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Saab fans buy last car off the production line

Saab enthusiasts have confirmed that they have collected the funds required to purchase the last Saab 9-3 manufactured in the now defunct Saab factory in Trollhättan in western Sweden.

Saab fans buy last car off the production line
Screenshot: Saabs United

The Saab United blog launched the funding drive in a bid to assemble the more than 200,000 kronor ($29,330) required to purchase the vehicle.

“We, the fans set out on a mission to buy a car, and not just any car, we set out to buy the last of a production series, the last Saab 9-3 Griffin,” a post on the Saabs United blog on Friday explained.

“And we have done it. Today we passed the amount required.”

More than 600 diehard Saab fans have assisted in the collection of the money which will be duly converted to Swedish kronor and transferred to a Swedish bank in order to pay the invoice from ANA, the firm responsible for selling the vehicle.

The Saab 9-3 will however not be destined for a life on the open road and will in due course be donated to the Saab Museum in Trollhättan.

Saabs United stated that the donations page on their website will be kept open for a “little while longer” promising to donate any extra money left over after the purchase of the car to the Saab Museum.

Saabs United was begun in February 2005 and was previously owned by Steven Wade, an Australian who later secured a post at the Swedish firm after the takeover by Spyker. It has since been taken over by Tim Rokka.

Saab Automobile petitioned for bankruptcy in the Swedish courts in December 2011 following the failure of a Chinese consortium to complete a takeover.

India’s Mahindra and Mahindra, and China’s Youngman, are the latest Asian firms to be linked with a prospective buyout of the loss-making Swedish firm.

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CARS

Former Swedish Saab bosses appear in court

Swedish car maker Saab's former CEO Jan Åke Jonsson and the firm's former head lawyer Kristina Geers have appeared in court in Vänersborg in west Sweden, accused of falsifying financial documents shortly before the company went bankrupt in 2011.

Former Swedish Saab bosses appear in court
Saab's former CEO Jan Åke Jonsson. Photo: Karin Olander/TT
The pair are accused of falsifying the paperwork at the height of the Swedish company's financial difficulties at the start of the decade.
 
A third person – who has not been named in the Swedish media – is accused of assisting them by issuing false invoices adding up to a total of 30 million kronor ($3.55m).
 
According to court documents, the charges relate to the firm's business in Ukraine and the paperwork in question was signed just before former CEO Jan Åke Jonsson resigned.
 
Both Jonsson and Saab's former head lawyer Kristina Geers have admitted signing the papers but denied knowledge of the Ukranian firm implicated in the case.
 
All three suspects deny all the charges against them.
 

Saab's former head lawyer Kristina Geers. Photo:  Björn Larsson Rosvall/TT
 
Saab filed for bankruptcy at the end of 2011, after teetering on the edge of collapse for nearly two years.
 
Chief prosecutor Olof Sahlgren told the court in Vänersborg on Wednesday that the alleged crimes took place in March 2011, when Saab was briefly owned by the Dutch company Spyker Cars.
  
It was eventually bought by National Electric Vehicle Sweden (Nevs), a Chinese-owned company after hundreds of staff lost their jobs.
 
The car maker, which is based in west Sweden, has struggled to resolve serious financial difficulties by attracting new investors since the takeover.
 
In October 2014 it announced it had axed 155 workers, close to a third of its workforce.
 
Since 2000, Saab automobile has had no connection with the defence and aeronautics firm with the same name. It only produces one model today, the electric 9-3 Aero Sedan, mainly targeting the Chinese market.