Saab-u, Snow Car of the North

It snowed here on Christmas day, almost a foot falling over 24 hours. This was an increasingly rare event for the southern end of the Willamette valley in Oregon; the last time we had any measurable snow was three winters ago. Last year, there wasn't even a hint of snow, and the year before that there were a few flurries but nothing stuck. With very little real wintery weather here, we've never felt a need to have an all wheel drive car. For the few days when the roads are rough going, it's a good excuse to just stay home and enjoy the hot cocoa, rather than be out on the streets rubbing elbows and smashing fenders with the teeming masses.

To the right in the picture above, you can see the beginning of digging our car out for a grocery run on the morning of the 27th. By the second day after the holiday, our food stock was down to chocolate filled stockings, crusty ends of snack sausage and questionable cheese, horrid glazed popcorn finger food, and worst of all, no beer.

Back when we lived in Montana, Minnesota, and Illinois, digging cars out from under a pile of snow was a real chore. In Colorado and northern New Mexico it was a job not needed very often, and here in western Oregon, it's actually fun.

Here's the car, a 1996 Saab 900SE, after we got back from a short but complete shopping trip (Trader Joe's, The Kiva, and the neighborhood Safeway). By that time the beautiful sunshine had gone, replaced by the usual dreary cloudy ick, and threatening to rain.

In fact that's what it did, and after a day of that, almost all of the clean fluffy white snow was melted, leaving only a few dirty piles here and there, left over from plowing and shoveling.

Now, let's talk about why we renamed this car "Saab-u, Snow Car of the North":

We never thought our '96 Saab was going to be very driveable in winter weather. Although it's true that it was designed and built in Sverige (Sweden) by actual Swedes who should know a thing or two about long and snowy winters, this particular Saab was the sporty model for that year. Stanced lower than the regular 900 line, with very little ground clearance, and shod with wide low profile tires on rims too wide to fit any reasonably narrow tires for good traction, it was made for flinging around curves at speed, not for any sure-footedness on snow and ice.

Our usual get-around grocery, kid and canoe hauler, a made in Nihon (Japan) Isuzu Oasis - a re-badged 1st Gen Honda Odyssey - was stuck in the steep driveway with tired 3 year old tires (shown here alongside the lovely McKenzie River, when the rubber was new):

The Saab's skins are nearly new, so we decided to dig the 900SE out and see how it did in snow, although we didn't expect much from it. Surprisingly, in spite of being possibly the wrong car for the job, it did amazingly well - it smoothly got out onto the slippery street and down the hill to town with a minimum of wiggle and drift, and just generally behaved itself. Coming back, the Saab marched up the snow packed and ice-glazed hilly streets of our part of town, with no problems or odd handling at all, then backed into its parking spot and sat there (I think) with a satisfied grin on its cute face.

This should not have been the surprise that it was. After all, this model of Saab was one of the last real made in wintry Sweden Saabs to be designed and built prior to General Motors getting its filthy hands on the company and eventually driving it into bankruptcy - not before foisting some really horrible cars on an unsuspecting public, such as rebranded Saturns. The Saab 9-2 model, basically a re-badged Subaru WRX, wasn't bad at all, but by then it was too late, and yet another limited production maker of interesting, innovative, and practical cars ceased production.

Here's a real Saab:

A 1984 Saab 900 Turbo, it's the only car I've really regretted selling. Almost perfectly engineered in every way, fast and stable, easy and fun to drive, with sensible 15" wheels that easily fit narrow 185/65x15 tires for great traction in snow rain or sunshine, and able to haul an incredible payload under its well designed rear 3rd door. And no, that's not a hatchback; those that know classic Saabs call it a 3rd or 5th door, since it goes all the way down to the top of the rear bumper, creating an easy to get into and out, flat load floor.

At the time we had one too many cars, and we let this Saab go. The guy I sold it to promised to love it forever, but within a couple years he, like GM, drove the Saab 900T literally into the ground. It's now sitting in the weeds on flat tires, defaulted, at a Saab mechanic's spare parts stash in Jefferson Oregon, with peeling paint, ruined interior, and unknown mechanical problems and uncertain title status. Very sad to see an old friend fallen upon hard times.

We kept this made in Bayern (Bavaria) 1975 BMW 325:

A real tiny terror, with a fairly large straight six somehow shoe-horned into the smallish engine compartment, it was also very fun to drive, and almost trouble free for the time we had it. But it was not a snow car; whenever we took it out in winter weather it would, like a cat, stop every now and then and shake its paws and whine. Not very confidence inspiring. When the 325 got to a certain age and mileage we replaced it with the '96 Saab 900SE.

Now that we know what a competent snow car Saab-u is, we'll be looking around for a set of narrower 15" rims, and replace the wide profile 16" so-called performance tires with some sensible shoes. And look forward to the next time it snows here, maybe in 2 or 3 years.

Here's a couple more shots of Saab-u:

Keep It Rock Steady, Man

It's early March of 1983, a couple days after a late winter storm tore through eastern Montana. Not dumping very much linear inches of snow, but accompanied by forty to fifty mile an hour winds that kicked up what had fallen and blowing it sideways at high velocity, the resulting high plains ground blizzard created a howling and shrieking frozen hell on earth where no beast or sane man would willingly spend more than a few minutes out in a 50 to 70 wind-chilled degrees below zero world where you can't see anything past the end of your outstretched arm, and millions of tiny razor sharp exploding ice bombs try to scour off any exposed flesh from your face.

That's a long sentence, and so are the hours spent in enforced lay-over at a funky motel in west Billings when the Interstate highway gets shut down until it can be plowed open the next morning. Luckily we were able to score some yummy and nutritious take-out road food, and beer, and enjoyed watching any one of three available channels on the tiny TV in the room:

On this particular road trip, "we" is me, your humble blog servant, and Charles "Beaver" Cavanaugh - a more engaging and continually entertaining trip companion you would be hard pressed to find. Never a dull moment with The Beav. Here's a photo from 1983 of both Beaver and I, plus some other denizens of the Colorado music scene in the early 1980s:

From left to right, that's Tom "T-Bone Thomas" Jurkens; me, the author of this blog; Charles "Beaver"  Cavanaugh; Fabrice "Fab" Dolegowski; and Clark Hardin. For more details, see here.

Now back to that road trip. The next morning dawned clear and cold yet sunny, and the Interstate was opened a couple hours before noon; time to hit the road.

That might look like pavement on the highway, but it's all traction-free black glare ice with a thin sheen of sun-melted water on top, so treacherously slimy and devoid of adhesion, that if you pulled over and got out of the car, you'd either immediately start skating or quickly fall flat on your face or butt, your choice. Those 18-wheeler trucks in the right lane are going at a relatively safe, but still insane, 50 to 55mph or so. But our big 1971 Lincoln Continental Mark III was sledding down that slippery road a lot faster and insaner than that, easily overtaking and passing everyone else.

I was messing with the camera and taking pictures out of sheer panic, anything to keep my mind off certain death. That massive and heavy rear wheel drive Lincoln, only 12 years old at the time but already seeming like a living fossil from another era, was doing a slow motion controlled fishtail down the highway, the rear end constantly twitching left and right as Beaver made minute corrections of the steering wheel every second or so, and somehow almost miraculously keeping the front wheels in the center of the fast lane at 70+ miles per.

I said, "Whoa Beaver, that is some conscious driving, dude. Can't believe we're still on the road!" He laughed and said "All you got to do is keep it rock steady, man!" and then, "Hey Jimmy, roll us a big fat spliff, it'll help me concentrate!" Well, okay, that would give me something to do besides have a heart attack. And yeah, the smoke did help, and also some zen breathing - letting go and resigning myself to the fates, whatever happens.

As it happened, nothing happened. Somewhere past Big Timber we hit dry pavement and, Montana not having a speed limit, really goosed that big 460ci with a carb the size of a dinner plate, and rolled into Missoula in good time.

The weather stayed mostly sunny and even warmed up, and we had some adventures before heading back to Boulder. Including driving by pure chance into Butte for gas and magically wound up riding in a big green top-down '60s Cadillac convertible in the middle of the St Patrick's Day parade, Beaver Cavanaugh got unofficially crowned the new King of the Irish, and we got free drinks all night long at every bar and saloon downtown until dawn, and then drove out of town, excuse the expression, drunk as a couple of Irishmen.

Truly an unforgettable night. When we woke up in the middle of a sagebrush flat a hundred miles out of town, in a valley surrounded by gigantic snow covered mountains with not another soul or a car or a house or a horse in sight, I asked, "What just happened?" Beaver said, "I don't remember."

You'll have to take my word for that last story; the battery died in my camera, or it ran out of film, I don't remember.

Speaking of photographs, all of the pictures in this blog post are scans of old prints. Some years ago I lost a sizable box of photo prints, negatives and slides; thankfully the box was found. The bad news is many of the pictures were missing, as well as a lot of the negatives; the good news is I still have at least some of them.

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A few months later during the summer, we took another road trip up to Montana, this time with I-Ron, the lead singer of Beaver's reggae and rocker band, Burnt Lips. First, we stopped and visited John, whose family had a farm near Idaho Falls, between Rigby and Ririe. At the time, John was building a sawmill, and doing an amazing thing - kayaking down an irrigation ditch at full flow, the entire length of the farm:

Beaver held the kayak steady while I-Ron got in for his turn down the chute:

After a while we made it to Missoula:

It was a beautiful warm and sunny Montana summer day, perfect for relaxing on the grassy lawn at the homestead of another of Beaver's friends, up on the Potomac River valley east of Missoula:

The Mark III was having starter issues, so it was also great weather for crawling under the car. The problem turned out to be a couple of badly corroded cables:

On this trip we took along my favorite travel guitar, a short scale '57 Duo-Sonic, along with a battery operated Pignose amp. One late night, Beaver driving, I-Ron riding shotgun, and me lounging in the Lincoln's huge leather back seat and noodling on the guitar, we were cruising along Interstate 15 between Dillon and the Idaho state line, just about the only car on the road, the full moon lighting up the shining snow capped peaks of the Bitterroot Range (the next photo shows the Bitterroots in daytime).

Remembering what Beaver had said last road trip, I was chunking the top four strings of alternating Am and G chords in a reggae style backbeat, and singing "You got to keep it rock steady... Keep it rock steady man..." Beaver turned to I-Ron and said "Roll another spliff, mon!" While I-Ron was rolling that spliff, I put what the Beav had just said into the mix; with a couple tokes came inspiration, and I came up with a cool sounding poly-rhythmic riff. After a while that became "Roll another spliff man, I got burnt lips..." And that was a good start on a strange song.

The Burnt Lips band, performing "Burnt Lips" onstage in 2016:

And here's a founding member of the original Burnt Lips group, Jeanne "C.B." Bacon, singing "Burnt Lips" at a house party somewhere in warm and sunny California:

Burnt Lips
Music by James Aoyama-Clifford
Lyrics by James Aoyama-Clifford, Charles Cavanaugh and Fabrice Dolegowski

You got to keep it rock steady, keep it rock steady, man
Keep it rock steady, keep it rock steady, man

Roll another spliff man, I got burnt lips
Put another dub on, we can move hips
Everybody party, doing your own trips
Yeah, yeah, I got burnt lips

There is a conspiracy
It is rules and idiocy
The man with the peaceful herb gets struck down
But the guns and the killing go on and on

Roll another spliff man, I got burnt lips
Put another dub on, we can move hips
Everybody party, doing your own trips
Yeah, yeah, I got burnt lips

The ambassadors from the sky
Have come to get I and I high, yeah
You don't have to ride on no alien spaceships
All you got to do is have burnt lips

Roll another spliff man, I got burnt lips
Put another dub on, we can move hips
Everybody party, doing your own trips
Yeah, yeah, I got burnt lips

Big brother man he say ban the nuclear war
But what you got your hand on that button for?
Keep it rock steady, like a good friend said
We can lose our world, if you lose your head

So, roll another spliff man, I got burnt lips
Put another dub on, we can move hips
Everybody party, doing your own trips
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I got burnt lips

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Here's some more photos from those road trips in 1983. The Salmon River, near Challis Idaho:

The Grand Teton Range in Wyoming:

Elk at sundown and bison after dark in Yellowstone National Park:

Was a crime committed while taking this picture? Just asking for a friend:

Two shots of a really interesting home-made contraption on an irrigation ditch line off of the North Fork of the Salmon River in Idaho, not too far south of Lost Trail Pass. As water flows through the sluice gate, it turns the paddle wheel which, through a crank lever, opens and closes that gate. It might have been made to meter a consistent amount of water flowing from the upper ditch into the lower one, or maybe it was a whimsical device built by an inventive farmer:

We stared at it working for over a half hour and debated just what in the heck it did. To get some scale of the size of this gizmo, the paddle wheel is about 18" in diameter; note the wire mesh critter guards to keep squirrels and raccoons off the machinery. On the back side of the mesh guard on the left, there's a couple small white rectangles attached to it - tiny signs that say, in faded red lettering, "Danger!", and "Keep Out". Maybe squirrels in Idaho know how to read:

On the North Fork of the Big Thompson River in Colorado, near home:

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Click or tap on any photo above to see larger, higher def images.

The World's Ugliest Car

Saw a car today that really turned my head. It was so incredible looking that, against all my principles, I had to find out what it was. Luckily it was turning into a shopping center parking lot, so it didn't look like I was obviously following it. Cruised slowly past where it was parked and checked it out - it was a Pontiac Aztek (not Aztec with a "c", but Aztek), and it is quite possibly The World's Ugliest Car.

Seriously. It's homelier than a Subaru Justy. It makes a Citroen 2CV look like a beauty queen. It's more unappealing than a Yugo, but maybe not so bland. Compared to an Aztek, the 1958 Edsel was high art. The Aztek is so mind blowingly unbalanced stylistically and just plain wrong looking, that it makes you question the sanity of the management at General Motors. Wait - they had to be financially bailed out by the government. Now we know why.

Don't know how many of these gargoyles were ever made, but there can't be many around - what sane person would have bought one? I've never seen one before, but I tend to block out unpleasant memories, like trips to the dentist, dropping that piano on my foot, and my first marriage.

The Aztek may be rare here in the US, but looking around on the web, it appears that they were more popular in some other places, like Uraguay and Myanmar. Which leads to some questions about the tastes of those who live under military dictatorships. If it wasn't for trade sanctions, it might have been a huge hit in Albania and North Korea, to name two countries not widely known for their appreciation for the finer things in life.

It isn't often that I'm haunted by a vision of something I've seen, but it's going to be hard getting to sleep tonight. Can't stop thinking about The World's Ugliest Car.

Happy Holiday Season To You

    Only very light blogging until after the turn of the New Year.  Some traveling, eating too much food, drinking just enough dark beer, talking a lot, playing some music, staying up late.  Hope everyone had a joyous solstice yesterday, and Happy Holiday Season to you, and all you know!

A note about the above photo: Most end of year seasonal depictions involve images from a by-gone era, one of which is winter transportation of that time: the iconic one horse sleigh in the snow.  Even though it's almost twenty years old, this Isuzu Oasis wagon is our modern version of that one horse sleigh.  Now all we need are some flying reindeer to pull it.

Life And Death In The Fast Lane

Driving north on I-5 late at night, between Myrtle Creek and Roseburg, I looked in the rear-view and saw someone coming up behind me, fast, with maybe eight headlamps and fog lights blazing away on high beam. Jeeeez, what an idiot, I thought. Probably the sort of idiot that gets right on your tail, stays there long enough to totally blind you, then suddenly jerks the wheel over and passes, then immediately swerves back right in front of you, spraying road debris all over your car, rocks hitting the windshield, messing up your paint - you know the type, right?

This time I was ready, and as soon as he came up alongside, I tapped on the brake pedal and slowed down enough to get some space between the idiot and me when he swerved back in front. But holy hell, he was hauling - must have been going at least a hundred, and still accelerating, when he passed. It was one of those giant-ass SUVs, maybe an Expedition or an Escalade or an Escargo - something really big, and white.

But even as fast as it was when it blew by, I still had time to notice: there were at least four TV screens all going inside the SUV, on each of the flipped-down sun visors and on the backs of the seats. Maybe some kind of music video, with people dancing and waving their arms in the air. And then whoosh... they were gone, gone, gone down the road, around that next bend in the interstate, gone. Goodbye, good riddance.

Stopped for gas and a cup of coffee in R-Burg; and then about a half hour up the road I saw flashing lights ahead - construction zone? Drug bust? An accident? I eased up on the gas, and slowly passed the police cars, tow trucks and ambulances clustered on the shoulder and the right lane of the freeway. And there, on the other side of the steep drainage ditch and past a swath of ripped out fence, brightly lit by the lights of the emergency vehicles, upside down in a field next to the road, was an SUV - a really big white SUV.

It may or may not have been the same big rig that blew past me before, and it was tempting to think: well, if it was, he deserved what he got. But. There might have been a whole family in there, and I had to hope that it wasn't as bad as it looked.

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Below are some screen shots of webpages advertising in-car entertainment systems. I hope all your travels are safe this Holiday season, and as they used to say in driver's ed class, watch out for the other guy, because he may not be watching out for you. In fact, he might not even be watching the road.

And here's a system that allows both the passenger, and the driver, the choice of watching different DVD movies while they drive; for "safety reasons" (?) the driver has a simplified remote control:

Scenes In A Classic Saab Shop

 

On a bright afternoon in late May I caught the Amtrak Coast Starlight down to California's Central Valley and picked up an old Saab. Not the cool Model 96 rallye car above, but a near mint, low mileage Metallic Walnut 1984 900 Turbo. Near mint in looks, yes, but the previous owner had let the car sit for a few years in an implement shed on a farm near Fresno, and it needed not only a thorough cleaning to get all that valley dust out of there, but a lot of overdue maintenance service: all fluids replaced, new shocks, and alternator work.

And how did I know that the 900T needed alternator service? On the lonely road between the valley and the coast, in the quiet hours just before dawn, the battery warning light came on, and the car stopped running. And what exactly am I doing in an old unknown car, way out in the middle of nowhere? I really had to wonder about my sanity. Well, hooray for a cell phone and the Better World Club towing service.

Hitched a ride (see below) to the Swedish Auto Factory in Santa Clara / San Jose and spent most of a day hanging out there. An amazing place, it's filled with all kinds of old, and newer, Saabs (and a few Volvos too) in various stages of being serviced or completely rebuilt. I saw some model numbers 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 99, 900, 9000, 9-3, 9-5, Sonetts, a few Saab racing cars and more - definitely "9" nirvana.

Wandered around, took some pictures in and around the shop, and left with a much lighter wallet. Afterwards I gassed up the Turbo, and headed over the Coast Range to Santa Cruz and drove north on Highway 1 along the Pacific, then through The City and over the Golden Gate.

 

The 900T made it to Oregon with no additional trouble: fantastic, and that's about the end of this tale.

 

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Misc notes:

 

The Pirelli "P-Slot" rims that were on the '84 900T when I bought it are interesting rims in their own way, but later I found a set of similar vintage 8-spoke Ronal / Shelby / Minilite / Whatever wheels, which really add to the classic style - see the last photo below.

 

For anyone in Oregon needing good service for their "9"s, the twin Saab shops of Rod Beckner and John Collins, next door to each other in Jefferson OR, are about the only ones in this area that really know vintage Saabs. Besides their expertise, these small town Saab shops are also surprisingly affordable, compared to the big city rates I encountered in California.

 

Older Saabs, although very well engineered, do have their own peculiarities and quirks. The models 99 and 1st series "Classic" 900 have a backwards facing engine (!), but that makes them the only cars ever made where the clutch can be replaced without separating the engine and transmission, or removing either from the car. These series of Saabs are so well designed that it's virtually impossible to be ejected through the windshield in a crash, and possibly the first production autos with a built in roll cage. Besides that they're a lot of fun to drive, and distinctively beautiful in their own weird way.

Here are a few pictures, in no particular order, all taken with a Lumix TZ-3. Click or tap on any photo to access larger, higher definition images.