Great choice of individualist's Limousines in 1980 - Citroen, Alfa-Romeo, Saab, Rover and Lancia

In 1980 there was quite a choice when you wanted to buy a limousine. You could go for a Mercedes E or BMW 5 Series just as today, but there were also some really individualistic limousines available if you didn't want to swim with everybody else. Auto Motor und Sport assembled this nice group of five cars: Alfa-Romeo Sei, Lancia Gamma i-e, Rover 3500 V8 S, Saab 900 Turbo and Citroen CX 2400 GTI. This gave you a choice of very different shapes, but also a broad range of engine technologies. The Alfa-Romeo 6 came with a V6 and six Dell'Orto carburetors, the Citoen had a straight four cylinder engine with fuel injection, the Rover was propelled by the ex-Buick V8 with SU carburetors, the Lancia had a four cylinder boxer engine with Bosch L-Jetronic and the Saab 900 Turbo had a Turbo aspirated straight four cylinder. While the engine choice was quite diverse, the power output was quite comparable, ranging from 130 to 158 hp. 0-100 km/h could be reached in 9.4 to 10.9 secs. Top speed was 192 to 202 km/h. The Rover and the Alfa were fastest thanks to the superior engine power output. Interestingly the Rover was the most fuel efficient car with 13.6 l/100 km despite the largest engine and the highest number of cylinders. None of the cars was all wheel driven, the Alfa and the Rover powered the rear wheels the others the front wheels. Roughly DM 27'000 to 31'000 had to be on your bank account if you wanted one of these cars, 2.5 to 3 times of what a Ford Fiesta Festival would have cost you then.
I guess we can only dream of so much individualism today!

Good Bye Saab

Today GM has decided to close down Saab it seems. They haven't been able to sell the brand, while the engineering/construction rights for the 9-3 and 9-5 obviously have been transfered to a Chinese car manufacturer.
I have never owned a Saab, but I admire the older models such as Saab 96 or Saab 900 Turbo for their purity, partially the design and certainly for engineering quality. Lately GM has done everything to lose this spirit and character. The design got spoiled and the engineering was outsourced to Opel. But what is good for Opel doesn't have to be good for Saab. But the biggest mistake certainly was to not cherish the brand and the passion for individuality.
For us who love oldtimers this is not really a problem. The 900 Turbo soon will appear at rallyes and other events and owners will profit from the good build quality and the long term reliability.
The advertisement shown here is from 1982 and it says "Saab, one car length ahead". Well, if they hadn't been two car lengths behind recently we probably wouldn't discuss the end of Saab today.

Zurich Car Show 2009 showcasing Ferrari 458 Italia

The Zurich Car Show is organized every year and sits in the middle between the Frankfurt Car Show (IAA) and the Geneva Salon d' Automobiles. So it happens that there are a number of cars shown the first time in Switzerland. This year it was the Ferrari 458 Italia. It looks actually as good in reality as on pictures we all have seen. It's a really gorgeous car. Also rarely seen is the Alfa-Romeo 8C Spider that was presented in a light blue color that interestingly suits the car well.
A first for Switzerland was also the Fisker Karma (also displayed as convertible) and the coming Tesla four seater family car (prototype/mockup shown).
And quite a number of other showcars and prototypes made it to Zurich as well, for example the Mini Concept and the Saab Concept car pictured here.
Of course the event was very crowded and it was more than difficult to get a good shot at something it's still worth to visit.
Similar to other car shows this year, being green and environmentally friendly was a key topic and most manufacturers showed either a hybrid car or an electrical car.