May/June 2015 - Rocky Mountain Saab Club

RMSC News 2015 Issue 3
May-June 2015
Club Web Sites: http://www.rockymtnsaabclub.com
http://autos.groups.yahoo.com/group/rmsaab
FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/128800707288146/
To send email to Group: [email protected]
To send email to Pres: [email protected]
To send email to Editor: [email protected]
The May 12th meeting will be held at the Breckenridge Brewery, 5th and Kalamath in Denver. Agenda includes .
From your Club President
So far this spring has turned out to be a
great start for Summer. Got all my gardening completed, installed on a drip system and a complete sprinkler system on
everything that grows at my house. What
that now means it is time to enjoy Summer.
Jerry Danner, President RMSC
Photo by Tom Nelson
We have some great plans for the Club
this Summer. We are currently in two car
shows where our Club will be displaying.
I am really looking forward to Estes Park
in June. For those who have not been to
Estes, it is a remarkable experience. Take
extra time to visit Trail Ridge Road going
from Estes Park to Grand Lake. Trail
Ridge Road is the highest maintained
road in all of the USA. For all of those
who are from the flat land, bring a big
bucket of Oxygen as you will need it.
Two car drives are planned. We will keep
all posted of the events.
Meanwhile, keep your Saab's running
well so you can enjoy Summer in your
own style.
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RMSC Meeting Minutes March 10th 2015
by Darrell Christiansen (photos by Tom Nelson)
Jerry opened the meeting with a overview of the
evening’s agenda and the introduction of new members.New members, Richard and Gretchen Hougen,
have had numerous Saabs over the years.Richard’s
first Saab was a 1988 900, he then purchase a 900S,
then a 9000 in 1995.In 2005 he bought a 9-5, and in
take over and make a go of it.
The current status of Ryan Kapple was discussed,
and a card sent around to encourage him on his recovery from his ski accident.
Paul talked about the annual Saab Club Auto Show
visit, scheduled for Saturday April 11.Location for
breakfast is still to be determined, as the Denver
Diner is currently closed.Anyone that wants to join
in should meet at the designated diner about 8:30
a.m., and then the group will go over to the Auto
Show afterwards.
The Colorado Concours De Elegance is coming up
on June 7 at the ACC campus.Jerry has stepped up
to take Greg’s place as chairman for this function.Last year we had about 18 participants, and
would like to have more this year.Paul Bottone is
once again the traffic control coordinator for the
event.This is a great fund raising event for Abilities
Connection Colorado, and registration info will be
2014 purchased a 2006 9-5 Sport, so he could have
a car to work on and get back in the group.Jerry
evaluated the 2006 9-5 Sport prior to Richard purchasing, and has done some work on the vehicle.
Dave Snider filled us in on his latest car, a 99, that
was a demo car of Bill Dick, of Boulder Valley
Volkswagen.It is currently spray painted flat black,
and Dave plans on fixing this one up like he has
other 99’s.
The latest news from Saab is that the last few (100)
cars left on the assembly line were being finished
off.Saab AB has taken back the rights to the Saab
name until a viable entity is found that will be able
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RMSC Meeting Minutes March 10th 2015
by Darrell Christiansen (photos by Tom Nelson) (continued)
ping costs.Bruce will send out information through
our various contact media sites to determine interest
from the Club.
Tom sent out an inquiry to the club to determine if
anyone in the Club needs a clutch cable for their
older model Saabs.A friend of Toms produced a
number of cables, and currently has an excess that
he would like to sell.
Tom has Jack Ashcraft’s catalog of parts that he
coming out soon.The fee is $50.
Following the Concours, the next event that will be
coming up, is the annual Scandinavian MidSummer Festival in Estes Park.This will be held on
the weekend of June 17th thru the 18th.Last year the
Volvos were on Saturday, and the Saabs were on
Sunday.The Volvo club has expressed a desire to
display both Volvos and Saabs on both days, but
space is a real issue.This is still under discussion
between the two clubs, and our Club would prefer
to keep the event structured as it was last year, with
gathered at the last convention.
Dave Snider told his story about the single sided
key that was the last of the ones of it’s type in the
96’s and 99’s.He had bought a 1973 99 with this
complicated single sided key, and the lock cylinders
were all mismatched.A local lock smith could not
figure them out, so Dave took one apart and figured
that there were about 90+ parts in these locks.Dave
has put a parts box together for these locks, that he
Volvos on Saturday, and Saabs on Sunday.
Wayne Brewer (Cotopaxi) dropped a lot of vintage
Saab parts of at Jerry’s shop that he collected in Alabama.He lived in Alabama most of the year, and
summered in Cotopaxi.He has recently moved his
permanent residence to Cotopaxi, and brought the
parts with him on his move north.There are lots of 2
-stroke parts, engines, fenders, axles, and etc.
Bruce discussed Anders Jensen and his decal business in Sweden.Tom confirmed that he is still in
business, although his website is not currently
up.Bruce wants to see if the Club can put together
an order from various Swedish suppliers and consolidate with an order from Anders to save on ship-
(Continued on page 5)
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Project SPG-Part 1
by Bruce Harbison
Edwardian Gray with Buffalo Gray leather seats
[Thanks to Larry West for the production information].A car worth saving, I think although I should
have begun the project some time ago!So, what does
the car need?Obvious engine repair (I have another
cylinder head), wiring repair (minor), a RH emergency-brake cable, seats and other interior repair/
replacement, a headliner (Surprise) and a paint
job.These are the discernible things, of course.I did
drive the car around my pasture with George The
Dog as a passenger, if some remember him, and it
seemed to shift, steer and brake alright, but I will
look at ALL systems in the course of this project.
So, to begin I am starting “backwards” by doing the
interior first.The reason for this is that Tom Nelson
gave me a much better set of Buffalo Gray seats
which took he took out of his 1986 900CV so he
could put in even better ones.The upholstery on the
I acquired a 1987 900 Turbo SPG quite a few years
ago now which I always intended to be a “winter
driver”.It is complete, undamaged, non-rusted and
unmodified, but only had/has 20 lbs. of compression
in the middle two cylinders.After owning the car for
awhile I found that the cooling fans were not working
due to a bad relay.Perhaps the head gasket is blown
out and maybe the head is warped. There is no coolant in the oil, which is still clean and it would start
CV seats is much better than what came in the
SPG.Included was a better set of rear seats as he had
acquired a complete set from a Turbo 3-door and
couldn’t use the back seats in his convertible.The accompanying photos will show just how much better
the “new” seats are.They have been taking up room
in my shop, so I decided to swap everything out to
clear a few square feet of space while doing some
and run (poorly) until I stopped trying.Now the fuel is other “spring cleaning”.
probably bad and some mice have chewed trough a
I started with the back seats first as they didn’t need
couple of small wires and a vacuum hose or
two.Anyway, I finally have started doing something much work, mostly cleaning.I am using GM/Saab
Leather & Vinyl cleaner (cases of it at SOC2013 for
about “saving” this car.For the 1987 model year,
Saab produced 1,014 SPGs for the U.S. market, all in purchase) and Lexol Leather Cleaner & Lexol Leather Preservative.The dry, dull leather has come back
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Project SPG-Part 1
by Bruce Harbison (continued)
very nicely.
The front seats are more of a challenge.They all look
exactly the same, but the driver’s-side seat-heater is
different on the 1987 (adjustable), and both driver’s
seat frames were cracked at the RR mounting hole,
where the seat tracks mountIn addition there was
quite a bit of rust on the donor seat tracks with some
of the bushings broken.I picked the least damaged
frame and welded the small crack, then primed and
painted the frame.I also picked the best set of seat
tracks and refurbished and painted them as
well.Much of the black paint had worn off the metal
parts of the seats.After “mixing and matching”, I
have the driver’s seat all back together.I also did a
continuity test on the seat-heater which shows that it
should work (fingers X’d).All of the plastic seat trim
was vetted, cleaned and polished.I am currently about
half-way through rebuilding the passenger seat, again
having to mix and match parts from the originals and
the replacements.None of these seats will be perfect,
but much nicer.After the seats are ready, I will start
on the door-panels, dash, console, carpets and trim.
RMSC Meeting Minutes March 10th 2015
by Darrell Christiansen (photos by Tom Nelson) (continued)
(Continued from page 3)
passed around.Paul Bottone related his
sad Saab Story about the fact that the
newer Saabs seem to lock themselves and
the key fob does not work on the car after
this happens.His manual keys in the fobs
were found to be useless, and it was discovered that the manual keys on these
last cars were not necessarily matched to
the locks of the cars, when they were
sold.The story has it that these keys were
randomly put in the fobs when the cars
were sold.
Jerry noted that the Breck will be switching venues in May and the Club will be
meeting at another venue After the May
meeting until the Breck resettles.
A lively round of Saab Trivia was conducted by
Bruce and Jim to finish off the evening.
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Simeone Museum
by Jerry Danner
Located in Philadelphia, PA, the Simeone Foundation
Automotive Museum is one of the world’s greatest
collections of racing sports cars. Through our theme,
“The Spirit of Competition”, we celebrate the history
cars at a special showing at his museum with the
theme "The Saab Racing Spirit Lives On". There
were 20 Racing Saab's presented. Bill owned 5 of the
20. He pulled together his friends who owned Racing
and evolution of these magnificent machines. Assem- Saab's and gathered them together in this remarkable
special presentation inside this renowned Car Musebled over 50 years by renowned neurosurgeon Dr.
um. . Others attended with their Saab's were: Tom
Frederick Simeone, the Museum contains over 65
historically significant cars including Ferrari, Alfa
Romeo, Bugatti, Mercedes, Jaguar, Bentley, Porsche, Donney - IA, Jack Lawrence - NY, Tom Cox - MD,
Aston Martin, Corvette, Ford and more..
Ron Wilcox - SC, Rich Kirshner - PA, Robin Bank PA, Jack Baxter - GA, Claud Hutchins - NY, Stephan
visit www.simeonemuseum.org
& George (Son) Vapa - DE, Len Schrader - SC,
Bill Jacobson is located in Wilmington, DE. For
Chuck Christ - PA. Other invitee's were John Moss,
those of you who have never heard of Bill, he has
Wally Eriksson Julie Gardner, Lynn Longren and
collected one of the best collections of Saab in the
Myself. I know I missed a few name.
USA. Dr. Simeone invited Bill to display his race
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Simeone Museum
by Jerry Danner (continued)
experiences. Jack Lawrence gave a remarkable
presentation of his racing career over the years. Jack
owns Motor Sport Service in NY and for those who
are into V-4 performance, he is the guy to talk to.
Jack has made a name for racing his Yellow Sonett V
Evening started at the museum at 5:30. Cash Bar and
walked around Dr. Simeone's Collection. Catered
-4 which Ron Wilcox now owns. Jack has also created many accessories for any application needed on
Saab's. Ron Wilcox, the new owner of Jack's Yellow
Sonett Racer, has had a couple of years experience
racing the Yellow Sonett and gave his experiences.
The evening adjourned.
dinner started at 7:00 with remarkable Swedish Meat I want to thank Bill Jacobson and his Sister Carol
Ball Main course. Guest Speakers were Dr. Simeone Ann for their hospitality making this event happen
and inviting me to participate in their group of friends
in the Saab World.
who gave a welcome talk. Tom Donney was next giving an overview of his remarkable record shattering
runs at Bonneville Salt Flats in the 750CC class. Tom
gave a remarkable Power Point Presentation of his
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Saab Rescue Trip to Gunnison
by Tom Nelson
On May1st Bruce Harbison and I both received an
email from our long-time Saab buddy, Jon Hochstetter in Milwaukee. He had received a message from
another Saab buddy, Andy Federowski in Chicago,
Jerry soon got Joel on the phone and closed the deal
for the RMSC.
Oh yes …… about the cars …. this green 1969 Saab
Saab 95 is one of the most interesting conversions
that included a CraigsList ad showing a pair of 1969 I’ve seen… Joel has been talking to Jack Lawrence a
Saabs in Gunnison, Colorado. Needless to say Bruce lot and decided to build his 95 with a powerful V4
and I jumped on the possibility and immediately
mated to a 5-spd transaxle from a Porsche
made plans to drive the 4-5 hours to Gunnison to haul 914.Details will come later when Jerry sorts out what
them home. Fortunately, sanity prevailed and we de- the club actually owns in all those boxes and loose
parts. The 1969 Saab 96 Deluxe was of interest to me
as Joel claimed it had a good running engine and
transmission with a Jack Lawrence Holley carb/
manifold setup. Paperwork with the car indicates it
was purchased from Saab Denver by Eric _____, of
Evergreen and he owned it until Joel became the second owner. I have the very solid Bill Searcy 96
cided to make the deal for the 95 wagon to go to the
RMSC, but I wanted the 96 Deluxe. So when I called
the seller, Joel Karinen in Gunnison, that was the approach I took. Then I decided I’d better call Jerry to
tell him about the deal. After all, I’m not an officer,
or even a board member, and certainly cannot commit the RMSC to the purchase of any vintage Saabs.
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Saab Rescue Trip to Gunnison
by Tom Nelson (continued)
teer for any and all RMSC road trips, to ride along,
help load, and drive his C900T CV with tow dolly. I
decided this trip was made to order for Wayne Brewer, our Cotopaxi, Colorado member, and he agreed to
run up Highway 50 to meet my NISMO pickup and
Deluxe (also from Evergreen and purchased from
Saab Denver) for a future restoration project and this
power train might be just the ticket, as the body appears to have a bit too much rust for most of us westerners to deal with.
car hauler trailer at Poncha Springs.
I lost track on how many tentative dates we set for
the trip to Gunnison ……. As you recall the rainy
month of May, just visualize the high country snow
that fell and picture the fun of dragging loaded trailers and tow dollies up and over Monarch, Trout
Creek, Red Hill, and Kenosha passes. So we delayed
the trip about a month until June 3rd. Joel and his
wife_______ are moving to Alaska in late June so
they wanted the cars GONE, and are thankful for our
Saab Club to have them.
The four of us arrived at 11 AM, as scheduled, at Joel’s home on the northern outskirts of Gunnison. Joel
had everything ready to go, including titles to both
cars. Jerry loaded the green 95 on his tow dolly and
filled the car with boxes of parts/engine/components,
etc. I used my new electric worm-drive winch to drag
the beige 96 up onto my trailer. The photos pretty
much tell the story of the loading as well as the trip
back on US 50 over Monarch Pass, and down to Poncha Springs where we dropped Wayne off at his pretty green 96.
Jerry recruited Tommy Jansen, who seems to volun-
Weather being what it is (violent t-storms), these
spring afternoons, we elected to not head down to
Mile Hi, and took our shortest routes home to leave
unloading for another day. Round trip was pretty uneventful …… about 11 hours from my Evergreen en
home. I was impressed at how the mountain ranges
contain so much remaining snow, as you can see in
the photos. Beautiful day in the Colorado High Country! I am also impressed every time when Jerry brings
his C900T CV tow vehicle to haul yet another old
Saab effortlessly over the high mountain passes.
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2015 Colorado Concours d'Elegance & Exotic Sports Car Show
by Jerry Danner
This year's 31st annual 2015 Colorado Concours d'Elegance & Exotic Sports Car Show hosted by Ability
Connect Colorado was a success. Twenty Two Clubs
presented their cars. This year marked 100th Anniversary for Maserati & the Ford Mustang, 60th Anniversary for the Porsche Speedster, 50th Anniversary
for McLaren & 40th Anniversary for the Porsche
930. Over five hundred gorgeous cars presented. This
year they inaugurated the 1st annual Motoring Legends Forum held at Club Auto June 5th to a special
invitation, fully catered where they introduced racing the two newest were Darrell Christiansen's 2011 9-3
XWD and Tom Nelson's 2011 NG 9-5. Of the twenty
drivers and unveiled the new McLaren 560S.
Our Saab Club presented a record 21 vehicles. This is one cars it was evenly divided between old classic's
and modern. Jerry Danner, Karl Kingery,and Paul
our 14th year participating. The theme was "Time
Bottone showed up Saturday to set the layout to display our cars for the Sunday event. Karl Kingery, Jerry Danner and Paul Callahan arrived at 6:00am Sunday to help stage our Club placement. Paul Bottone
Line". The oldest was Jerry Danner's 1958 93B and
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2015 Colorado Concours d'Elegance & Exotic Sports Car Show
by Jerry Danner (continued)
was in charge of security for the event. Club cars
started arriving around 7:00am. We all needed to be
play.
Bruce Harbison organized the Club Judged Cars. We
divided our Club into two classes, Vintage and Modern. Ribbons were given out to 1st, 2nd and 3rd
place. Extra ribbons were given out to all who participated in the Club Judged cars. Favorite Saab Yellow
Ribbon was given to Wayne Brewer with his 1974
Saab 99. Wayne also drove a long distance to participate.
Club Participants are as follows:
Glenn Clark - 2
72 99 & 77 99
Wayne Brewer - 1
73 99
Lydia Morronigello 1 92 900T
Jim Beetham - 2
88 900 & 98 9000
Charles Harper -1
2010 9-3 CV
Darrell Christensen 2011 9-3 XWD
staged by 8:30am as the show starts at 9:00am. We
Tom Jansen - 1
2001 9-3 Viggen
pitched our Saab Club tent, placed our banners on the Jerry Danner - 4
58 93B, 64 96, 67 96 & 72 96
Paul Callahan - 1
2010 9-3 XWD
Steve McCoy - 1
00 9-5 Wagon
Bruce Harbison - 1 77 99 EMS
Bob Buck - 1 74 Sonett III
Karen Gray - 1
73 Sonett III
Tom Nelson - 1
2011 NG 9-5 XWD
John Loughridge - 1 92 900T CV
Karl Kingery - 1
88 900T CV SIS
tent, opened our folding chairs and had a great time
thought the day. We had a lot of activity at our dis-
Our Club Member, Bob Buck, made a statement at
this year's car show. He observed how people look at
exotic cars and then Saab. "Exotic cars are looked at
with lust and a desire to have however Saab's are
looked at as recognition and a feeling of association".
The most enjoyable part of this show is We, as a
club, get to enjoy the camaraderie and spend quality
time as a group. Looking forward to next year's event
an hope there will be more participants from our
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