Finish company Valmet Automotive’s agile Uusikaupunki plant can produce simultaneously more than one brand of cars – just check the pictures below.
In the past, they have made e.g. Saab and Opel, Saab and Porsche, and Porsche, Garia and Think at the same time.
The first ones where certainly produced there. Later production was at the Magna Steyr factory Austrian Graz. Eventually they were moved to production in Trollhättan at the end. So there are three possible locations available on the VIN numbers… 😃
The Uusikaupunki factory did play a very significant role in a lot of Saab projects. including R&D for the 99 turbo with co-operation with the Finnish Highway Patrol.
They provided testing in real world harsh environments with professional offensive driving skills.
The engines were tuned to around 205bhp. The Turbo 99 and 900 models became staple for Finnish Highway Patrol for use as Pursuit Special vehicles to the end of large scale Saab manufacture in Uusikaupunki in 1993.
Only one Saab 9000 was ordered by the police, I dunno why they didn’t like it. The swedes sure did. My understanding is that Saab Trollhättan R&D did pretty much the same with the local police service, especially their highway patrol units.
In case of the Finnish Highway Patrol, this turbo pursuit car was very necessary, as it was being developed when Finland first enacted highway speed limits.
Until the mid 1970s all traffic outside city limits, regardless of whether it was a gravel road or a major highway was not speed restricted.
Average drivers were literally flooring it constantly until then. Suddenly, because the oil crisis no one was allowed to go faster than 80km/h!
You can imagine, that catching up to people with big muscle car V8s and for example even less ostentatios V6 Ford Taunus and BMWs with big inline sixes, driven by people that have gotten accustomed to driving them at 130-160km/h average speeds on the motor way, is a bit difficult if the only thing you have to fight them with is a Saab 99 with two carburators on it and usually a automatic gearbox, that is weighed down by the reinforced skirt armor they were installed with to take those gravel and other rough roads and also offensive driving inside cities.
Well, once the FHP got the Turbo 99 and they upped the power to 205bhp, they were able to barely keep up on the straights.
Thing was, they always glued themselves back to the fleeing partys bumper the second there was corner!
So, after they realized that all the horsepower in the world won’t make a horseless carriage from the 1850s take corners, they were forced to stop. 😃
Here’s photo of the genuine article. Recognizable from the plastic, not even vinyl, but genuine vulcanized rubber based plastic rear seats. Upholstered for ease of cleaning when catching drunk drivers, so you can just spray the puke off.
They also made Euro-Chrysler / Talbot with exclusive rights to the entire nordic market.
They were the best Talbots and Euro-Chryslers. Not just in terms of assembly quality, quality of stamped steel parts but, they actually made it into a functional vehicle.
By removing all the French and British electrics with Bosch and Saab parts and what wasn’t in those parts bins, they ordered from reputable Finnish manufacturers, they were already used to subcontracting with, who also supplied companies such as Nokia and Salora and Mobira at them. Which, btw had already entered the mobile phone market by 1970 with the Finnish Auto-Radio-Network system. A G0 analog phone system for cars which used HF unencrypted radios and were unable to automatically migrate between the cell tower they with in the range of.
Valmet built Saabs were often some of the best. Not to put the other lines down but, servicing 900s back in the 90s, I’d get in 3 cars of the same year, same mileage, but notice that one seemed a bit “tighter” than the other two. That one was usually from assembly line #7!
My new 99 1,85 M71 built in Nystad was Q/mechanically the best Saab 99 I owned in the 70’s! 🤗
Mine was built there and 22 years old and 142000 miles later still going strong and everything works 9-3 convertible 2.0T