Saab Central - Regular Columns

It's all go isn't it! Since my last post, I've bought and destroyed (on the same day) a 2.8i Capri, become the new Saab Owners Club (GB) webmaster and still haven't got the 90 MOT'd! I'm a bad, bad person. However, there should be a present surprise turning up at Château Tone in the next two weeks some time. So watch this space, and I'll let you know when I sort all or any of my cars out!

For those who have been hiding in a cave for the last 2 months, with their eyes shut, and their fingers in their ears, I bought Rob's 90. It's great. It's even inspired me to shamble together a website. SAAB90.co.uk I'm learning more about it all the time, and I'm hoping to get it on a rolling road some time in the next few months, to see if it's really as brutish as it feels!

Sorry it's taken so long to get this far, but I'm getting married in August, and there's so much to be planned! But I'm trying to keep you sall nicely up to date as best I can.

Recent dates of note:
18th Jan '03 - the MOT ran out. I'll have to book it in later in the week, I haven't got time at the minute!
19th Jan '03 - I've b*ggered one of the front brakes up trying to un-seize the handbrake by driving forwards. Need to sort it before the MOT! Bums. Trolley jack is in Nuthampstead, Herts. GRRRRRR!

More to come...

Well, that was weird. I just imagined I was going to update my column, looked up and here it was, in all it's text-editing glory. Must have been fate. "Fate?! F*** off! You mad hippy b******" I hear you cry. But wait, I have a tale to tell, so if you're sitting comfortably... you are? My what a coincidence...

Picture the scene. It's a cold winters morning. Dark outside, gloomy inside, and I should be working. So here I am, dutifully sat at the pc table, browing the SOC, Saabscene and SaabCentral classifieds in search of that elusive number... '90'. On the odd occasion I do find it, it's either a 90/99/900 Haynes manual, or a typo. But wait, what's this... Saab 90 for sale, regular use, mot - April 03 and only a few miles up the road?! Surely this is a match made in heaven. It's even got the centre console and stereo ftted. Hussar! When can I see it!? Phone calls are made, times are arranged, and I head striaght off up the M1 to have a gander. I've got a reasonably tight time limit, but it's not far, and 2 hours isn't too bad. So off I go.

Traffic is bad, but it's a Saturday afternoon so I've budgeted for that. After a few miles, I start to feel slightly weary, even though I've not felt tired all day. As I carry on further up the M1, I start to get pins and needles in my cheek, on the right hand side. I open a window to get some fresh air, and a minute or so later, I'm almost sick. I've no idea what's going on, but assume the egg sarnie I picked up from the garage on the way out of town wasn't quite as fresh as I presumed. I carry on, and gradually realise I've got no feeling in my right leg. The pins and needles have spread across the whole right side of my body, my breathing is uncontrollably heavy and my right hand is almost completely immobile, almost claw like wraped around the steering wheel. Now humble apologies if this is making anyone uneasy, but rest assured I was pretty uneasy myself at the time (and yes, I am seeing the doctor about it!). Anway, I'm only about 5 miles from my inteded destination now, but I'm staring to lose my vision, so I finally give in that it might be a good idea to pull over and call an ambulance. I pull off the M1, and by chance find a reasonably sized shopping centre, which I can park in. I park, open the door, and stumble out into the fresh air. I'm trying really hard to control my breathing now, and although I still feel like I'm falling, the deep, slow breaths of the freezing air seem to be returning my vision, and I prop myself on the car.

After about 20 minutes, I actually feel fit to go on, so (slightly relieved I didn't call that ambulance) I gingerly pull out of the car park and try and find my way back onto the route I was taking. I'd actually trundled about 15 miles past where I was supposed to turn off, so I tracked back, and, feeling gradually better (if short of time) I made my way to the rough area of Leeds I was supposed to be visiting. I found a place to stop, and caled the number I'd scribbled down. After we established I was in the right neck of the woods, my battery dies. Completely. Now, when I'd set off from home, it had been FULLY charged. That would usually last me 2 days. In fact it still does. I hadn't even called anyone on the way up, so it'd barely been used at all. But now it was dead. I found a pay phone, and thanked the stars that I'd written the number down as well as storing it on my phone. Eventually, I found my way to the place, and met up with the car. It wasn't perfect, but it was VERY cheap, mot'd and certainly had plenty of potential. I had a good look around, started her up (first time) and ran it for a bit. Everything seemed just about right. Time was pressing, so I headed back home, promising to give it some thought and let them know ASAP.

Now, I've been looking for a 90 (on and off) for AGES, and my search was clearly at an end. It was brown, unloved, and crying out for me to take it home. So, I phoned back and arranged to collect it the following Saturday. (Which wold have been the 23rd). After a little persuasion, MarkP agrees that a mini road-trip is in order, and that he would be willing to drive me up to collect the car. (For appropriate remuneration of course). Excitement builds, and I sort out insurance and funds to pay for everything. It's Thursday the 21st now. Final preperations are being made. I draw your attention to the following thread on the messageboard: SaabCentral Forum The b****** b****** thing got nicked. How selfish of it! How could it possibly let itself be stolen! I was livid! After a bit of reflection, I commented "Clearly it was cursed or someone up high was trying to let me know this wasn't the car for me. Or, some toe-rag just theived it." - Clearly the ramblings of a madman.

But it didn't stop there. When the guy called to tell me the bad news, we agreed that if it should re-surface in one pice, he'd call me straight back. So I still harboured some hopes of getting the car. MarkP was on standby incase, and in an ideal world, it would have turned up safe and sound (and cheaper!) and we could still have had our road trip on Saturday. On Friday afternoon, I get a txt from Mark. "Some **** driving a Sheffield Star van t-boned my 900 this morning with Mrs P and Joseph in, it reads". Instantly I feel this is all my fault, but draw comort from the fact that all are well. It's becoming clear that someone 'in the know' doesn't want me to buy this car.

When i get home, a little shaken by the news of Mark's car, and generally worn out from some heavy duty xmas shopping, I find a message n the answerphone. "Hi Tony, it's Rob. We were emailing a few weeks ago about a SAAB 90 I had, which I didn't really want to seel. Well I've found a T16, so I do want to sell it now..."

to be continued.

Quiet, as I'm sure you may have noticed. The reason? Well, I'm SAAB-less, aren't I. Originally, I sold the 2 door in the hope that I'd be able to replace it with a T8 or T16 3 door. (Mainly, for practicality - hatch for the dog - but obviously the speedy engine was an attraction), however, while the insurance costs aren't much more than for the old 8v, they are still proving prohibitive. Also, my desire for 'interesting' cars has got the better of me a bit and I've re-considered my options a little.

The initial stumbling block came when our big TV packed up, meaning I had to spend a car-sized chunk of cash on a new one. Not good. Then, one and/or all of the companies I work for have coluded to not paying me for over 3 months. Financial woes beckon.

Finally, a new invoicing system has been set up, leaving me with at least SOME income again, which set me back to hinking about cars.

Those who were at the Kodak may have overheard me talking about my desire for a SAAB 90. This statement was greeted with a general atmosphere of eerie silence, punctuated by guffaws of laughter from the less restrained amongst the group. For those not familiar, a 90, in the front end of a SAAB 99, welded to the back end of a 900 2-door. Giving you the aggressive front end and funky retro dash-board of a 99, with the huge boot and decent rear-seat accomodation of a classic 900. Funny looking, odd, rare and in my mind, the perfect car. My other current project plan (which will have to wait for a decent sized lottery-win, is to create a RHD SAAB 600. The 600 is a re-badged Lancia Delta, so my biggest difficulty is going to be finding a decent DSelta, that isn't crumbling at the seams. The rest should be fairly easy, especially now I've obtained a (Swedish) brochure for the car to use for referance.

So, I'm looking for a 90. Unloved, unpopular and lovely. Needless to say, they're as rare as platinum-capped hen's teeth, so I might be looking for a wee while. But I WILL find one eventually. I had a premonition, see?

Anyway, I'll let you know how it's going... Wish me luck. :O)

Forget, if you can, the fact that I've sold the car. It might spoil the story a bit. But when I last left off, I think I was bumping down a road in Belgium, worrying about a slight knocking noise and the quality of Belgian motorways. Well, fast-forward down that Belgian motorway a bit, say, as far as the Dutch Border? Very nice. Right. We're in Holland. Little has changed. The road is still roughly the same, although there do seem to be less and less bumps the further into Holland we get. And we're making good time. It's a peacefull night, and cos Mrs Tone is F I N A L L Y asleep, I get to indulge in one of my very favourite hobbies: Smoking and driving at the same time. Mmmm....
The rest of the voyage passes without anything very remarkable happening really. We arrive at the campsite, at a hilarious hour in the morning, facing a good few hours wait before we'll be able to pitch up. I manage to drive the car nicely up a verge a bit, so I can see underneath, and after a quick poke around, it's relatively clear that the bottom bush on the shock absorber is almost completely perished, and the mystery knocking is no longer a mystery. The rest of the week flashes by quietly in car terms, cos we cycle everywhere. That's why we brought the bikes, I guess. The car's only excursion is into Arnhem, to buy souvenirs for family and friends. A dissaspointing trip for all! After 4 nights on site, we pack up, and run off back to old blighty. The roads, are exactly as we remembered them, only because it's not the middle of the night, there's lots more cars on them. Each set of traffic lights down our Belgian motorway is now accompanied by a 5 minute queue in every direction, as Belgian folk rush off to work, presumably to the local chocolate factory or European Parliament. It's a longer drive in the day, and time passes more slowly. That knock is louder - i assume the withered bush is probably gone by now - and the car is starting to feel a bit bouncy by all accounts, not helped by the paris-roubaix feel of the tarmac. We arrived in Zeebrugge, and manage to check on an early evening ferry. It should chuck us out at dover just after midnight local time, giving us the night to drive back to sunny Sheffield. Even compared to the experience at Dover, the Zeebrugge-Dover service is hilariously backward. We are given a photocopied sheet, with a picture of a small black hut, and a hand-drawn map, showing our route through a thousand metal containers, to a backward, disused bit of the port. Next to the black hut, is a small sign.

The sign reads "Dover Cars Wait Here". From our small parking space, we can walk 100yds ahead and fall straight into the sea, 100yds to our left is a broken vending serving lots of appealing drinks and snacks, all locked away from our sticky grasp. I've just finished my book, which leaves me very little to do, so I sit about a bit, occupying myself by counting the seagulls I can see at any oone time. Very sad....