The new Saab 9-5 almost became a trivia question, along the lines of ‘Which production car was fully developed and shown, but never actually built?’. Because when General Motors cut it Swedish subsidiary loose at the end of 2009, the company’s future looked bleak, until the Dutch boutique sports car manufacturer, Spyker, picked it up for a relative song (£47m). Part of the attraction was that this new model had already been fully developed and was ready to go into production. Now it has, it’s fair to say that car fans owe Spyker a debt of gratitude for a) saving a carmaker with a great heritage and b) allowing a worthy rival in the large family/executive segment to make it to the showrooms.
Prices for the 9-5 start at a fairly reasonable £26,495 (2.0 TiD), rising to £37,795 for the 2.8T. These undercut its main, mostly German, rivals, but it will be interesting to see if they’re enough to prompt the brand switching Saab is relying on. The wide range of engines means that there’s also a wide range of running costs. The 2.0 TiD has a very competitive fuel economy of 53.2mpg, dropping to 47.1mpg for the twin-turbo version (44.1mpg when fitted with XWD). The petrol engines don’t fare that well, with the 1.6T returning just 37.2mpg, the 2.0T 33.6mpg and the 2.8T glugging petrol at a rate of 26.6mpg. CO2 emissions are also competitive, from the 139g/km of the diesel to 244g/km of the 2.8T. Vehicle excise duty (VED) bands range from E (£110 a year for the 2.0 TiD to L (£425) for the range-topper. Saab’s recent turmoil might also put off prospective buyers, so second-hand values might suffer as a result: good news if you want to pick one up cheap, not so good if you want to sell.
Read the full 2010 Saab 9-5 Saloon road test
