Koenigsegg Is Saab’s White Knight

It’s akin to the neighborhood diner taking over McDonald’s, or your paperboy buying out The New York Times: the news that Koenigsegg — a Swedish builder of $1 million supercars with a sales total of only 18 cars last year — will buy Saab from General Motors seems barely less fantastical.

If that wild thought had entered my mind when I was testing the CCX last summer, I would have figured the Koenigsegg’s 806-horsepower thrust and massive g-forces were to blame. The CCX looked like a four-wheeled starship, and it was a pure gut-check delight to drive. My most lasting impression of the Koenigsegg — besides its rocket-sled acceleration — was that it felt like a real production car, rather than a million-dollar kit car or a poorly disguised racer. But Swedish nationality and quirkiness aside, it’s still hard to see any logical connection between the Koenigsegg’s cost-no-object fantasy and the everyday, earthbound business of Saab.

Koenigsegg (pronounced

KOH-nig-segg) was founded by Christian von Koenigsegg, an inventor from a wealthy Swedish family, in 1994. The company is in Angelholm, Sweden, and has about 45 employees. It will soon take on Saab’s roughly 3,400 workers.

The proposed deal, backed by the Swedish government and $600 million in financing from the European Investment Bank, raises even more questions than the typical takeover. Most pressingly, how would the arrangement alter or even shred Saab’s current product plans? Secondly, what does Mr. Koenigsegg, who is 37, or any of his employees, know about designing, marketing, selling and servicing mass-market automobiles?

source: nytimes