When this second-to-final model year Saab 9000 CS rolled off the assembly line in Trollhättan, South Boston’s waterfront, an area that has come to be known as the Seaport District, was little more than warehouses and empty lots for the eye can see, despite its prime location and endless potential. Right around that time in 1997, however, the Seaport’s fortunes began to change for the better. Unfortunately, as they did, Saab’s would take a turn for the worst.
Boston Seaport in mid-1990s, early-2010s, and 2017
The architecturally impressive John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse and Seaport Hotel were among the first new structures to appear, their completion right around 1998-1999, with development of the area skyrocketing at an ever exponential pace ever since. Today, the Seaport is one of Boston’s most desirable hot spots, home to numerous ultra-modern high rises, offices including global headquarters of many corporations, multi-million dollar condos, studio apartments that will run you $4,000+ per month, the Institute of Contemporary Art, upscale hotels, fine dining, and some of Boston’s hottest nightlife.
1998 was also a significant year for Saab. It marked the end of the 9000’s lengthy production, a car which despite its somewhat nontraditional Saab appearance and Type Four architecture shared with Fiat, Alfa Romeo, and Lancia, was very much a Saab-developed model, notably free from any GM involvement. All future Saabs, with the exception of the rebadged “Saabaru” 9-2X, would be based on GM cars and share more and more in common with them as the years progressed and Saab stalled out.
The parallels between what I would arguably call my favorite part of Boston and my favorite Saab are simply striking. While the Seaport boomed, Saab sadly went bust. Though the scenery may have changed, the occasional 9000 doesn’t look one bit out of place against the most contemporary of Boston’s backdrops.
Photographed in Boston’s Seaport District – February 2017
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Unfortunately, the 9000 was one of the reasons that Saab ended up in the loving arms of GM. The 900 went upscale from the 99 and was fairly successful at it, especially in the all-critical US market, and it didn’t cost a whole lot to create. So Saab decided the take it further with the 9000, but that’s where the trouble began. In six years (1979-1985) Saab went from providing quirky but enjoyable cars at reasonable prices to go chasing after the BMW and Audi market. The 9000 ended up being a flop in the US. First of all, it didn’t have the refinement of its competitors. Second, Americans didn’t equate hatchbacks with luxury cars. The notchback CD came too late. By the end of the 1980s, Saab was stuck with the aging 1967-vintage 900, the non-starter 9000, and no money to develop new cars. GM genuinely tried to resuscitate the Saab brand at first, but buyers didn’t come in droves as hoped for and worsening conditions at the parent company meant that Saab was slowly starved into oblivion.
I would guess that one of the major problems for the 9000 was it´s price due to Swedish currency exchange rates.
A lot of conservative cars buyers were not willing to pay that amount of money for a car with a utitliarian hatchback sedan with 4 cylinders when they could get a top of line upper middle class model from BMW oder Mercedes.
Also the direct link to cars with a generally bad rep such as Fiat and Lancia were not helpul.
My ’93 non-turbo 9000 was the slowest car I’ve ever driven.
I was about to say I’ve never been to the Seaport District, but then I realized that I’ve visited the Harpoon Brewery before. Definitely enjoyed that tour.
Am I correct in assuming the Big Dig positively affected that area of Boston?
I would say not directly, but probably somewhat peripherally affected it. The growth in the Seaport has led to some serious surface-street traffic problems; everyone who commutes there by car wants to leave at more or less the same time, and there are only a couple of routes in/out of the area.
I worked at the Boston Children’s Museum (just visible to the right of the courthouse, fronting on the channel heading away from the bay) from 1988 to 1998, even before the newer streets visible in that to photo were laid out and paved. The change from that era is remarkable; back then, it was deserted and desolate after the end of the business day; now it’s nearly a 24-hour district. But with all the growth, average people can’t afford to live there, which is a story not unique to Boston.
An interesting parallel. While I have never been to the Boston seaport, it seems to me that another parallel is the way both car and location went upscale and left their roots behind.
The location appears to have became a built-up place for city dwellers to live and play and ceased to be a working port where blue collar dockworkers loaded and unloaded ships. The car stopped being a quirky car for people with unusual but exacting tastes and tried to chase the dollar of what was then called a Yuppie. The Seaport area seems to have thrived while Saab did not.
Very true observation there.
To add, Boston, in many ways as a whole has become far more upscale (and expensive) in the past 20 years. Areas that were once very rough-and-tough, low-income, rundown, and agreeably unsafe to walk around at night have been built up and revitalized, and now that those more central neighborhoods have been “rehabbed” (a term I’ve heard on TV), developers are working their ways to the outlying neighborhoods such as East Boston.
On the one hand it’s wonderful to see parts of the city that were once very rundown receive new life and effectively a renaissance, with renovated buildings, new restaurants and shopping, and a new focus on character. At the same time, however, it has significantly raised housing/rent costs and the overall cost of living, forcing out many of the inhabitants that had lived there for decades. It’s definitely a win-lose situation.
I recently replaced my daily driver ‘95 9000 Aero after almost 9 years of ownership, finally giving in to the increasing difficulty in finding qualified technicians to deal with the ever more finicky electronics. It has been well over a year now and I still miss it. It’s combination of performance, economy, comfort and utility was, for me, the perfect balance. The 60-90 mph passing power was just fantastically effortless, that hatch would swallow a full sized washing machine, and mine got a combined 30-ish mpg in real world driving. When everything was in order it was a joy to drive. The 2005 Infiniti G35 6MT I ultimately replaced it with is a fine performer, has been perfectly reliable and yet is utterly soulless compared to the 9000. If there was such a thing as a reliable, maintainable Saab 9000 Aero, I’d buy it and keep it for life.
what do you mean by “finicky electronics” ?
My feelings exactly, I called mine the “Swiss Arm Car,” for its unparalleled versatility. Safe, practical, commodious and economical . It was utterly stable at three-digit speeds, and surprisingly capable when I was following a pickup trick up a dry wash in the Utah desert, miles from even a dirt road.
But there were drawbacks. The driving position was weird, with the wheel and dash too low. Even with the seat dropped, there were only two or three inches between my thighs and the wheel. I never got used to that, but the 900’s other merits kept me happy. Until the speedometer dropped to zero one day, just as I was driving home from the indy SAAB shop (there used to be so many of them) after a major exhaust system replacement. Do you know about the tiny plastic speedo drive gear that lurks deep in the bowels of the manual transmission? Facing a $2500 repair to replace a two-dollar part, I gave up and sold it for a loss.
Interesting…never heard of that problem before.
So what would have caused the 2.500 $ repair bill? taking out the entire transmission?
I miss my 9k too…still have the factory (Thule) roof rack as seen in the pic. I’d like to give it a good home.
my daily driver is a Saab CSE 2.3 Turbo (200 hp)
Its fast, fun to drive and fairly economical.
After 278.000 km on the clock it´s still pretty reliable.
My problem with that Saab, it looks a French car, but when you get closer you see that it is worse, it’s Italian!
One of the neat features of this Saab was, the best I can describe it, side reverse illumination lamps. They were built into what look to be ordinary amber side marker lamps, but at the very back of them, hidden unless you look at them from the right angle (that is, from behind them), there was a clear section of the lens that would light up the sides of the car whenever you shift into reverse. Pre-facelift 9000s had these lights too along with conventional cornering lamps that faced forward, though they made no attempt to hide them on the earlier cars.
I think the snub-nose, pre-facelift version of the 9000 is much more attractive.
I’ve heard the siren song of a pre-GM Saab myself – in my case a final-year 900. When I was younger I always thought Saab was a company that made cars for people like me. After less than a year of dealing with the myriad of problems with that car I’d been fully satiated with the ‘Saab experience’