The all new SAAB 9-5X

When the second generation of the SAAB 9-5 came to market in 2010, it was first available as a Sedan only. A SportCombi was in the works too and even a CombiCoupe (Hatchback) was under development, yet an off-road “X” version hadn’t made it to the drawing board yet. No problem for the Persson family from Linköping (Sweden), when they converted their 9-5NG to a 9-5X! 

I met then 15 years old Oskar Persson and his dad for the first time at the 9-5NG 5 year anniversary meeting in Trollhättan. It was really easy to pick them from the crowd as they were driving a really unique “Polestar blue” 9-5NG. We stayed in contact through Facebook and when I heard the news about the car being transformed to a 9-5X, I asked Oskar to share his story:

Special from the start
“We bought our 9-5NG in the summer of 2013. We had been looking long and hard for the perfect one and eventually found a well-equipped granite grey Aero TTiD XWD. While we were really happy with the car from day one, the idea to make it even more special came up pretty quickly as the looks of our previous SAAB, a 9-3NG, also had been transformed to a matte red body color and a black roof.
So in February of last year my dad and I changed the looks of our 9-5NG too. We chose a “Polarstar blue” matte foil to cover the silver painted parts and covered the chrome details with black. We even found a set of black original Turbine rims!

 The 9-5X idea is born
In January of this year we felt that it was time for a change: the blue had to go, so after a few evenings of tedious peeling in the garage, we got the original granite grey color back! The car looked great but how could we make it a bit more unique? We contemplated long and hard and one night when I was browsing the Internet and checking out some 9-4X’s, it hit me that a “9-5X” could actually be something… I found a picture of a 9-5X SportCombi that someone had Photoshopped and got inspired by it to draw something myself in Paint. When I was done I was extremely happy with the result but at the same time the sad feeling struck me that that SAAB never got to build one. The lines in the design of the 9-5 are so impeccable and the “X” details are such a perfect fit…

So my drawings on the computer became reality! If I may say so myself, I am just extremely pleased with the result. We used black foil for the details around the wheels, front and side skirts, mounted a Hirsch diffusor and a skid plate from a 9-3X. To really top it off, we got SAAB’s Cross Max roof box on as well and the result is just stunning. The 9-5X SAAB never got to build, but I hope many people will be able to see ours anyway at the Saabfestival in June this year!”