CarBrandLogos archive · Saab · 1949

SaabSaab 92

An aircraft company's first car, and it looked exactly like one.

Photo: Lars-Göran Lindgren Sweden · CC BY-SA 3.0

The story

A defining chapter in Saab history.

Explore the ideas, engineering and context that shaped the Saab 92, then continue into its specifications and place in the marque's lineage.

Origins

Svenska Aeroplan AB made military aircraft, and by 1945 it needed something else to build. Project 92 followed the numbering of its aeroplanes, and the engineers approached the problem the way they knew how, which is why the finished car is shaped like a wing section and had a drag coefficient that mainstream manufacturers would not match for another thirty years.

1949 Saab 92 · Lars-Göran Lindgren Sweden · CC BY-SA 3.0

Design and engineering

Sixten Sason, an industrial designer who had also worked on Hasselblad cameras, gave the body its teardrop form with fully enclosed rear wheels and no boot lid at all; luggage went in through the back seat. The engineering copied DKW's pre-war formula of a transverse two-stroke twin driving the front wheels, here 764cc, with a three-speed gearbox and independent suspension by torsion bars. The monocoque was unusually strong, which suited Swedish roads and the rally drivers who soon discovered it.

In production

Production at Trollhattan began in 1949, and for the first two years every car was green, because that was the paint Saab had left over from aircraft work. Just over 20,000 were made to 1957, when the 93 introduced a three-cylinder engine and a proper rear window.

Legacy

The 92 set the pattern for everything Saab did afterwards: front-wheel drive, aerodynamic bodies, structural strength and a willingness to solve problems from first principles rather than by looking at what everyone else built.

At a glance