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Figuring Sweden’s Safety Obsession by Carol Traeger (1/20/2003)
What’s up with Sweden’s fascination with safety, and how does it help you?

A week with Saab’s all-new 2003 9-3 Vector has reduced me to a mathematical shambles. It’s built, you see, on GM’s new Epsilon platform — you know, as in crazy algebraic letters I’d hoped to have left behind. Moreover, this top-of-the-line 9-3 compact sedan culminates a progression that begins with a base-model “Linear” 9-3, succeeding to a mid-level “Arc” 9-3, thence to the “Vector” at hand — you know, as in “a quantity representing both magnitude and direction.” Phew! I feel like I've been run over by a natural log.

This is a brainy car; but don’t let me misrepresent the 9-3 Vector as overly taxing to the intellect. If you can count from one to five, you can handle the optional five-speed automatic transmission just fine, even in clutchless-shifting Sentronic mode. (If you push on through to six, and know how to tap-dance with a clutch pedal, you can even exploit the six-speed manual that comes standard on the car, thereby saving $1300.)

Leave behind any other qualms about your state of numeracy — save for dialing up favorite radio frequencies. Driving Saab’s latest completely-from-scratch makeover of its 9-3 compact sedan is a blissfully unempirical, seat-of-the-pants affair. The car remains something of an endearing misfit in a well-ordered world of German, U.S., and Japanese rivals. But what was once a genuinely eccentric brand of Swedish car — a sort of Birkenstock sandal on wheels — has matured into a much more generally appealing, pricey, and sophisticated, um, Mephisto, if you know what I mean.

Dumbing down, powering up

Since 1999, General Motors has been the sole owner of Saab. Where a cynic might say that fact explains why Saabs have dumbed down a bit, more charitable folk will recognize just how wisely GM is using Saab as a powerful laboratory for new ideas. Saab is now exclusively associated with the alchemist’s art of turbocharging; and the new 9-3 is available with either a 2.0-liter low-pressure turbo engine making 175 hp and 195 pound-feet of torque or a high-pressure variant, as in the present case, making 210 hp and 221 lb-ft.

Turbocharging scavenges additional horsepower that might otherwise be jettisoned out of the exhaust pipe and convinces small-displacement motors to behave like much bigger ones. Two-liter non-turbo motors usually hover in the 130-hp to 140-hp range, for example. Boosting those figures by anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent is surely a form of magic; but it’s a magic that imposes onerous stresses of heat and pressure on a motor. Accordingly, Saab has spent years trying to perfect engine architecture and management systems that can withstand turbocharging’s onslaughts. What Saab has learned not only has improved its own models over the years but also has trickled down to the benefit of many other GM divisions as well.

The first thing anyone familiar with older 9-3 and Saab 900 models will notice is the aesthetic integrity of this new car. Driving the 9-3 Vector is an absorbing experience that integrates a number of mechanical functions and human instincts into a nearly seamless process. The powertrain is spirited in Saab’s trademark way; but for once, the telltale annoyance of torque-steer has been tamed, so that the steering wheel no longer tries to pry itself out of a driver’s hands on hard acceleration. Turbo lag remains, and it still takes getting used to for drivers with only V-6 and V-8 experience; but a very clever Trionic-8 engine management system seems invisibly to adapt the auto transmission’s gear choice to engine speed — even in manual Sentronic mode — for optimum exploitation of the powerband.

I particularly enjoyed the way this Vector handled. Racy body skirts emphasize its low-slung center of gravity, and Saab touts a new ReAxs system for the rear suspension that actually dials in, passively, certain characteristics of rear-wheel steering that are exclusively the domain of rear-drive cars. You won’t go looping into controlled power slides, but you can nicely balance this car in challenging corners with combinations of acceleration and braking — all the while saying buh-bye to obnoxious, nose-heavy understeer typical of front-drivers. Suspension all ’round, moreover, is stiff and responsive, particularly where side-to-side lean angles are concerned. In town, on the other hand, it seems as if wheel damping for fore-and-aft motions is a bit more compliant, allowing the 9-3 to glide elegantly over pock-scarred pavement.

Cockpit maneuvers

The fighter-plane sensation of sitting in a 9-3 cockpit remains, thankfully, intact. If anything, it is improved for both driver and passengers. The six-way seat adjusters combine with a tilting and telescoping steering wheel to provide exact fine-tuning of the driving position. Saab’s new “Profiler” info system, moreover, allows customization and memorization of a wide range of “user preferences” that include not only seating and mirror positions but also radio, climate, dash display, even rain-sensing windshield wiper rates. Mostly, the system is intuitive; I personally would have preferred more control over the master screen, however, to eliminate menu bars once I’d tweaked the functions they referred to.

I might also have preferred a little less visual obstruction from the second-generation Saab active head restraint (SAHR) system. These front head rests are among the industry's most effective, so I’m glad to have ’em; it’s just that us shorties still gotta turn around to back up, and SAHR, frankly, gets in the way.

The same might also be said for the Vector’s nearly $38,000 as-tested price (although Linear and Arc models start at under $27,000 and $31,000, respectively). BMW, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, Volvo, Lexus, and Nissan/Infiniti pretty well dominate this class of near-luxury sport sedans. Saab’s new 9-3 certainly has what it takes to compete in terms of its driving aesthetics and spec sheet, but it may need to do a transcendental number on those skeptics who think they’d be smarter not buying such a brainiac car.