Old vs New (again) - Saab 9-5



Today I polled you Saabists for your opinion on Saab’s old 9-3 SS tail lamps vs the new ‘mascara’ tail lamps used from 2008 onwards.

Right now, the poll stands at 57% for the old 9-3 tail lamps and 43% for the new mascara lamps, which shows that if nothing else, it’s a divisive move. Personally, I’m still in the mascara column, but I’d probably be even more selective about the body color than I’d normally be if I were getting one.

Click here to view the poll results and if you haven’t done so already, place your vote.

In comments to that article, Gripen noted a Next Autos article on Cars that looked better before their makeovers, an article in which Saab gets a mention.

It’s not the 9-3 that cops a whack, however, it’s the Saab 9-5.

I’m on the record as not being a huge fan of the Dame Edna look when it first surfaced. My writings here started as reserved, followed by dubious and descended into put it out of it’s misery. Funny enough, I’ve felt the same way, initially, about several vehicles I’ve now come to appreciate as great designs.

The Saab 99, for example, which I thought was mildly amusing until I saw a 900, at which time I began to appreciate the 99’s inner qualities. I now rate it as more beautiful than the 900 when presented well.

The Citroen DS was the funniest thing I’d ever seen when I first noticed it back in the 80’s and today it’s the head-turner to beat all head-turners.

In a similar vein, I’ve come to really appreciate the Dame Edna look on the Saab 9-5. Sure, the pictures Next Autos used weren’t particularly flattering….

But I’d challenge most fair-minded people to take a look at WillyD’s 9-5 in Hawaii and not get a charge of steam in your strides….

Saab 9-5

Similarly, Wulf’s new 9-5 wagon, peeking into the lens amidst the sparseness of the Bonneville salt flats is a beautiful sight:

It’s all about perspective, you see.

I guess if we want to get technical, the point of Next Autos’ article isn’t to say that the new model looks bad, but that the old one looked better. In the case of the Saab 9-5 the jury’s still out. I know I judged it harshly at first, though, and I have a feeling that time will treat the Dame Edna 9-5 much better then what many of us have for the last few years.

Simon Padian and the crew - allow me to take this opportunity to humbly apologise and tip my hat to an appreciating piece of work.

——

Thanks Gripen and Markac!!

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    • Arnold said:

      What happened to the classic Saab grill? Can you imagine BMW doing that?!
      One needs continuity. As I mentioned before, constant mucking around with minor design features is costly, and not always appreciated. The WRX was an example.

    • ctm said:

      I echo Swade’s opinion. At first, I couldn’t really imagine a Saab having a design like that. But after about two years, I noticed that I really liked what I saw out on the roads. But again, color is important. Black, silver, grey - absolutely. Other colors are a little bit more risky.

    • Martin N said:

      The problem is that the design isn’t consistent. It’s not the same car all over the car, if you know what I mean.

      Does anyone remember the facelift of Ford Scorpio, where it felt as one team with one vision redesigned the front, a whole different team with a whole different vision redesigned the rear and the rest of the body was left as it was?

      The 9-5 gives me the same feeling.
      (In the Scorpio case both design teams were obviously taking drugs, so that was of course a bit worse. But only a bit.)

    • Robin Capper said:

      Nope, you could slap the eyebrow on a Subaru and nobody would notice it was ex-Saab. Losing the grille nostrils (well that’s what I call them), essential Saab features, is a big mistake.

      In terms of changing opinion and better before the “facelift” I must mention the Fiat Multipla. First time you saw one the reaction was “What the #$$# were they thinking?”. Then they put a normal nose on it and it’s just wrong. When I see the whacky dolphin nose version I just have to smile, it’s so strange it’s cool.

    • muncaidh said:

      The new face and tail might be fine on its own but it does not blend well with the parts in the middle. Its still the fugliest Saab EVER!!! I also didnt appreciate the cost cutting where all the nice wee bits that makes the 9-5 a nice place to spend time were removed. I’ve owned a 1999 and 2002 9-5s and both slightly different but I would still not touch the 2006+ model.

    • Andy Rupert said:

      I’ve come to appreciate the new design of the 9-5. Although it would have been nice to redesign the whole thing instead of just the front end, it did make the new models distinctively different than the previous ones.

      Yeah, it did take a while to get used to it, but I really like it now. To me, the old design looks … well … old. If I ever get a 9-5 wagon, it’d be the newer design.

    • Arnold said:

      I have commented in several places about design, and simplicity. This has long been an important issue for me. In 1981 I bought an RX7 because they finally designed the car I had in mind many years earlier.
      If you bear in mind the designs available at the time I made these four drawings, you can see why I found the RX7 so appealing.

      http://www.flickr.com/photos/aeomaster32/3007972770/in/set-72157600978691278/

    • Ned said:

      I agree with Martin N and muncaidh. The new front end design is fine on its own, but doesn’t blend with the rest of the car, especially the rear. A close friend of mine with a 2005 9-5 feels similarly. (Mine’s a 2001.) The 9-5 probably looked its best after the 2002 revisions.

    • Wulf said:

      I didn’t like the design either in the beginning. But it is definitely a design that looks better in person than it does in pictures from some angles. The bright chrome trim looks OK on light cars but out of place on darker colors. Hirsch makes a satin chrome replacement but it’s a bit pricey at EUR 500 and you can’t get it in the US.

      I have been playing around with a roll of electrical tape to see what my 2006 9-5 would look like with black trim. It completely transforms the look of the car and I think I will go ahead and paint it black. See for yourself here.

      Either way, Saab decided to go for a unique look and it doesn’t look like any other car on the road. I am so used to the new design now that I couldn’t see myself going back to the older models. I like how the rear bumper/license plate area design has the same shape as the front grille/lower bumper. But I bought the car because of the steering, suspension and interior improvements. It’s too bad many Saab owners look at the exterior only and don’t look at the other changes.

    • Ryan M said:

      No poll on this one eh?

    • wilfried said:

      In fact the former citroen C5 (previous gen - facelifted at end of career) and the eye-transition of the BMW 5 are closer to Dame Edna and do look (a bit) overdone than the classy styled facelifted 9-5.

      Comparing the 9-5 with the famous citroen ID/DS is a tempting one. That car is not just funny, odd and quirky. It is a masterpiece of design. Pure modernism and elegance. Not to mention the citroen SM, which shares all the deisgn qualities of the ID/DS combined with some exotic touches.
      But to reach the status of the DS the 9-5 needs to be produced at least another 10 years or so ! But who knows. (Maybe I need to keep mine another 20 or 30 years).

    • Bruce said:

      I’m with Wulf. With the 97 I finally saw a 9-5 I liked inside and out. The front is clean and modern (compare it to all new SAAB design efforts, not older SAABs–it does fit the family well), and the older side styling is de-emphasized. I found the old front design too busy. Ditto the buttoned dash. As for the nostrils, they are simply moved oustboard to the headlight frames. I do indeed like those blackened frames, but the chrome is fine, even on my rare chilli red sedan with the parchment interior.

    • PGAero said:

      Wulf,
      You just convinced me that I could own an ‘06+ 9-5. Your car looks great in those photos. Didn’t you also black out the side reflectors?

      In a perfect world, I’d replace my 9000 Aero (in a few years) with a 9-5 Aero Wagon, stick shift. My first choice of combos would be this: ‘04-05 body and dash, with ‘06+ suspension and seats. And give me the early Aero Klingon three-spoke wheels, or those super-cool three-piece BBS wheels. I’m not picky!

      Let’s see… I’d take White, any blue, glacier green, steel gray, red, or silver… preferably with dark gray interior.

      The large chrome bits on the current 9-5 are very color dependent. The black looks great on Wulf’s car.

      ~Peter
      ‘93 9000 Aero, 97K miles, 5spd, White/Black with clear turn signals and smoked side markers.

    • Alex said:

      I’m squarely in the “old” category. When I look at the old 9-5, I see the kind of simple, elegant “form follows function” design that attracted me to Saab in the first place. It looks restrained and Scandinavian and it looks gorgeous. The “Dame Edna” look comes off as a contrived gesture by someone in GM management who saw the flashy Mauer nose on some concept and thought “let’s put it on the 9-5 so it looks new again”.

      The result looks poorly thought out and there’s very little flow between the nose, the body, and the new tail. It’s made even worse I think by how the design plays with the classic Saab grille, as someone else said, would you ever see BMW doing something like that to their classic nose? It’s just not good for maintaining a strong brand identity, and GM made it even worse by going in a totally different design direction with the 9-3 refresh to the point that their only two models now look almost nothing alike. The GM-ification of the interior didn’t win it any points in my book either, give me buttons, orange and green instruments and lots of saab gadgets any day over bowtie radios and parts-bin climate knobs.

      I suspect GM might have sold more of the silly things if they’d decided to stay away from heavy-handed styling changes and instead spend all that tooling money on a totally new interior that could stand with the German competition. Nobody ever criticized the 2002+ 9-5 for looking old but the current one definitely feels old and cheap once you sit in it.

    • Wulf said:

      PGAero,
      I taped up the side reflectors as well to see how they would look. The grey Euro inserts are close to US$200 which is a bit too much for me for 2×2″ = 5×5 cm pieces of plastic. But the orange reflectors/lights have to go one way or another.

    • ELBOBO said:

      Having Owned 5 9-5’s and 2 “Dame Ednas” I feel I can say the design is aging well. My 2008 fusion blue aero is nearly my favorite only slightly trailing my 2002 Cosmic blue aero (RIP). At first I too thought poorly upon it but I think it will be remembered as a nice (and rare) facelift…..and hopefully not the last we will hear of the 9-5……….:(

      Chris

    • zippy said:

      I think you know my feelings on the 2006+ 9-5 but just in case you dont recall here goes. It has a face as ugly as a bulldog chewing a wasp!

    • wilfried said:

      Aha, 9-5 facelift design is polarising & dividing the saabist clearly in two camps.
      (But was it just not polarising enough to convince non-yet-saabist to spend attention towards the brand and car ?) If current 9-5 can be compared with dame edna, surely next 9 X B-H will occur as a fresh daisy.

    • joemama said:

      Zippy - here, here!

      It is by far the ugliest part of an otherwise nice looking car. The lights are the reason I would NOT buy the car, and if they changed them I would consider purchasing a 9-5.

      The reason the white car in the Hawaii photo looks good is only because it doesn’t show the contrast difference.

    • Edonis said:

      My favourite 9-5 is the 2005 model with Aero bumpers, it just looks so agressive and sexy! Second comes the 2002-2004 (which is the one I have), then the original 97-2001, and last the Dame Edna. I like the matt satin rails and body coloured fender lists and door handles, but I don’t like the chrome glasses around the headlights. It’s not ugly, but it isn’t quite as good looking as it used to be. As for the interior, I wish I could get the old buttoned dash, but with the black door trims of Dame Edna instead of the grey.

    • WillyD said:

      I agree with ctm - some colors just work better with the new look. I’m obviously partial to white, but i’ve seen new silver wagons recently and they look good too. The shot above of the chili red doesn’t do it justice, for some reason. Maybe it’s the missing roof rails?

      Wulf - nice photos on your site, especially at Yosemite!

    • PT said:

      To quote regurgitator:

      ” I like your old stuff better than your new stuff”.

    • turbin said:

      PT, that song springs to mind alot these days.

    • Fuhrer said:

      I like all free versions of 9-5.

    • Arnold said:

      Fuhrer said: “I like all free versions of 9-5.” Well what about the ones you pay for eh?;-)

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