SAAB Reviews

Saab 9-3 Viggen – 150 MPH (240 km/h) Challenge

Saab 9-3 Viggen

Once (2013), in week’s Top Gear USA episode, they had a need for speed. Their goal was to show that you didn’t have to spend a lot of money to get a car that could crack the 150 mph barrier.

Anyway, in the Mojave Desert, Adam drove a1995 Pontiac Trans-Am, Tanner had a  Saab 9-3 Viggen and Rutledge put a 1995 Infiniti Q45 through their paces.

The comparison of these three cars has been made through several tests, from a slalom drive and a stability test, to a maximum speed test – 150 MPH (240 km/h) Challenge. The final challenge was, at long last, the 150 mph run and it took place at the El Mirage Dry Lake.  As the guys assessed the six-mile surface, they suddenly became honest about their chances.

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Saab 9-3 Viggen - Challenge 1: Acceleration
Saab 9-3 Viggen – Challenge 1: Acceleration

Adam pushed the banana-mobile the full distance and then Tanner proved that his Swedish Steel was speedy too. On the way to the proving grounds it turns out that Tanner’s Saab has no flaws at all whereas Adam’s Pontiac is starting to decay and Rut’s Infiniti is too slow.

Adam’s Pontiac manages to get to 136 mph, Tanner’s Saab manages to get to 151 mph and Rut’s Infiniti despite him the Nitrous manages to get to only 141 mph.

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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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