The CCX super car, by Koenigsegg Automotive. Not your father's Saab!

Perhaps you’ve heard of Koenigsegg Automotive . They are one of the select few automakers to make a car that goes over 200mph, right off the showroom floor. 806hp will do that for you, you know.

Safe to say that while they deliver spectacular performance, gas mileage isn’t their strong suit. Knowing a business opportunity when they see one, this tiny maker of specialty supercars announced a few hours ago that they had purchased Saab, an automaker that makes around 100,000 cars per year, although that has been dropping of late.

Does that mean the Saab 9-5 will one day beat a 911 around the ‘Ring? Probably not.  Koenigsegg’s big challenge for the present is to make Saab profitable. Known for their quirky, small luxury cars, Saab didn’t benefit from their years under the GM umbrella, as fellow Swedish car maker Volvo has under Ford’s ownership. They cars have been rated mid pack and priced near the top of their segment; not a great recipe for success, unless they have enough intangibles to draw buyers.

We will see if  Koenigsegg can provide those, and restore Saab to the position it once held. Not too long ago, people wanted to drive a car made by a company that also made top of the line jet fighter planes and police cars for the Vail, CO police force.

GM has been looking to unload all it’s secondary manufacturing units, of which Saab was one, and leave itself with only its core brands, Chevrolet, Cadillac, GMC Trucks, and Buick. Why GM would ax Pontiac and retain Buick, when the former sold many more cars per year is an open question. I would postulate that The Chief’s performance oriented image didn’t sit well with the General’s new bosses in Washington. After all, who needs a V-8 powered sedan with over 400hp?

Americans want small, fuel efficient cars, and Pontiac makes primarily politically incorrect, performance oriented vehicles. If one looks at Toyota Prius sales figures for the first part of 2009, you will see that this isn’t necessarily true, although that’s not what the administration would have you believe. The position that Americans would buy mainly small, fuel efficient cars if given the choice doesn’t hold water if one examines the number of such cars Americans actually did buy when given the chance.

January sales of Toyota’s Prius, poster child for the small, fuel efficient car movement, were down 33.6% in January and 29% in February over the same months in 2008. The Honda Civic Hybrid, a more sporty hybrid than the Prius, experienced declines as well. In January, the Honda Civic Hybrid’s sales were off over 40% year over year, and in March, 2009, only 2,869 Honda Civic Hybrids were sold. All in all, 40.9% fewer hybrid vehicles of all makes were sold than were sold in the same month of 2008. That doesn’t sound like a class of vehicle that is especially popular with American buyers.

When fuel prices are high it is another matter entirely, which is why many are predicting that increasing fuel taxes, or using other means, such as restricting domestic oil production (by limiting new sources of supply from being exploited), will be employed to inflate fuel prices. High fuel prices will force American drivers to seek out more fuel efficient vehicles, such as hybrids, which sales figures amply demonstrate American drivers eschew in other cases.

Will maker of extremely politically incorrect cars, Koenigsegg seek to do what Saab has always done, make mid-level luxury cars, just revitalize the line with exciting, new models? Or, will they take Saab in a new direction, and remake Saab into a producer of smaller, more fuel efficient vehicles, albeit upmarket ones? Perhaps they’ll do a bit of both. If they want to experience a resurgence in the U.S. market, they need to appeal to Americans taste for quirky luxury, with more than a splash of performance, while retaining Saab’s “Green” reputation.