Saabs from around the World

Saab Cars Will Be Worth Their Weight in Gold

Saab's Popularity Soars: Meet Jean Pierre Rolly and Gina Van De Voorde, the Belgian Couple Turning Saab's Bankruptcy into a Thriving Business in NorwaySaab's Popularity Soars: Meet Jean Pierre Rolly and Gina Van De Voorde, the Belgian Couple Turning Saab's Bankruptcy into a Thriving Business in Norway

For some market connoisseurs and some great SAAB cars enthusiasts, the statement in the title is not exaggerated. As time goes by from the last Saab car produced, those of our favorite vehicles are less and less on the roads around the world. However, some collect them unsparingly and make “stocks”. Therefore, it is logical that one day they will be very rare and worth real gold.

The Norwegian daily Adresseavisen brings in today’s issue a great story about a Belgian married couple who are constantly collecting a large number of Saab cars – “This is our pension”, says Jean Pierre and Gina for Adresseavisen.

After closing the factory in Trollhattan, Jean Pierre together with his friend GINA VAN DE VOORDE decided to move to Norway, where they collects old Saab cars and makes a living from selling original Saab spare parts (used and new parts).

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Rolly is a former BMW mechanic, while Gina Van De Voorde worked in elderly care at home in Flanders. They moved to Norway in 2018 with a desire to live more rural. – “We did not want to live in a city anymore, There are no places in Belgium where you can live freely and in the countryside“, she says.

After many years with oil-black fists, Rolly took a job as a tour bus driver. He drove American and Chinese tourists on sightseeing tours in the Nordic countries. This is how he opened his eyes to Norway and Western Norway. That they ended up in Fiskå is coincidental. They heard that the farm was for sale for a reasonable money and struck.

The entire property is covered with spare parts for Saab cars
The entire property is covered with spare parts for Saab cars

Saab Corner

In their backyard, Dozens of half-slaughtered Saab car wrecks are strewn between tall grass, rusty car rims and engine parts. Also, The buildings In their backyard could have been a backdrop from a blood-curdling horror film. But here is only one thing that is “slaughtered”: Old Saabs.

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Together with Gina Van De Voorde (57), Rolly has settled in Fiskå, a small Sunnmøre village with a few hundred souls. Here, the Belgian couple bought an old farm, hoisted the Saab flag to the top of the flagpole and started the joint stock company Saab Corner. If you need a spare part for Saab you can contact them via email Post@saabcorner.no.

Since last year, they have “vacuumed” Norway for old Saabs and filled the property with several dozen separated cars. According to Rolly, the founder of this small Saab business, some looked at their venture with suspicion and some even with ridicule. It is perhaps a little unusual for a Belgian couple to choose to move to a small village in Sunnmøre to make a living by selling parts from a Swedish car manufacturer that went bankrupt many years ago. – But it’s a great job, says Rolly.

The couple now live in one part of the house, while the other half is filled with parts from Trollhättan. Saab parts are found in all rooms, floors and shelves. Many are decades-old original parts that have never been out of their cardboard boxes. This is good news for Norwegian Saab owners who want to keep their cars on the road.

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We only sell original Saab parts, says Rolly. Also, this Saab couple visits old warehouses and former Saab car dealers across Europe, and buys all their stock. It is a source of new, never used Saab spare parts. Just recently, they intended to buy stock parts from an old Saab warehouse in Denmark, but the current owner asked for too high a price.

When asked by journalists – can they make a living from this business, they answered – yes – “In the US and Australia, it is amazing what people pay for the right part. Prices will rise. I know people in Belgium and France who are in large stocks of genuine Saab parts. He in France says that “this is my pension”. That’s how we think too.

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.

3 Comments

  • Absolutely, someone broke off my little Onstar antenna on my og 9-3 Vert.
    Grrrrrrrrrr…..
    I sent them an email and just waiting to see if they have anymore. Crossing fingers….

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