Saab Racing Alaska is committed to the belief that a broken or non-running vehicle shouldn’t just be thrown into the junkyard or scrapped. Saabs especially get this treatment because most mechanics wont touch them. They think “weird euro car” and just leave it at that.
I have driven a few different modern cars over the years, but I’ve always come back to Saab as my primary brand. The reliability is there. The style, timeless. The engine simplicity, even though its backwards, its still just an inline 4! The way these cars perform, and feel in the drivers seat is a big reason why the brand was so successful up until the early 2000s.
Here are my goals for this club.
A Shop
And perhaps it can be small, but ideally I would be looking out for something that could fit at least up to 4 cars in there at one time. Members can come in and use the shop as they need in order to fix their cars, and sort of serve as a clubhouse to hold events, be a place to just come and chill out and more.
There will be a single “shop-car” at a time which is the clubs current restoration project. This model could range from as early as the Vintages, all the way up to more modern 9-3s and 9-5s. The goal here is to keep solid Saabs out of the junkyard and back onto marketplace without issues. Additionally, we may utilize this “shop-car” space prior to racing season in order to modify and tune our Saabs for the big stage.
Content
Saab and automotive content will be one of the more moderate goals as compared to restoration and preservation. I want to design some series for YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram. Spreading the word of what we are doing will get people more interested in the brand, and from there, our work. It would allow us to gain some amount of funding through social media channels, but due to the lack of interest in a dead brand vs. something like JDM, SEMA etc…
Content won’t just be made at the shop either. I plan on gathering footage at the tracks, get some rollers of us on the highway, and also showcases of member builds as well.
Spreading Awareness / Revitalizing Interest
There actually seems to be a lot of people in Alaska who like Saabs, but either the repairability by mechanics went down, or they feel it isn’t worth it to keep the cars on the road. (cost of parts including shipping from over seas) I want to get people into these cars so that they realize how fun they really are. “Oh i don’t have the space to have another car.” Rent one of our finished models. “They are unreliable and no one works on them up here.” Well we do, and we’d be happy to get yours back on the road. “I want a nice sporty car that can go really fast if i want it to.” Try the NG900 or NG9-3 with a little bit of tuning. There’s almost nothing you cant do with our Saabs, and i want to show others that they can be amazing daily drivers and race cars.
Holding a Saab Owners Convention for Alaska
I want to hold a large event for all Saabists, across the US. I mean, I doubt those from the lower 48 would be willing to drive or ship their cars up here. Ideally it would be held in Anchorage along with members from all across Alaska. This is a further goal however since there would need to be funds to rent the space, host the event etc…
Finally
I just want to get more people interested in the cars that I love so that we can make a great community of enthusiasts and work together towards making our community great.