Back in August Hennessey unveiled the Blackbird, a new hypercar inspired by the SR-71 spy plane. We looked back on other cars inspired by aircraft, prompting a chorus of: "What about Saab?!"
This much missed Swedish car maker wasn't merely inspired by planes but had in fact originated in the aeronautical industry and often premised marketing material on its continued connection to the skies.
The Svenska Aeroplan Aktie Bolaget (or 'Swedish Aeroplane Corporation') was founded by historic armaments maker Bofors in 1937 as war loomed ever larger over Europe. It combined two firms from Trollhättan (in the south-west) and Linköping (the south-east) to supply the national air force with fighters and bombers.
Diversification was deemed necessary come 1945, and so wing engineer Gunnar Ljungström was tasked with leading the creation of a 'volks-wagen' – presumably due to his previous experience of developing transmissions for Standard Triumph and Rover.
"I was only as much of a car enthusiast as boys are generally," said Ljungström. "Of our 15 staff, perhaps two of us had driving licences." Little wonder that, as we found in 1949, the resultant 92 "owes a lot to its aircraft upbringing", being "typified by its pear-drop styling, which has been adopted to allow the car to slice through the atmosphere", and "having an extremely light, rigid body and no chassis in the normal sense".
It was also very carefully stressed – not a priority for other car makers. We concluded that Ljungström's team were "to be congratulated on a really intelligent attempt to produce a small, inexpensive car which, in the words of the high-pressure salesman, 'has everything'".
From 1960, Saab adverts included the distinctive shape of the Draken, linking the supersonic fighter to the new 96's "sleek, aerodynamic lines, its tremendous strength and its incredibly efficient engine". From 1964, more technology transfusion was to be found in its "super-safe" new braking system of "dual independent master cylinders with hydraulic lines that diagonally connect the front and rear wheels".
Trollhättan itself benefited likewise: we reported that the plant's fuel systems testing unit "has been specially built so that in the event of an explosion the walls will blow outwards, a method used in the company's aircraft division at Linköping". Very reassuring...
Aerodynamics remained an unusually high priority for Saab: thanks to its wind tunnel use, the 99 of 1967 scored a drag coefficient of 0.37, compared with 0.40-0.45 for most contemporary European saloons, while its profile was shaped to "position the centre of sidewind pressure as close as possible to the centre of gravity and thus reduce angular disturbances".
The interiors (or should that be cockpits?) were similarly unorthodox in their layouts. "Instruments with round dials are fitted as standard in aircraft to display important information that must be noted quickly," explained Saab when promoting its mid-1980s 900.
"Tests have shown that it is easier to observe changes in the position of a large pointer quickly and correctly by peripheral vision than it is to observe changes in figures displayed in a digital instrument." The firm was really pushing the aeronautical angle in its advertising at this time, cleverly pairing its Mach 2 Viggen with the slogan: "Nothing on earth comes close."
"While our air colleagues enjoy talking about being one up on Jaguars, Phantoms and MiG-23s, we think you'll enjoy being one up on Jaguars, BMWs and all those GTI-badged hatchbacks," it said. Mind you, as reader Ian Pinkney pointed out, the Viggen's turbofan was actually made by rival Volvo.
Nevertheless, Saab GB boss Allan Smith told us that "independent research shows we succeeded" with this exciting imagery. Questioning how much truth was behind it, we were assured by technical chief Stig-Göran Larsson that Trollhättan's aerodynamicists always sent their work to Linköping for checking; the cutting-edge Cray supercomputer there was borrowed "whenever its power and speed are needed to solve some particularly complicated problem"; and it had shared information on composite materials for use on car parts.
"So don't dismiss the Saab 900 which appears to turn into a roaring Viggen fighter," we concluded. "The links do exist."