Saab History

Close-up look at the rare Saab V8 engine

Saab V8 engine

Close-up look at the rare Saab V8 engine, made in Finland in 1989. The Saab V8 engine engineering in Finland in late 1980s – four stroke spark-ignition prototype.

Director of the SAAB-Valmet Uusikaupunki car factory, had the idea for a SAAB V8 on one of his trips to United States. People loved the SAAB 900 Cabriolet in the U.S., but thought that two-litre inline fours were better suited to lawn mowers – even if they had a Turbo. Linnoinen’s vision was to design and build V8 SAAB for the American market in Finland.

Saab 9000 CD 4.0 V8 32V "Saab-Valmet Edition"
Saab 9000 CD 4.0 V8 32V “Saab-Valmet Edition”

The result of his efforts can be seen in the following video clip. Five engines completed in 1989, and never entered serial production stage. Deplacement was 4 liters, and generated power 300hp:

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As you probably already read, General Motors became a partner in Saab Automobile and instead wanted Saab to use their new V6, which resulted in the scrapping of the project

Goran Aničić
the authorGoran Aničić
For over 15 years, Goran Aničić has been passionately focused on Saab automobiles and everything related to them. His initial encounter with Saab cars took place back in 2003 when the first Saab 9-3 and sedan version were introduced. At that moment, he was captivated by the car's Scandinavian design logic and top-notch engineering, and everything that followed stemmed from that first encounter. Later on, through his work at the editorial team of the Serbian automotive magazines "Autostart" and later "AutoBild," he had the opportunity to engage more closely with Saab vehicles. In 2008, he tested the latest Saab cars of that time, such as the Saab 9-3 TTiD Aero and Saab 9-3 Turbo X. In 2010, as the sole blogger from the region, he participated in the Saab 9-5ng presentation in Trollhättan, Sweden. Alongside journalists from around the world, he got a firsthand experience of the pinnacle of technological offerings from Saab at that time. Currently, Goran owns two Saabs: a 2008 Saab 9-3 Vector Sportcombi with a manual transmission, and a Saab 9-3 Aero Griffin Sport Sedan from the last generation, which rolled off the production line in Trollhättan in December 2011.

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