SAAB 9-7X

First thought about the 9-7X: Well, so much for Saab. It's become just another beggar on General Motors' bread line.


Second thought: Don't be a Saab snob.

Since GM bought Saab a few years ago, purists have been bemoaning what they see as the inevitable spiritual suffocation of the spunky little Swedish firm. This is just goopy nostalgia. Sure, there was a time when jellybean-shaped Saabs looked like nothing else, won major rallies, and were the favorites of the sandals-and-granola set. But that was in the misty past. Saab joined the mainstream more than 20 years ago--Giorgetto Giugiaro's Italdesign inked most of the Saab 9000, for instance--and to survive in today's merciless marketplace, Saab's choice was to dip into GM's deep pockets or simply disappear. It's just business, as they said in The Godfather.

Still, during its independent run, Saab did earn a reputation for simplicity, functionality, safety, and a certain amiable eccentricity. The challenge for the Swedes still toiling in Trollhättan, Saab's home office, and its new masters in Detroit, was how to combine these abstractions with GM's hardware.


How well did this polyglot bunch succeed with Saab's first SUV, the 9-7X? About as well as could be expected--and maybe even a little better.


Purists would hold that Saab has no business making an SUV. Saab holds that if it doesn't make an SUV, it might have no business. According to Sean McNamara, the company's U.S. group product manager, 30 percent of Saab owners leave the brand to buy SUVs, 40 percent also have SUVs in their garages, and Saab dealers have long been pleading for an SUV. Hence the 9-7X.


It's no secret that the five-passenger 9-7X is based on the GMT360 platform (GM's code for the underpinnings of the Chevrolet TrailBlazer, GMC Envoy, and others). And there's no shame in that. This body-on-frame combo is as tough as Stonewall Jackson's horse (check it out: Little Sorrel stands stuffed and glass-eyed in the Virginia Military Institute Museum) and is about as good as this configuration gets.

The 9-7X also inherits a couple of tried-and-true GM engines, offering the choice of either a 290-hp, 4.2-liter inline six-cylinder or a 300-hp, 5.3-liter V-8 with GM's Displacement on Demand, which saves fuel by deactivating some cylinders at cruising speeds. Either motor provides quick getaway, plenty of passing power, quiet cruising, and torque enough to tow a lot.


To Saab-up the GMT360, the company's senior designer, Simon Padian--a Brit, incidentally--sloped the hood, rounded the nose, and added Saab's trademark trapezoidal grille. He forswore side cladding, blacked out the D-pillar, dropped the body an inch, and specified 18-inch alloy wheels with Dunlop P255/55R-18 tires. The dashboard was redesigned to mirror a Saab sedan's, as were the leather seats and various fittings. And the ignition key was moved to Saab's traditional location between the front seats. The effect of these and other detail changes is to give the 9-7X a more than passable Saab look and ambiance.

On the mechanical side, Per Jansson--finally, a Swede!--pretty much emptied the suspension engineers' bag of tricks to give the 9-7X more accurate handling and a taut ride and to generally trim off the flab from the GMT360's American-style mushiness. Among the numerous minor (but noticeable in their aggregate) changes are firmer shocks, springs, and control-arm bushings; revised front-suspension geometry; quicker steering (the ratio was lowered to 18.5:1 from 20.3:1); and an increase in the front anti-roll-bar diameter to 1.4 inches from 1.3. Several changes to the braking system, including a switch to stiffer cast-iron calipers, make a huge difference in pedal feel and the ability to modulate braking more precisely.


The sum total of these quantum design and engineering changes is a truck with a distinct character. Keeping in mind that this is still an SUV, the 9-7X's steering is not in the least bit vague, the ride is pleasingly firm, body roll in turns is well controlled, and interior accommodations are suitably Euro-lux. Is that enough to warrant calling the 9-7X a Saab? Yah, sure!