Saab restarting production with 9-3, including EV

If you thought Swedish car brand Saab was dead and gone, think again. The Saab 9-3 is back, with a little help from the Chinese.

According to Reuters, the 9-3 will officially resume production at Saab’s Trollhättan plant in Sweden this week. Saab has been around since its inception in 1947, but went on a steady decline in its later years before being acquired piece-meal by General Motors in 1989, who mismanaged its Swedish subsidiary further until they went bankrupt themselves during the last recession. Therefore GM sold Saab to Dutch supercar-maker Spyker in 2010, but the buyers themselves went bust a year or so later. Saab’s assets were acquired by National Electric Vehicle Sweden (NEVS), which itself is 22% owned by the Chinese city of Qingdao.

NEVS is bringing 600 of the former 3,500 workers back to the factory to resume production of the petrol-powered 9-3. The limited-production 9-3 will be sold in Sweden and China, with an electric sedan debuting sometime next year. Interestingly, we heard as early as this year that the Saab dealer in Dubai was still trying to off-load their leftovers, at unreasonable prices.