On the occasion of the Saab Car Museum Festival to be held next weekend in Trollhattan, the Swedish media devotes special attention to the Saab brand, history and recollect interesting stories from the golden age of the Trollhattan car factory.
One of these stories is the story behind The Classic Advertising Image for Saab 99, an image that many people remember, and on which there are three girls sitting in the then new interior of Saab 99.
In 1968 Eva, Eivor and Gun worked at Saab in Trollhättan. They were asked to participate in a now classic advertising image for Saab 99. 51 years later they are reunited in a similar back seat. Swedish daily newspaper ttela meet them 51 years later, and they take place in the same back seat, with lots of memories from the past.
Återföring i baksätet 51 år senare
1968 jobbade Eva, Eivor och Gun på Saab i Trollhättan. De fick frågan om att vara med på en numera klassisk reklambild för Saab 99.51 år senare återförenas de i ett likadant baksäte.Läs och se mer här: https://www.ttela.se/nyheter/trollh%C3%A4ttan/sanningen-avsl%C3%B6jas-bakom-klassisk-reklambild-1.15449971Och missa inte allt annat material inför Saabfestivalen, både på sajten och i bilagan som följer med dagens papperstidning.
Geplaatst door Ttela op Dinsdag 4 juni 2019
A picture that was once taken to show how spacious it was in the back seat of the new, large Saab 99 – it was “the girls behind in the car”, year model 1969 Saab 99. Some who remember the picture are Saab veterans Nils-Gunnar Svensson and Sten-Olof Göthberg who also knew that the girls were not any photo models but simply worked at the Saab factory in Trollhättan. Why not arrange a reunion, the “girls in the car” of today?
For the first time, their reunion was organized at the 2013 Saab festival, and their full names are Eva Östling, Eivor Thorén and Gun Andersson. Eivor was working out in the factory, with the mounting of motors on the engine line and had – uncommonly – gone to a car mechanic training. Gun had started at Saab in 1963 and was the head of the writing center – “the chicken farm” as it was called – when she was asked to set up as a photo model. Eva, who started at Saab in 1967, was moved to the Technical Department in 1969. But the assignments as a photo model continued and she was involved in both studio photography and photo retouching – and in the brochures for both Saab V4 and Saab 99.
Saab 99 premiered in Stockholm on November 22, 1967 – but it would take almost a year before the series production started and the cars began to be sold. On the 14th and 15th of August 1968, it was “Saab-days” in Trollhättan with a press display and a retail conference that ended with what was called a “Drive Away” – basically every retailer across the country had to drive home with each new V4 and Saab 99.
There were about 300 cars – of which 140 were 99s – waiting outside a cold store at the factory, Magasin 6, which had been converted into a showroom. It meant that press photos, advertising photographs and sales brochures would be ready before these days, 14 and 15 August 1968. Which in turn meant that the picture with the “girls behind in the car” must have been photographed sometime in the spring or early summer of 1968.
It was the advertising agency Tema in Gothenburg, under the direction of Lars Feuk and with the photographer John-Erik Andersson who took the picture of “the girls behind in the car”. Today, the image is almost iconic, a symbolic image not only of the time spirit but also of the people behind the company.
