer $100 as the neighbor was trying to sell the car for five weeks and the few people who came and drove the car all said the same thing: “it sounds like a lawnmower,” which it did given the two-stroke motor.
Mike bought the car, and it saw him through his senior year in high school and first three years of college.
“The car was phenomenal in snow and on wet roads, too,” Mike said. “Even the few times it got stuck in snow, it was so light two people could easily push it out.”
In the Boston area where Mike went to college, this odd-looking, slow-moving car “soon got the respect of all my classmates that first winter at college. That front-drive Saab always got through when other cars died in their tracks.”
Going into Mike’s senior year, a junior who knew Mike asked him if he wanted to sell the car, since it was his last year. Mike had his eye on a 1971 Pontiac GTO, and as he did not need to drive in the snow that much replied, “Maybe. How does $200 sound?”
This was the mid-1970s, and you were talking about a car that was far from pristine but in good mechanical condition.
“How about $175?
“Sold.”
Fast track to 2001 and Mike is “successful,” not only in work but with a loving wife, a daughter and son and a nice home. He starts to indulge in his love affair with cars and motorcycles. Mike is helped along in this affair by his wife, who also has the same passion for cars.
Over the next few years, Mike acquires a few vintage Ferraris, a 1967 Corvette and two motorcycles. Some cars he has sold and moved onto other cars. But one car that has always held a warm spot in his heart was that 1957 Saab, “for the good times I had with it and when life was so simple in retrospect.” In 2004, Mike began his search for a 1957 or 1958 Saab.
In 2010, he got the name of a Saab collector in New England through a friend. Not too many people collect Saabs, and Mike knew this guy was not going to be your normal (if that exists) car collector.
Mike went to see the guy in September 2010. Summer was over and fall was making its mark felt with the early morning temperature in the low 40s at the home of the owner of the Saab. On 20 wooded-acres, the house was half a mile down a dirt road off the main two-lane paved county road. The owner was outside splitting logs when Mike arrived. He took Mike into a barn where the cars were. The barn was heated from an oil furnace. Part of the barn was petitioned with a wall, behind which was a work area with wood-working tools.
The owner, who shall remain nameless, as that is his wish and to which Mike swore not to reveal, uncovered three Saabs, one being the dark burgundy seen here. There were three other Saabs which he did not uncover. The owner told Mike that the person who told Mike about the 1957 burgundy Saab is a friend in a Saab club. This friend related Mike’s quest for a 1957 Saab.
The owner told Mike he was considering selling the Saab but not at this time. When he was ready, he would tell Mike the price and that would be the price—“NO COUNTER OFFERS.” For the next three years, Mike made periodic trips to see the owner and the Saab. Mike always came in the summer, because the 150-year-old stone house had no heat, only fireplaces and a wood burning stove. Though the barn had central heat for working, the 150-year-old house never had central heating installed. It was in the Saab owner’s family for 100 of those years.
Turns out the Saab owner is a “master carpenter, cabinet maker and builder of log homes, all done without nails or screws but with wooded dowels.”
One weekend home he was building for a well-off lawyer from Boston was nearby. He stopped working on the house because the lawyer said construction was taking longer than the two years said in the agreement. The lawyer was told by the master wood worker “go finish the house yourself and keep your money!”
Neither occurred. The house was completed a year later and the lawyer gladly paid for his work of the “art log house” with beautiful handcrafted wooden cabinets and four-posted wooden beds and, yes, the house has central heat.
Mike told me this and other stories to relate the type of true individual or character he was dealing with. The first week of March 2015, Mike got a call from the carpenter that he was ready to sell the Saab. Mike had almost given up on the car. He had seen a few other Saab 93s over the years, but none could compare to this low-mileage, well-maintained 1957. Mike made the journey to New England again. It was 32 degrees when he arrived. The owner said he should spend the night and in the morning Mike could see the Saab again and start it up, but he could not take it for a ride, as the dirt road was half mud from the melting snow and half ice from where the snow froze over. Mike told me the bedroom was literally freezing. The only warm area in the house was the kitchen with its wood burning stove and the living room where there was a six-foot-long fireplace. Both were kept going all winter long from a wood pile the length of the barn and about nine feet high.
In the morning they went into barn, the Saab had its car cover off and looked as good as it did when Mike first saw it in 2010. The owner told Mike the price and Mike readily agreed. The only drawback was that he would have to wait until May or even June to make sure the dirt road was dry and solid. “Even in April we can still get some snow here.”
After Mike gave the owner the check for the car, Mike asked him why the car was repainted in the 1980s, when everything else on the car was so good. He was told the paint was faded. Seems the original owner of the Saab never waxed it and washed it rarely.
In mid-May Mike came with a friend who had an enclosed car trailer and took the Saab 93 to its new home where it sits between his Ferrari and Jaguar.
At the first local car event Mike took the Saab to, it garnered the most attention of all the cars there. “When did you see one last” was a common comment. The rich burgundy color “almost makes the car look elegant,” one Porsche owner said.
When Mike starts the Saab and people say “that car sounds like a lawn mower,” those words are music to Mike ears.
In 1957, 1,400 Saabs were sold in the U.S. •
