Saab - Literature and The Arts

Literature and The Arts

The Saab 900 Turbo was James Bond's vehicle of choice in many of the John Gardner Bond novels of the 1980s, beginning with Licence Renewed. In the second novel, For Special Services, the 900 was dubbed the "Silver Beast". The car is Bond's private vehicle that he had outfitted with various gadgets by the real-life company Communication Control Systems, Ltd. (CCS). In conjunction with the release of Licence Renewed, Saab had a real "Silver Beast" created that was virtually identical to the specifications in the book. The car is currently located at the Saab Museum in Trollhättan, Sweden.

In an essay originally published in In These Times in November 2004 entitled Have I Got A Car For You, writer Kurt Vonnegut recounts his experiences as the owner/operator of a Saab dealership in West Barnstable, Massachusetts and humorously claims that his criticism of Swedish engineering is the reason he was never awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature. The essay also appeared in the 2005 anthology A Man Without A Country.