Monday, November 16, 2009

DEATH OF A SAAB

So the question goes - how do you kill a Saab? Well...besides just driving it and trusting it will do the job itself (which it will, I promise - see Viggen in the dictionary), you could speed the matter up with a blow torch, a plasma cutter, and other fun tools.

Below you'll find the sequential pictures of the 1982 Saab dying a rather quick and dirty death...all to save the roll cage and get it into the 1989 Saab. We'll donate the engine (its worth more as scrap) to Tony.

This is Bruce and Brian having the time of their lives cutting up our race car. The claim it only caught fire "4 or 5 times" and that they lost 3-7 years off their lives due to the Swedish fumes. (and yes, Bruce still refuses to call our car a "race" car.)









"DIE!!!!!!"

Looks just like a 900 Convertible.




Seems to be a bit nose heavy. Notice the steering wheel is still attached.






(this one below looks like the Swedish version of a rickshaw)


WALLAH!









Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Farewell - and good riddance

Here are the final pictures of the 1982 Saab, just prior to being packed up to goto the glue factory. This is what it looked like after sitting in the mud for 10 months. And you know what - the darn thing started right up (mostly). Too bad the clutch was totally shot (see race report - 2009). So it still had to be pushed to the curb, where I'm surprised it didn't burst one final radiator hose in disgust.









Monday, November 9, 2009

Once....twice.....three times a laaaddyyyy.

After a 10 month vacation doing non-Lemony things, to put it mildly...we're BACK. And this time, we brought a turbo with us. For those of you curious about naming our blog post after a Lionel Richie song, first watch this clip, which is my favorite Seinfeld clip of all time:


We're bound to end up similarly.


ONCE:
First, we bought the blue 1982 Saab 900. The unturbo version. We raced it two times with marginal success (one race was a blown engine, one race was a blown clutch / brain). The car was a trusted sidekick, as long as you didn't trust it. This car is currently in Dallas having its roll cage extracted the hard way (as in - lets just cut the car in half and do it that way), so we can put that same roll cage in another car.


TWICE:
Shortly after purchasing the blue bomber unturbo, for some reason, I bought a 2000 Saab Viggen. Don't know why, but I did. I sold my dead-solid reliable pickup for a dead-crappy GM-Saab. It blew up last week. Says Bobby the Mechanic - "all I see is schrapnel inside your cylinder". Good Swedish times these days.


THREEEEEEE TIMES A LADY.....
Yes, we bought a THIRD Saab. Except this one is better (cough cough). Its a 1989 Saab 900 Turbo.
1) its newer, and newer is always better right?
2) its got a T-U-R-B-O. In other words, an additional weak-ass Swedish part to break during the race.
3) it has 4 doors. Which means its uglier. A lot uglier.
4) we're going back to a Swedish theme this time.

Below are some pics of the next car (which is also my daily driver while the Viggen gets a transplant). Stay tuned for more updates as we again prove we haven't learned a single lesson in the past 2 years.