Why am I on a car kick this week?
Just read an interesting blog over at the New York Times: “Saab’s Owners Offer a Peek Into Its Future.”
I’ve had a soft-spot in my heart for Saabs since the late 1980s when my folks first got one, and then a 1991 Saab 900S was my first car out of college. Just this weekend I saw a beautiful convertible tooling around Portland and I got a twinge of jealousy.
Anyway, the article says that Saab’s new owner, Spyker Cars, needs to sell 85,000 cars worldwide by 2012 to break-even.
At first that didn’t sound like a lot, until I saw recent production numbers – Saab produced 94,751 cars worldwide in 2008, but only 20,791 last year.
My skeptical mind noted that the first number, 85,000 is “sales” while the second set of numbers is “production”. Perhaps misdirection or perhaps just available figures, you can decide.
Either way, Saab has an uphill battle, I hope they can figure this out.
