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Welcome to SAAB-90.com, a site dedicated to the least popular car SAAB have ever made.
Probably...

If you've heard of the 90, the chances are it's from one place. The 90 achieved notoriety by being covered by the same Haynes
manual as the popular 99 and 900 models. (Parents to the freakish love child 90). Well, the theory behind this site is to tell anyone who wants to know, what the 90 is really about. Basically, the fun of the 99, welded to the practicality of the 900 saloon.

When I first started looking for information on the 90, I realised there really is NOTHING available. Even the official SAAB history on their website gives away little. It's like the car is an embarrassment to everyone concerned! But I see it as a triumph. Not the classic British sportscar manufacturer, but a real tribute to the SAAB ethos. SAABs have a reputation among non-SAAB lovers as being a bit stodgy, bland and "old-mannish", and the 90 seems to be viewed in this way, even by SAAB enthusiasts. But of course this opinion, in both cases is mainly drawn through ignorance. The idea of taking the front end of one car, and the back end of another and essentially welding them together to fill a model-gap seems like a cop-out. Like there's no thought gone into it. But if you take the 2 cars involved, you can see what the designers might have been thinking. How could it fail? The best parts of two great cars put together. There's even the potential there to exceed the sum of it's parts! The 99 was a good car. The 900 was essentially an improved version, but it suffered slightly because it became bigger and heavier. The 90 was an attempt to reap some of the benefits of the all-new 900, but to remove some of the issues which may have been discouraging 99 owners from upgrading. And there's nothing wrong with the car in it's own right either! People seem to think it looks out of proportion, and it's unbalanced, but if you take it as a separate car in it's own right, it looks fine. It's only when you've got the image of the 900's sleek, long front end that you start to think it looks snub-nosed, and it's certainly no pig to drive. Anyway, rant over, for now...

Anyway, with a little digging, I'm starting to uncover facts and figures that seem to have been buried for years. The performance figures are courtesy of a copy of Car magazine from 1985 that I picked up from an Antique shop for 40p. I found out from the SAAB Owner's Club that there are only 38 '90's registered to the club. I'm still trying to find out how many are actually still on the road, but 38!?

The quintessential Saab. Innovative, quirky, and disliked by some, but loved by others. Well me, anyway...