While on your way to Detroit to save Trollhättan from the bean-counting trolls, you might as well brew a grande latte, adopt left-wing politics and raid the 80s closet for clothes.
What is it that saved Saab from becoming sixty years of Jetta-esque deathly boredom? After all, it is a make conceived by Scandinavian aircraft engineers and—like the best Citroëns—Saabs are not designed to be weird. They are instead deep exercises in engineering, very logical if you’re willing to let go of every last shred of conventional wisdom. Yet more than any Citroën, Saab has become the vehicle of choice for the coastal intelligentsia, thirsty perhaps for something weird and foreign.
Was it because Saab’s best-known American salesman was none other than Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.? Or was it the Scandinavian knack for infusing otherwise boring things with subtle fun? Like furniture. Or heavy metal.
In any case, before those susceptible to vehicular fads of the liberal type were driving Priuses, they drove Saabs. And Saabs, as you fine readers of Jalopnik are more than aware, are infinitely cooler than semi-electric wheeled pods which resemble cargo transporters on a third-grade space outpost.
For one thing, the best Saabs came with turbochargers. So to commemorate Saab as the first choice in automotive quirkiness, we took a quirky set of pictures with a quirky-colored Saab 900 Turbo. Because quirkyness is more than car-deep: it has to be reflected in the choice of shirt, tie, trousers and shoes.
Before you head off to The D in any old t-shirt and jeans, remember that’s no way to dress for a Saab. After all, who knows. Maybe saving Saab will come down to wrapping the entirety of the Renaissance Center in brown corduroy and orange-pink silk ties. And pelting the windows with shoes named after a Viennese philosopher.
Photo Credit: Natalie Polgar