Page 11
kinds of cars that they haven't time. Others
are reluctant to blend style and aerodynamics
Still others lack the talent and know-how to
do this work. SAAB works on one model at a
time, is willing to try new things, and
possesses all the skills required
A good shape avails little if it's poorly fin-
ished. SAAB's standards of paintwork appear-
ance would do credit to the makers of a much
more costly car. I overheard this conversation
in the paint shop:
“They say in some factories the inspector
isn't supposed to get closer to the car than
eight feet away, that whatever he can't see
from there should be accepted. But ours
don’t do it that way."
“That's right. The other day we repaired a
fault under the nose of a 99. You couldn't
possibly have seen it unless you were about
to be run over.’
That's one more reason why the new SAABs
look so good.
‘It may surprise you to learn that not
all manufacturers shape a new model
with such loving care.”
9
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10
Will my family be safe ina SAAB?
The SAAB 99 may be one of the most comfort-
able small cars in the world in which to have
a head-on collision. You weren't planning on
having one? The 99 may also offer you the
best possible chance of avoiding an accident
before it happens.
Most manufacturers today claim they
invented auto safety before the first glint ap-
peared in Ralph Nader's eye. In SAAB's case,
this happens to be true. Before there were any
Federal requirements, the cars from Troll-
hattan had complete harnesses, fail-safe brak-
ing systems, and structural strength that
exceeds present standards. But SAAB, like
other makers abroad, also believes in safety
through crash prevention.
Stopping has a lot to do with avoiding an ac-
cident, and it's a strong point of the 99. With
four-wheel disc brakes, big ones like those
used on racing cars, the 99 has as much brak-
ing power as its tires can transmit to the road.
Four fifths of the braking force is applied by
the front wheels, so the rear wheels won't
lock up on a sudden stop. This means the 99
will always stop straight, without dangerous
tail-sliding that could take you into another
lane.
Since it's attached to the front brakes,
instead of the rear ones as in most cars, the
mechanical hand brake is an effective extra
means for slowing down the 99. Working
through miniature drum brakes inside the
hubs of the discs, the hand brake also helps a
lot on slippery surfaces, acting as a limited
slip differential to pull out of slick spots when
it's gently applied.
SAAB's 99 declared war on brake failure. A
vacuum power booster is standard equipment,
to help keep pedal pressure moderate. But the
amount of help provided was deliberately
held down, lower than it could have been, so
you wouldn't be startled by a sudden “hard-
ening” of the pedal if the booster should fail.
The hydraulic brake lines, zinc-coated for
corrosion resistance, are routed to the rear
wheels inside the body, along the left-hand
sill. They're well protected from salt and
stone attacks.
Most cars have only one brake line going to
the rear; SAAB has two. This costs more, but
it makes possible the car's unique diagonal
fail-safe stopping system. If a failure occurs at
one wheel, the one diagonally opposite is also
affected. With this unique arrangement,
there's always braking power at both ends
and both sides of the chassis. This helps both
the 96 and 99 stop straight if there's been a
failure, especially on slippery roads.
Of course SAABs have a steering column
that’s designed so it won't intrude deeply into
the cockpit in a crash. On the 99 it’s helped by
a pair of universal joints placed so the column
will tend to “fold.” They use a special kind of
column, though, one that’s designed so it can
Page 13
be tried out before it's installed so they can be
certain it will collapse correctly. Every single
column installed in a SAAB car is checked in
this way.
With its 15-inch wheels, the 99 comes
equipped, at no extra cost, with tires which
are safe throughout its whole range of possible
speeds and loads. The wheels are outstanding
too. An outside wheel maker, one of the big-
gest, tested some SAAB wheels and offered
some advice based on the tests. The conversa-
tion went something like this:
“You know, your wheels stand up unusually
well. Their resistance to fatigue failure is very
high. We might be able to suggest some places
where you could lighten them and save some
money...”
“Yes, we know. But we'd rather not change
them.”
Should you have an accident, you'll be well
off in a SAAB. The company built a barrier
for testing as soon as there were standards
for one, and as long ago as 1966 they crashed
their first 99 prototype to find out how strong
it was. They've also conducted rear-end col-
lision tests and an inverted-car drop test
that's brutal.
In the drop test, a perfectly good SAAB is
suspended, roof down, two meters or almost
80 inches above a concrete floor. Then it's
dropped. Down it plummets, reaching a speed
of 14 miles per hour, crashing heavily on its
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12
roof. SAAB engineers speak with awe of the
results: “Some cars are absolutely flat after-
ward! The dropped 99 has a flattened roof
line, but the passenger compartment remains
completely intact.
SAAB uses a trick to survive this test. The
trick is a windshield pillar that's one of the
strongest known. Inside the pillar is a shaped,
thick-walled tube that extends down, inside
the body, to the front wheel houses. The end
of each tube fits in a cup in a heavy load-
spreading plate that's spot-welded, at ten
points, to the wheel house. It’s capable of ab-
sorbing terrific impact, from the front quarters
as well as vertically.
Other invisible safety factors are built into
the 99 body. Its sills, below the doors, are un-
usually strong. Beneath the front seat there's
a heavy crossmember that helps prevent in-
trusion from the sides. At the rear, the fuel
tank is placed beneath the floor of the trunk,
where its contents can be kept well outside the
car. Safety, it seems, is just another feature of
the SAAB, supplied as standard equipment.
Quite a letdown. The 99's rafters are bent but
not broken by a carefully instrumented drop test
that simulates an impact on the roof that's far
more violent than a rollover, for
example, could produce
Page 18
Doesn'ta small car like the SAAB feel “funny’ on the road
Some designers think driving a car should be
work. They favor cramped seats, lots of noise,
odd weight distribution and kinky suspen-
sions to give the driver plenty to do. The
Swedes, with one of the highest standards of
living in the world, have outgrown this non-
sense. They feel a car should follow its own
nose, at least part of the time, without con-
stant correction from the pilot. That's why
American cars are very popular in Sweden.
In many ways the 99 has the substantial feel
of a bigger car than it actually is. We've already
seen how good aerodynamics contribute to
its stability. Weight distribution helps too.
The 99 has 61 percent of its weight on the
front wheels, which is to say that the arrow
is weighted in the right place. American cars
are balanced the same way.
If you put the weight at one end of the car
and try to drive the wheels at the other end,
though, you have a bad combination, with
poor traction and unpredictable handling.
That's why all SAABs, starting with the first
one in 1946, have had front-wheel drive.
That's also why the Olds Toronado and Cadil-
lac Eldorado, two of America's most capable—
and most costly—cars, are driven through the
front wheels.
Front-wheel drive is expensive. Some de-
signers have tried to prove it isn’t, but failed.
It needs four universal joints in the drive line,
while a conventional car needs only two. The
joints are all special ones, very costly, the in-
ner ones to allow the drive shafts to change
length and the outer ones to transmit the
torque smoothly even when the front wheels
are turned sharply. Front hubs, suspension,
engine mounts all need special attention when
the front wheels are driven.
Even though there's no driven rear axle, a
front-drive car still needs a rear suspension,
and not necessarily a cheaper one. In fact,
SAAB has given the 99 a costly and sophisti-
cated rear suspension, one that actually
“thinks” to give the car consistent handling
whether it's empty or fully loaded.
Here's how it works. The rear wheels are
carried on a tubular axle. Linkages at each
end cause the axle to twist a little when the
car leans in a corner, making it act as a bar
resisting the car's rolling, tending also to re-
duce the power of the tires at the back to grip
the road. The linkage geometry is such that
the effect of the bar is reduced as the rear of
the car is pressed down by added cargo, re-
storing cornering grip as needed to cope with
the additional load.
This suspension is very clever. It endows
the 99 with handling that's almost exactly
the same whether the car's lightly or heavily
laden. Such solutions aren't arrived at by
chance. They're the work of engineers like
Rolf Mellde, chief engineer in charge of de-
velopment forSAAB, and Gunnar Ljungstrém,
his counterpart in charge of design. Mellde is
one of those rare designers in the world auto
industry capable of driving his creations right
to the limit of their abilities, in rallies and
races as well as on the road.
Rolf Mellde does not ignore reality. If he
were designing an out-and-out racing car
he'd probably give it rear-wheel drive, for best
results with super-high power and a skilled
driver at the wheel. But he believes that front
drive, the more costly solution, is the right
one for a family car driven by an average
driver over different kinds of roads in varying
weather conditions. As long as SAAB can af-
Page 19
16
least one production car on the road running
up 100,000 kilometers on the clock, 62,000
miles. These long-distance cars are driven in
two shifts, around the clock.
When the last zeros click into place, these
cars will be totally disassembled, their parts
scattered in an orderly style, each one meas-
ured and evaluated. Data gathered this way
will be used to improve both materials and
methods. But this is more than a dry technical
exercise. All the car's repair, maintenance and
fuel costs will be tallied using the same yard-
sticks an owner would. SAAB engineers get
a direct reading on whether or not their cars
are actually delivering Total Economy.
One other final check on production qual-
ity is made. As in most factories, each SAAB
is “driven” on a set of rollers indoors, at the
end of the assembly line, to see if everything
works right. The roller test is useful, quick
and convenient, and SAAB is satisfied with
the results it gives, But to be sure that the test-
ers don’t lose touch with reality, they're in-
structed to take every tenth car for a run on
a five-mile road course near the plant. That
gives them a frequent refresher on how the
roller results relate to behavior on the road.
In design, as well as materials and produc-
tion, money was spent on the SAAB to save
you money. All SAAB cars, for example, are
equipped with free-wheeling, a feature that
used to be a costly extra on American cars.
Free-wheeling is a lot like an automatic
clutch, one that releases the drive to the
wheels whenever the engine speed drops.
When you step down on the throttle, it en-
gages again.
A simple and service-free device, free-
wheeling offers these advantages:
1. Shifting is easier. You can upshift and
downshift without using the clutch.
2. Both the clutch and the transmission
will last longer, the latter because the
free-wheel relieves the transmission gears
of stresses from the rotating clutch mass.
3. Because the free-wheel provides auto-
matic “coasting)’ it extends fuel mileage
from 5 to 8 percent.
4. Many safety experts say the safest thing
to do when a car begins to skid is to de-
clutch, to separate the engine from the
drive. The free-wheel does this auto-
matically.
Some people don’t understand the free-wheel.
They leave its control handle in the locked-out
position and never know it's there. But those
who try it find it another aid to Total Economy
of driving.
SAAB spent more money than it had to
on another design feature, one that saves you
money in the long run. When it started to work
on the 99's engine, it tested power units used
by many other makers. Among the facts that
emerged was the durability of engines with
overhead camshafts. Those with overhead
cams would always run longer between valve
adjustments than engines with pushrods and
rockers, as far as 50,000 to 60,000 miles with
no attention if they were adjusted correctly to
start with.
That's why an overhead camshaft is a prom-
inent feature of the 99 engine. It's not used to
reach astronomical speeds or open super-large
valves, as it would be in the racing engines on
which it's a normal feature. The expensive
chain-driven overhead camshaft is there, like
so many other parts of this car’s equipment, to
make the purchase of a SAAB 99 a sound in-
vestment, not just a good buy.
Page 20
“SAAB designed the 99 for people who
keep track of what their driving costs.”