For ten years now, there have been no new Saab cars from the production lines, but in contrast, there are more and more people around the world who are passionately collecting these increasingly rare cars. We have presented a number of dedicated Saab car collectors on our blog, but here is another one located in Finland.
Many Saab connoisseurs would say – “Saabism” lives strong in the hearts of car collectors. Just One of them is Marko Nikkanen, who lives in Joutsa, a municipality of Finland that It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Central Finland region. Marko Nikkanen from Joutsa is excited about collecting old Saabs. They fascinate car memories from childhood and these cars are good value for money for collectibles.
He currently has a dozen Saabs from the last millennium. His brother has about twice as many, so they have a fairly large private Saab collection – Saab cars from 1959 to 1993. All of these are basically cars in good condition, some are on the museum register and there are some rarer cases among them. In addition, there are a few projects and also a spare parts arsenal, says Marko for his collection.
Both the brothers have been interested in cars and especially Saabs since they were little boys. Like many other Finns, the family had several Saabs in the 1970s and 1980s. They had Saabs as used cars and something in them remained fascinating, and that feeling has not ceased to this day. Over the years, both of brothers have clearly had this fun and rewarding hobby on the collecting side.
Marko Nikkanen’s oldest collecting rarity is the two-stroke Saab 93 model year 1959 with the front doora opening on the opposite side. The other Saab cars are from the 1970s to 1980s, covering one package model Saab 95E V4), several Saab 96 V4, Classic Saab 99 and Saab OG 900 Turbo 3d Lux. At the moment, the youngest is from the 1984 model year. Marko’s plan is to about half of his Saab cars are on the museum register. The intention would be to bring a couple of three more “glamorous” cars from his current fleet into the class of museum vehicles.
Marko didn’t stop there, this is not the final number of Saab cars in the collection of him and his brother. Marko acquired a new Saab for his collection. The latest acquisition, a museum-registered orchid-white Saab 96 GL V4 -78, was found at the Tervajoki office of the Rinta-Joupin Car Dealer. Nikkanen is satisfied with the transaction, everything went quickly and uncomplicated. He was pleasantly surprised that the transport of the collection car was arranged all the way to the backyard. The car was moved to his garage and he will do more service interventions on the car.
The popularity of collectible cars is naturally affected by age, ie the older a car is in good condition, the more it is of interest to buyers. It is exactly the same with the cars that Marko collects. The biggest problem for him is which Saab car to choose from the collection for long relaxing rides during the summer.
We want Marko to collect many more beautiful Saab cars and enjoy them to the maximum, because while there are strategic fans of brands like Saab – there will be cars themselves, even if the axles are no longer produced.
We bring you this interesting Saab story from the Finnish website Iltalehti and thank them for dealing with “forgotten” car brands in general.
