Nice Price or Crack Pipe: Saab 900 Turbo Mid Engine

"Reborn Pyrrhic" (pyrrhic) 08/17/2013 at 16:45 • Filed to: Nice Price or Crack Pipe, NPOCP, Saab, 900, Turbo, saab 900, Swedish, for sale, craigslist, Colorado Springs, mid engine, rare, unique, hoon, tips

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The Saab 900 Turbo is one of the best cars to come out of the malaise era. One could say that thanks to its turbo charged engines Saab was one manufacturer that rode the automotive depression in stride, and gained fame thanks to the turbo mills.

One of the biggest criticisms of the Saab 900 was the fact that it is a front wheel drive car. Some call it wrong wheel drive, others deride it for being friendly to drive, and others for the propensity to understeer and torque steer.

Well, this car fixes it all. It is still a Saab 900, still powered by the venerable Saab H series Turbo engine, but....! The engine resides where the back seat used to be!

Yes, it i a mid engine, turbo charged, rear wheel drive Saab 900. A 16 gallon fuel cell resides where the engine used to be, under the long clam shell hood, and the rear windows are removed for engine ventilation (side scoops are available that go where the windows used to be). A huge scoop on the roof acts as an intake for the roof mounted intercooler.

The engine looks stock and the ad makes no mention of any tuning, but with a Trionic 5 conversion you can easily extract 400 horsepower from this car, you just will have to spend some money on a transmission that will take that power...

This think is crazy looking in flat black, and must indeed be a hoot to drive as the seller states. Supposedly there are only two of these in the USA, so it's rare too.

The asking price is a sweet $2000. Sounds like a great deal for a Saab 900 Turbo any day, this one has the engine where the Trollhättan engineers never intended, is rare, and probably a perfect hoon machine. Is the unknown build quality worth two grand? You decide, post your final say below on Kinja.

The car is right now for sale at the Colorado Springs Craigslist: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

If ad is gone, you can see the listing here: !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

Blondude > Reborn Pyrrhic 08/17/2013 at 16:49

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Holy crap this is amazing. I have no idea what it would be worth but $2k seems reasonable.

BIGBLOCK472 - wide and bizarre > Reborn Pyrrhic 08/17/2013 at 17:01

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Nice price!

Reborn Pyrrhic > BIGBLOCK472 - wide and bizarre 08/17/2013 at 17:15

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That's what I say!

Vracktal > Reborn Pyrrhic 08/17/2013 at 17:26

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$2000? Nice price!!

I'd probably tidy the engine bay up a bit, maybe line it & cover it then remove the divider to get the rear visibility back, and definitely flip the rear tyres back the right way round to align the rear track with the front because there's no way they're not rubbing like that, but still. $2000. Do want.

RayRay > Reborn Pyrrhic 08/17/2013 at 17:40

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I don't want to wear out the shut up and take my money meme, but...NICE FUCKING PRICE

BarryDanger > Reborn Pyrrhic 08/17/2013 at 17:49

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its so close!

Reborn Pyrrhic > BarryDanger 08/17/2013 at 18:02

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Get it!

Reborn Pyrrhic > Vracktal 08/17/2013 at 18:04

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With a bit more discretionary income you could box flare the rear fenders like a Saab 900 Enduro!

Vracktal > Reborn Pyrrhic 08/17/2013 at 18:30

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Maybe, but you'd need to buy new wheels anyway, flipping them on the hubs is a cheap and easy way to widen the track, but it also changes the way the axle is stressed, since the majority of the wheel is on the 'outside' of the hub rather than the 'inside' which causes positive camber (as I shall now demonstrate with a crappy Photoshop diagram)

noise > Reborn Pyrrhic 08/17/2013 at 18:52

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holy shit NP

SteyrTMP > Reborn Pyrrhic 08/17/2013 at 23:39

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Hell, yeah! I want one! Where do I sign up? My dad had a '72 Saab 99 SSE w/'73 manual trans, and I wish so badly he could have saved it for me. Sadly, he had to give it up when I was around 8 or 10.... I still want a Saab sometimes, but then I remember about the FWD thing. This would solve that itch, and it's my favorite model series (yeah, I like the 900 over the 99 in some areas).

SteyrTMP > Reborn Pyrrhic 08/17/2013 at 23:39

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I want!!!!

Reborn Pyrrhic > SteyrTMP 08/18/2013 at 05:39

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The front wheel drive doesn't bother me, I am on my third Saab now, own two of them!

Reborn Pyrrhic > SteyrTMP 08/18/2013 at 05:43

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Tough luck. Only three Enduros are known to survive! They were an Australian-market only Saab 900, less than 10 were made.

SteyrTMP > Reborn Pyrrhic 08/18/2013 at 13:31

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That's a bummer... that's truly a sharp car.

JasonStern911 > Reborn Pyrrhic 08/18/2013 at 23:21

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That thing looks like a total death trap.

That said, we all die, but few people get to choose how.

Nice price.