Saab History

Saab 900 Surface Friction Tester in Soviet Union

Saab 900 Friction tester in Soviet UnionSaab 900 Friction tester in Soviet Union

Here’s an interesting Saab video story from the former Soviet Union.

By now, you’ve probably heard that Saab cars used for special purposes at airports around the world. Usually we see them on the big airports in the West, but Not commonly known that that Saab cars are used as surface friction testers at airports in the former Soviet Union.

Saab 900 Friction tester Cockpit
Saab 900 Friction tester Cockpit

Most of these special purpose vehicles created on the basis of Saab vehicles by The Sarsys Friction Tester (SFT) company. In the following promotional video from 1998, in the Soviet era, we see Saab 900 at airport Sheremetyevo near Moscow:

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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.

1 Comment

  • Hello, at the Prague AirPort in Czech they used them too. I used to work ať Saab dealer in 1996 and we had the 5 wheeled 9000 CS in for a service. Also the “follow me” cars used to be Saab 99 Combi Coupes in Orange, but that was late 70´s.

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