A rare car article from the BBC site:
Less is more
Sweden's Saab is set on making fewer but more distinctive cars
Dark and powerful, the new Turbo X stands proud at Saab's stand in Frankfurt, shoulder to shoulder with an original "Black Turbo" from the Swedish car maker's heyday more than a quarter of a century ago.
Much has happened since.
Saab has been swallowed up by the American car giant General Motors (GM), much of the production has been shifted to Germany, and GM's efforts to pitch the marque as a luxurious rival to the leading German car makers have failed miserably - particularly in Europe.
These days, Saab's formerly distinct models are often described as bland and only marginally different versions of its Opel/Vauxhall sister marques, and profits have turned to losses.
Last year, sales slipped to just 133,000 cars - well behind Audi, BMW and Mercedes, which all turn out a million or more per year.
This was a far cry even from fellow Swedish car maker Volvo's performance: it sold some 600,000 cars last year. "We at Saab have been very inconsistent in our approach," acknowledges Saab's chief executive, Jan-Ake Jonsson, who is himself spearheading the carmaker's latest initiative - which, yet again, is markedly different from the last one.
Rest at:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6992369.stm