Development
On April 2, 1965, Gudmund's day in Sweden, after several years of planning, the Saab board started Project Gudmund. This was a project to develop a new and larger car to take the manufacturer beyond the market for the smaller Saab 96. This new car became the Saab 99, designed by Sixten Sason and unveiled in Stockholm on November 22, 1967.
The first prototypes of the 99 were built by cutting a Saab 96 lengthwise and widening it by 20 centimetres (7.9 in); this created the so-called Paddan (The toad), which was a disguise for the new project.
After that phase, also as a disguise, the first 99 body shell was badged "daihatsu" as that name could be made up out of letters available for other Saab models.
The 99 was built by the Finnish Valmet Automotive in Uusikaupunki; five years of this production (from 1979) was alongside the Finnish built version of the Talbot Horizon, which shared a similar high quality velour upholstery to the 99.
Although Saab engineers liked the two-stroke engine it was decided that a four-stroke engine was necessary and the choice was a 1.75 L (later 1.85 L) engine from Triumph, the same Triumph Slant-4 engine used in the Triumph Dolomite, but the Saab version was fitted with a Zenith-Stromberg CD carburetor developed specially for Saab. Forty-eight Saab 99s were equipped with a Triumph Stag V8, but the idea to use a V8 was later dropped in favour of a turbocharged engine.
A three-door station wagon (estate) version was planned from the start, but never made it into production. In 1971 (with thoughts about a combi coupé) the work on a station wagon was restarted, this time as a five-door.
Read more about this topic: Saab 99
Famous quotes containing the word development:
“I have an intense personal interest in making the use of American capital in the development of China an instrument for the promotion of the welfare of China, and an increase in her material prosperity without entanglements or creating embarrassment affecting the growth of her independent political power, and the preservation of her territorial integrity.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Men are only as good as their technical development allows them to be.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“This was the Eastham famous of late years for its camp- meetings, held in a grove near by, to which thousands flock from all parts of the Bay. We conjectured that the reason for the perhaps unusual, if not unhealthful development of the religious sentiment here, was the fact that a large portion of the population are women whose husbands and sons are either abroad on the sea, or else drowned, and there is nobody but they and the ministers left behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)