Hard shoulder:SAAB SAID more than 20 "active parties" are interested in the Swedish carmaker as it seeks a new owner in order to emerge from bankruptcy protection by June.
The Swedish-based company has drawn interest from local and international car makers as well as financial investors, Saab management said at a press conference after a court hearing.
Saab creditors agreed to extend the company’s reorganisation to May 20th, giving it three months to restructure after the bankruptcy filing. The firm is currently owned by General Motors, but the troubled US giant has said it will sever its ties with the premium car firm by the start of next year, regardless of whether a new owner is found or not.
Saab chief executive Jan-Aake Jonsson said he will return the company to its “roots”, with four new models in the next 18 months that peddle Saab’s engineering and safety heritage and promote the company’s turbo-charged engines. Saab predicted it will make fewer cars in 2009 and 2010 than the 93,000 produced last year, and that it needs to make 130,000 cars to break even.
“We face a number of challenges,” Jonsson said at the court hearing. “Saab has always had a very thin product base, which has always been an Achilles Heel for Saab. We also have very long life cycles for our products.”
GM has claims on Saab of 9.6 billion kronor (€880 million) after taking over other creditors’ claims. Saab will propose all creditors, including GM and the Swedish state, write down claims by 75 per cent, bankruptcy lawyer Guy Lofalk said.
The Swedish company aims to secure about $1 billion in financing from the European Investment Bank and General Motors to help it reach positive cash flow by 2011, it said yesterday.
Jaguar XJ prototype reveals radical design four-door coupe
YOU CANNOT quite see it from these pictures of a heavily camouflaged, early prototype, but the new Jaguar XJ’s design has been confirmed to be radically different from that of today’s car – and much more daring than that of the XF.
According to Jaguar’s chief of design, Ian Callum, the reason for the drastic change is that the XJ is a model selling in considerably lower figures than the XF.
What you see here is a very early shot of the new car, disguised in a way that clearly reveals a more sweeping roofline and an end to the iconic saloon outline of the current model and its predecessors.
On the other hand, the underpinnings of the new executive saloon aren’t completely new as Jaguar decided to just modify the existing all-aluminium platform and re-use it for this new model, code-named X351, which will make its official debut in spring 2011.
With Ian Callum’s praise of the Mercedes CLS’s styling in mind we reckon the new Jaguar XJ will combine the idea of a four-door coupé with traditional Jaguar design elements.
High orders for Merc E-class
MERCEDES RECEIVED 50,000 orders for its new E-class saloon prior to its launch at the end of March, the company said yesterday.
“In Germany, bookings for an E-class more than doubled in the first quarter of this year compared to the previous year,” Mercedes-Benz Cars sales chief Klaus Maier said in a statement.
The previous E-class model had sales of more than 1.5 million vehicles, including roughly 200,000 units of its estate version.