The first Saab car, planned by the Saab’s parent Swedish aviation company as World War II came to an end, reflects a moment of calm and privilege, far from the awful events taking place across the Baltic, and the point when the Swedish brand of Modernism finally reached auto design.
The mechanical design for the car was done by a tiny team of adept aviation engineers, unfamiliar as they were with automotive design. Perhaps for that reason, the quality of the car and its subcomponents was much higher than small carmakers elsewhere were used to providing. The Saab started out as a highly advanced but practical vehicle with independent front-wheel drive and front suspension. Unfortunately, cash constraints imposed a two-stroke engine, based on those used in German prewar economy cars such as the DKW, though the Saab version was civilized to an unusual degree by airflow specialists from the aeroengine firm Svenska Flygmotor.
The body style originated with designs from a remarkable autodidact designer, Sixten Sason (1912–67), who had a science-fiction imagination for machines that had not yet been invented. Between him and the more conservative factory draughtsmen, a rational body form emerged that is the most perfect realization of the Jaray-inspired aerodynamic European streamline Modernism. The Saab won the Monte Carlo Rally three times, proving the honesty of its design, and it showed by its durability and safety that economical cars could also offer high quality. Eventually, though, the lawnmower smell and the oddity of putting oil in the gas tank led to a switch to a Ford-built four-stroke motor.
Erik Carlsson in the Monte Carlo Rally, 1963.
Front-wheel drive and independent front suspension made for an advanced package in the late 1940s when the Saab was first conceived by aeronautical engineers.