Car Throttle

The new 9-5 is a crucial vehicle for Saab.  If you're reading this site, you're probably aware of the financial troubles that the Swedish automaker, recently kicked to the curb by GM after 20 years of neglect, is going through.  It hasn't been pretty, and it still isn't going smoothly - no cars are rolling off the line at Tröllhattan at the time of this writing, because there still isn't money to pay employee wages.  It's dire times indeed.  What Saab desperately needs is a good car to sell. I can't call the current 9-3 a bad car, because it isn't - it's a good car, just like it was when it came out in 2003.  But 8 years is a very long time for a car

This question is inspired by one of Sajeev Mehta's latest "Piston Slap" articles on The Truth About Cars.  It's a darn good question, too.  Most people when talking about cars will refer to things like suspension tuning, power output, features, visibility... but they'll skip over one of the most important things when it comes to what makes a car good daily driver: the seats. Around town, for short distances, seats aren't that important.  They hold your butt up off the floor, allow you to grab the primary controls with a minimal of stretching, and you sort of forget about them.  But there's almost nothing more important when it comes to enthusiastic driving or long road trips than how comfortable the seats are.  Bad seats

There are a lot of things I love about Saabs.  You're probably tired of hearing about it by now. For that I apologize.  I tend to be a bit of a specific-interest writer, catering more towards the whole "old European Car" demographic than the "hey, there's a new Audi press release out!" demographic.  As far as what it is in particular I love about Saabs, it's a bit difficult to really nail it down because, frankly, there are a lot of things.  But one of the big things is how these cars sound. (Ed's note: I began work on this article a while before my Saab's gearbox bought the farm and I gave up on the whole concept of daily driving an archaic European sports coupe

I am entirely aware of the fact that "realistic" and "fantasy" are antonyms. A "Fantasy" garage is packed with the best of the best, picked for possessing an all-star list of attributes.  Like a Fantasy Football team, I suppose.  A realistic fantasy garage can't exist, because in the real world circumstances are never ideal for average people.  Still, we can all dream - even if we're dreaming small.  I've never had a problem deriving the basic joy of driving from any automobile (possible exceptions include a Prius and a Cavalier) and thus I've never had trouble dreaming small. For me, this is simply a list of cars that I plan to own at some point in the future.  There aren't any Pagani Zonda's or Ford GT's or

Excuse me for being excited, but it's been a while. And by a while, I mean 12 years.  And by "it" I mean the introduction of a new 9-5.  We've heard a lot about the car that is to save Saab (if anything will) here on CarThrottle, but Saab has finally put out it's official set of press releases for the new 9-5 and now we've got all the little details to share with you.  On paper at least it looks extremely promising in a lot of regards, but the proof's in the pudding...  or at least behind the wheel.  Still, get 'em while they're hot: new Saab 9-5 specifications! As you probably know, the new 9-5 sits on the Epsilon II chassis shared with the Opel

It's amazing in this economy that tiny niche sports car makers can stay afloat, much less prosper.  Chalk Morgan's success up to a fanatically loyal fanbase, I suppose.  The ultra-traditional (that's my polite way of saying "anachronistic") brand not only continues to exist, but they continue to put out new models for Morgan fanatics to drool over.  Being something of a Morgan fanboy myself, this car really does it for me - pseudo-wood chassis and all. Called the Morgan Aero SuperSports, it's an open-top version of last year's Morgan AeroMax Coupe, which was a dramatic restyling of the new-ish Morgan Aero 8.  It has two removable roof panels which can be stowed in the trunk when removed.  So in other words, finally!  A Morgan with T-Tops! The

Top Ten is another new featurette I will be producing on a weekly basis.  It's a very simple concept: the 10 best of SOME genre, in order.  You are encouraged to leave comments either praising my choices, or yelling at me for what I missed, at the bottom.  Game on! The public stigma of a station wagon (estate to Europe) is frankly pretty negative these days.  I can't say I understand it; in many ways, wagons are the most useful cars on the road.  They offer car-like handling (since they're normal cars) and loads of cargo space.  I generally think the two-box shape of wagons is a positive thing stylistically speaking, too.  So why are they so universally loathed? Maybe it's this generation's childhood memories of getting sick