SAAB TRIBUTE TRIP to Trollhättan
In January 2011, Melvin Könings from The Netherlands bought his arctic white Saab 9-3X TTiD brand new from the factory. His Saab was one of the last produced cars in Trollhättan. Just a couple of weeks after Melvin’s car rolled off the assembly line, the Saab factory closed down for it’s regular production. So basically, Melvin is driving around in one of the youngest Saabs around.
In January 2025, Melvin’s car was to hit the 500.000 km milestone, not an uncommon feature of Saab cars, these cars just keep on going. Melvin: ”off course I had to change my tyres every now and then, but my only real maintenance issue was to replace the clutch disks, which is not so uncommon after 400.000 kilometres”.
Melvin’s Saab 9-3X was already loaded with options as an Aero version of the 9-3. Melvin: “It is a six-speed manual transmission car, I upgraded the power of the engine with the help of Hirch up to 200 hp and I also installed a leather Hirch dashboard and a CarPlay installation by Pioneer. Just lovely features to keep this car up to date. Recently I also added a sticker on the side of the car, just to personalize the car a bit”.
As Melvin’s car was about to hit the 500k milestone on his odometer, he came up with the idea to make a tribute trip from The Netherlands to Trollhättan. This is a road trip of about 2.500 km back and forth. “Our idea plan to visit the Saab Museum in Trollhättan and the old factory location. My youngest son and handicapped brother in law also came along. On our way to Trollhättan, we found many car-related places to make a few great stop-overs.”
On the way to Trollhättan there are some interesting sights and features. Between Germany and Denmark, it is very convenient to take the ferry between Puttgarden (G) and Rødby (DK). Between Copenhagen (DK) and Malmö (S) you cross the infamous Øresund Bridge.
Melvin: “We left on Friday morning (January 3 2025) and we first drove to Copenhagen, that was approximately 780 km. This is just a beautiful city, with the lovely little mermaid statue, the royal palace and on Saturday morning we also visited the National Aquarium of Denmark, Den Blå Planet. After that we drove further up north, a long the way to Trollhättan we made a lunch stop at Tjolöholms Slott, a beautiful castle, about 20k South of Gothenburg. On Saturday evening, we arrived in Trollhättan. The city was packed in snow.”
“On Sunday we visited the Saab Museum, which is just a very nice museum with a lot of Saabs and information on the history of the brand. It’s really a great experience to see the various prototypes of the past, with of course the Aero X model of 2006 as one of the highlights of the museum. Quite recently Jaguar has published some pictures of their new model, there are many striking similarities with this Saab prototype of 2006.”
“After our visit to the Saab Museum we went over to the old Saab factory. All the Saab signs around the factory have disappeared, but the street towards the entrance is still called Saab. Also, you still see a lot of Saabs on the road in Trollhättan, much more than anywhere else.”
“On Monday we left Trollhättan again and we made a stop at Volvo World, the largest wooden building in Scandinavia, completed in 2024. Fun fact: this location was previously home to Saab’s gearbox factory. Volvo has created a very children-friendly centre, with a lot of attention on safety experience, trucks and for instance crane operation. The number of displayed cars is rather limited, many striking Volvo models are simply missing in the collection displayed. Unfortunately, this centre is more like a ball pit area of an average IKEA store than a car museum. Honestly, the World of Volvo was rather disappointing from an automotive perspective.”
“On Tuesday we drove to Hamburg (Germany), where we visited the Prototyp car museum. This is really an interesting and large private collection of very rare cars and they are beautifully displayed. A lot of unique Porsches (of course), but also many amazing Italian cars. If you are in the North of Germany and you love cars, this is really a place to visit.”
“Finally we visited Miniatur Wonderland, according to Guinness World Records, the largest model railway system in the world. The exhibition includes more that 1.000 digitally controlled trains with more than 10,000 wagons. You can see around 4.100 houses and bridges, more than 10,000 vehicles – of which around 350 drive independently on the installation – 42 airplanes and around 260,000 figures. They have rebuild the whole Monaco Formula1 street circuit, it is very impressive.”
Melvin: “On Wednesday, we drove back home, in just six days (5 nights) we had so much fun. Rightly so, a fantastic tribute to my Saab and I can just recommend everybody to do this trip in the Wintertime. All Saabs do deserve some snow every now and then.”
