SAAB may have had its problems in recent years with uncertainty over its future and changes in ownership but in the 1960s the marque was really on a roll. It was all due to a strange little jelly-mould of a car that emerged in 1950. The Saab 92 was the Swedish aircraft manufacturer's first car and to British eyes it looked a little odd. The reason it was styled like something out of a space comic was down purely and simply to aerodynamics, a subject in which the company was well versed. Indeed, its drag coefficient was 0.30 - the same as a Porsche 996 and better than the Ferrari F40. Construction was both futuristic and minimalistic, the entire body being stamped out of one piece of sheet metal and then cut to accommodate doors and windows. Production kicked off in 1949 with a de luxe version – nobody wanted the standard car on offer – powered by transversely mounted water-cooled two-cylinder two stroke front-drive petrol engine of 764cc capacity and producing 25hp. This was based on a DKW design, giving a top speed of 65mph. The transmission had three gears, the first unsynchronised. In order to overcome the problems of oil starvation during overrun (engine braking) for the two-stroke engine, a free-wheel system was introduced, a feature that became a hallmark of later, more powerful Saabs. The car was conceived by Gunnar Ljungstrom and styled by Sixten Sason and it immediately started to attract interest. So much so that more than 20,000 were built between 1950 and 1956 when the more modern looking Saab 93 took up the running. Interestingly all early Saab 92s were painted dark green and there has always been the belief that this was because Saab had a surplus of green paint from its aircraft manufacturing activities. This was the car that put Saab into the running for motor sport success. Only two weeks after the 92 was released, the company's head engineer Rolf Mellde entered the Swedish Rally and came second in his class. Then, in 1952 Greta Molander won the 'Coupe des Dames' in the Monte Carlo Rally in a 92 tuned to 35bhp. The success was hardly surprising because this was a very advanced design featuring all-independent suspension and rack and pinion steering. Then followed a period in which the car was tweaked and improved, setting it on the road to be true Saab icon. It certainly caught the eye of test pilot Bob Moore, who had helped to develop the Saab J29 Tunnan jet fighter. He brought a 1955 92B back to Britain – reputedly the first Saab to be imported to the UK. Moore later became the first managing director of Saab GB Ltd. Saab, after enjoying some truly golden years was bought up by American car giant General Motors in 2008. GM later produced a list of its top ten cars of all time and the little Saab 92 was included alongside such legends as the Chevrolet Corvette and Pontiac GTO. Spyker Cars NV, the Dutch maker of supercars, bought Saab in February 2010 from General Motors and there was talk of a tear-drop shaped small car for possible production. | 
