1999 Saab 9-3 Viggen

SAAB HAS TWO VIGGENS AND THEY BOTH FLY Viggen is Swedish for Thunderbolt. The Saab 37 Viggen is a double-delta-wing fighter jet. The car named in it's honor also fly. . Looking for something unconventional, eccentric? One of only 426 Lightning Blue 9-3 Viggens produced in 1999 for the U.S. Market is currently offered by Swedish. Here's a machine that hides its ignition switch in the cup holder. Here's a machine with a teeny four-cylinder engine hooked up to a turbocharger the size of a Shop-Vac. Here's a little three-door hatchback that looks like no other car on the road. Here's the Saab 9-3 Viggen. We are dealing with the last of the throwbacks--the last mass-produced passenger vehicle on earth that stays the course, refusing to yield to bourgeois fashion and show-off technology. The 9-3 Viggen is now the latest hot-rod version of the Saab 900 first introduced in 1994, and it now offers an impressive 230 horsepower from its 2.3L turbocharged four-banger that has been a part of the Saab inventory since Eric the Red left for Greenland. Face it, Saabs are an acquired taste, like single-malt Scotch and reggae. Slip behind the wheel of a Viggen, and find a chair-like leather seat, a chin-high instrument panel and windowsill, and a shifter and ignition switch located in a pit below your right hip. Sniff the distinctive odor of buttery-soft Saab leather, and you can be in only one place on the planet. It goes not exactly like its Swedish-fighter-plane namesake, but it's plenty quick enough to get it into the high-six-second range from 0 to 60 mph and to tie for first in this group from 0 to 100 mph and to be the winner from 0 to 120 mph (where the wonderful Whoopee Cushion turbo shows its muscle). Once the shifter is mastered and the chassis is understood, one can fairly fly in a Viggen. Imprudent throttle punches in slow corners can produce nasty lunges of torque steer, but once straightened out and with the turbocharger in full play, the Viggen is definitely a hoot to drive. It's cool that Saab has refused to accede to so-called contemporary styling and such nuances as four-wheel drive, naturally aspirated V-6s, or a swoopier, more aerodynamic body style. In a world of automobiles that only small boys and hard-core automotive writers can tell from one another--think Japanese cars--the Saab steadfastly clings to its roots. For the unrepentant Saabistas and for those who have not forgotten George McGovern and the plight of the snail darter, this is a source of pride and comfort. For others, it is quaintness that is rapidly descending into obsolescence. Get it while you can.